Common Core/History Integration

Today we participated in an "Ed-Camp".  I was able to discuss teaching strategies for the American Revolutionary Era, and discuss integration of History Content into Language Arts.  We talked about the skills that students will need to master history content and made connections between those skills and the skills they will need for common core math and for success in the real world.

This Wordle shows me the most important aspects of writing. Students show their understanding through their response. Isn't that what we all want from our students?

November

Avoiding the Lure of Historical Presentism.

In reading the article, The Historical Method; Building Student Understanding of the Past, one aspect of the tier one stategies seemed particularly interesting and challenging. As a learner I find it very difficult to avoid historical presentism. While reading I often find myself judging the actions of historical figures, based on my own values. Being that this is difficult for me I can only imagine how difficult this skill is for a 5th grader. In my teaching I have always mentioned the importance of this to my class, but until now I had never thought about the importance of teaching this as a skill. Rather than just mentioning that people in the past had different values, beliefs, and standards is not enough. It is important to build a background for this type of understanding.

I think this skill can be seen through narrative writing. Through a narrative writing students are asked to build characters, emotions, and actions. Writing a historical narrative would give the students the opportunity to develop the skill of Avoiding the Lure of Historical Presentism.

History and Writing

Today we spent a lot of time working on creating a Writing Lesson using history content. I was excited about this because one of my personal goals this year was to include more writing along with my U.S. History instruction. Today's activity was challenging because even though we all teach the same standards we teach at different paces, so it was hard to coordinate a common timing that we would be teaching the same writing strategy, and history content at the same time. I think that we found a common ground and created a fun lesson to use as a post assessment for the European Explorers Unit.

"Head Smashed In"

On the Week of 9-24-11, I was able to share something that my class thought was really exciting! During our lesson on the Plains Indians I was able to use some of the information presented to us by Dr. William Bauer during our very first AHF session.
The kids loved learning about "Head Smashed In", and the best part was that our discussion helped us reach our learning goal: "We will explain how climate and natural resources impact culture."
I was even able to locate a short video clip online that was filmed at "Head Smashed In", and the students were able to see the land, and how the Native Americans were able to use the geography of the area to hunt buffalo.

The First Week of School

Hello Foundations Colleagues,
During the first week of school, I had already used some resources from our time together.
First of all, I used one of the teacher created lessons from Carrillo to introduce my class to S.P.E.C. I am really excited to use SPEC this year as a way to get my students writing about history and the lesson created by Jennifer, Cris, and Laura was the perfect way to introduce my kiddos to viewing history through their "SPEC-tacles"
Another thing that I wanted to make sure that I covered during the first week of school was our first "Class Motto". To start the year I chose one of the Power Words from Dr. Denenberg's book. The quote was "I do what I do because I think it is the right thing to do" from Jimmy Carter. I choose this quote because it ties perfectly into our school's "Dolphin Way". The "Dolphin Way" is doing the right thing, even when no one is looking.
Creating a class motto was a great way to introduce the students to an American Hero, who has good character, and has worked to make the world a better place.
I look forward to using more resources from our AHF time as the year moves on.

Heroes (Day 4 and 5)

Although I did miss two days of the Summer Institute, I am so glad that I was able to attend the session given by Dennis Denenberg. When I received the agenda for the institute I was immediately excited to see that we would hear from a former teacher who had written a book about American Heroes, and I was not disappointed. Dr. Denenberg was, in my opinion, easily the most interesting and inspirational presenter that I have heard from throughout the AHF-grant. His presentation was engaging, he gave us great historical information, told relevant stories, and we got a book to take home!
Throughout my teaching I have not spent much time looking at specific heroes in American History, and I usually just focus on the "Big Ideas", but now I realize that it is much more powerful to not only look at "Big Ideas", but also focus on some of the specific "Heroes" that have shaped our nation. I will definately use his book as a reference throughout the year, and take some of his ideas back to my class.
Some things that I am definately planning to do are to have a "class moto", and to create American Hero bathroom passes.