Blog Post #4

I think that the most important and valuable lesson that I took away from this past class was that everyone has a story and it is because of those stories that we have history to look back on. I think this is valuable because it creates not only points of interest but also of personal connection for students studying history. I loved the idea of bringing in artifacts that tell a story of someone in your family’s life and then having students sequentially figure out what was happening from deriving information and interpreting different kinds of primary sources. I noticed that I was far more engaged with this activity than I was when looking at documents of the past I felt no real connection to.

I also really enjoyed the comparison of paintings that we did. At my table we had a discussion about what grades we would use this activity in. Someone at the table said they believed first graders could do it. Though I don’t doubt they could point out differences in the pictures, I think that the key part of this lesson was the analysis of these pictures. The differences meant something historically which I think would benefit students of higher levels of elementary.

2 thoughts on “Blog Post #4”

  1. Mercedes, The great thing about the lesson with the paintings is that you can scaffold it. If this lesson could begin as early as kindergarten where students noticed specific items in the picture and wondered about them it would build a foundation if teachers used the painting the next year to learn a little more about the painting! I imagine a school taking this on. Maybe in the hallway in the main hall there could be a framed print of the painting that students of all grades looked at and analyzed differently at each grade level. By the time students leave elementary school they would have full understanding about the painting’s purpose and other important information.

    Thank you for your reflection. I can tell you got a lot out of the activities.

  2. Mercedes,
    I love that your takeaway from one of the class activities was “everyone has a story.” I do think that the study of history would be more interesting for students if we focused on telling/interpreting these stories in the broader context of time and place.

    I don’t think it’s ever too early to get students noticing and wondering about paintings and photographs. Just asking questions can push higher level thinking for young students. If the teacher has some good prompts to scaffold this process for them, I think it can be relevant and useful in the early grades.

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