Bringing Superstars to Montana...Virtually

I confess: I pouted for a few days after we decided that the health risks of holding an in-person history conference was too high. Gathering with teachers and Montana history enthusiasts in September is one of the highlights of my year. But after a few days of being down in the mouth, I worked with colleagues to come up with an alternative plan. And what a plan it is!

We decided, if we are going to have to go virtual, let's see if we can bring in people we could never hope to attract to an in-person conference. My partner in crime, Deb Mitchell, reached out to Stanford Professor Sam Wineburg and National Museum of the American Indian Education specialist Colleen Call Smith to see if they'd present. They said YES! So now, instead of being sad, I'm pumped, and I hope you are too!

We've moved the 47th Annual Montana History Conference Educator Workshops to August (because we're no longer confined by time or place) and we invite you to join us for one or both of these interactive online learning opportunities.

August 7, 2020, 4:00 p.m.-5:30 p.m.: National Museum of the American Indian Education Specialist Colleen Call Smith will lead an hour and a half interactive session on the digital inquiry, "Native Knowledge 360° and Montana Essential Understandings: More Complete Narratives About Native American."

August 14, 2020, 4:00 p.m.-5:30 p.m.: Stanford University Professor of Education Sam Wineburg will lead an hour and a half interactive session on "Historical Thinking and Civics Education," based on his work with the Stanford History Education Group's Reading Like a Historian and Civic Online Reasoning.

Register for one or both of these workshops. Renewal units will be available.

Need more to get excited?

Here's a little background on our presenters:

Colleen Call Smith  serves as an Education Specialist (Materials Developer) in the National Museum of the American Indian’s Office of Education. She earned her master’s degree in secondary education from the University of Kentucky and taught middle and high school social studies for a number of years in Kentucky, Virginia, and D.C. and has experience in inquiry-based social studies instruction. Colleen supports the education office in the research, development, writing, and production of online resources for the Native Knowledge 360° initiative. She collaborates closely with NMAI departments, Native communities, and members of the education department.

Sam Wineburg is the Margaret Jacks Professor of Education and, by courtesy, of History & American Studies at Stanford University. He heads the Stanford History Education Group, whose curriculum and assessments have been downloaded nearly ten million times, making it one of the largest providers of free curriculum in the world. His latest book, Why Learn History (When It's Already on Your Phone), was published by the University of Chicago Press.  

Need even more incentive? 

We're going to give away free copies of Sam's book to the first 50 people who register for his session on August 14, and free copies of Do All Indians Live in Tipis: Questions and Answers from the National Museum of the American Indian to the first 30 people who register for the NMAI session on August 7. (NMAI session is limited to 50 people total).

So what are you waiting for? Register now.

Professional Development Opportunities

Native American Storytelling Series

Montana State University-Billings is pleased to offer a three-part webinar series that explores the importance of Native American storytelling. In this series participants will learn about oral traditions, winter counts, ledger art, and contemporary storytelling. Each week a Native American storyteller will talk about his/her her cultural traditions and share stories. Register here.  

Ruth Ferris and Kathi Hoyt will be the guides through this webinar series. Ruth and Kathi have been IEFA presenters for Region III for many years. Both are librarians in School District 2. Joining them will be storytellers from area tribal nations.

On January 26 the guest presenter will be Phillip Whiteman, Jr., a Northern Cheyenne Indian from Lame Deer. Whiteman is a national presenter, performer and traditional storyteller, Indian World Champion and PRCA Saddle Bronc Rider, and renowned horseman. He comes from a strong traditional and spiritual background. His father was a chief of the Northern Cheyenne Council; his mother was the late Florence Whiteman, a Cheyenne Warrior Woman of the Elk Scraper Society. Phillip Whiteman belongs to the Kit Fox Warrior and Omaha Dancing Societies. His personal and professional objective is to promote cultural integrity throughout Indian country and the world.

On February 2 Henry Real Bird will be the guest presenter. Henry Real Bird is a rancher and educator who raises bucking horses on Yellow Leggings Creek in the Wolf Teeth Mountains. Born and raised on the Crow Indian Reservation in the tradition of the Crow by his grandparents, Real Bird was educated in Montana and has a Master's degree in general education. He has punched cows, worked in rodeos, and taught school from kindergarten to college level. In 1969 he began writing poetry after an extended stay in the hospital. He still speaks Crow as his primary language and feels this has helped in writing his poetry. He served as Poet Laureate of Montana from 2009-2011 and was named 2011-2012 Academy of Artists Cowboy of the Year. In 2011 his collection of poems won the High Plains Book Award for poetry.

On February 9, the guest presenter will be Mardell Plainfeather. Mardell is an Apsáalooke from the Big Lodge clan and child of the Whistling Water clan. She was born in Billings and raised in the Crow Agency area until she left for college in Phoenix, Arizona. She returned home and graduated from Rocky Mountain College in Billings. She joined the National Park Service as a Park Range/Plains Indian Historian retiring in 2007. She is coeditor of the book The Woman Who Loved Mankind: The Life of a Twentieth-Century Crow Elder and was honored with the Montana Heritage Keepers Award by the Montana Historical Society Board of Trustees in 2019.

Sessions will be held from 6:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m. on January 26, February 2, and February 9. Attendees will earn 6 OPI Renewal Units and the cost is free. Register here.  

 

Join SHEG for One of Two Institutes 

I love Stanford History Education Group (SHEG) and think their curriculum material will go a long way toward helping history teachers implement the new Montana social studies standards next year. That's why I was excited to see that SHEG was offering two institutes this semester: "Introduction to Reading like a Historian Curriculum and Beyond the Bubble Assessments" and "Designing and Adapting Reading Like a Historian Curriculum."

Both institutes feature three, two-hour, interactive sessions (plus four hours of homework). The "Introduction" session is designed for grades 5-12 educators who have not previously attended Stanford History Education Group professional development. "Designing and Adapting Reading Like a Historian Curriculum" is designed for grades 5-12 educators who are already familiar with the curriculum. Participants will receive a digital record of completion and will be eligible for 1 CEU issued by the Stanford Center for Professional Development. 

Registration will open January 28. Cost for each is $375, but there are a limited number of scholarships available. Deadline to apply for a scholarship is January 24. Learn more here.

  

More Reasons to Love the Stanford History Education Group: Civic Reasoning

I'm a bit of a Stanford History Education Group groupie, so you can imagine how delighted I was to learn that they have now added a series of lessons and assessments designed to help students get better at critically evaluating online information. Their new site, "Civic Reasoning Online," provides a series of assessments that measure students' "ability to judge the credibility of the information that floods young people’s smartphones, tablets, and computer screens.... These assessments show students online content—a webpage, a conversation on Facebook, or the comment section of a news article—and ask them to reason about that content." It tests what it calls Civic Online Reasoning's Core Competencies, which involve being able to evaluate the validity of information based on the following three questions: "who's behind the information?" "what's the evidence?" and "what do other sources say?"  It includes exercises in evaluating Wikipedia, claims on YourTube, Twitter and forms of social media, as well as evaluating website reliability.

You have to register to access the information, but registration is free, and they don't bombard you with emails.

The site joins their other excellent offerings: 

• Beyond the Bubble, 80 "easy-to-use assessments that measure students' historical thinking rather than recall of facts." 

• 
  the Reading Like a Historian curriculum, which "engages students in historical inquiry" with lessons that revolve "around a central historical question" and incorporate primary sources. It "teaches students how to investigate historical questions by employing reading strategies such as sourcing, contextualizing, corroborating, and close reading. Instead of memorizing historical facts, students evaluate the trustworthiness of multiple perspectives on historical issues and learn to make historical claims backed by documentary evidence."

Reading Like a Historian has 91 U.S. History and 41 World History units. If there's a topic they don't cover, you might consider using the SHEG model to create your own. Glenn Wiebe breaks down how.

P.S. If you haven't yet completed our survey on how Montana history is being taught in your district, I hope you'll donate a few minutes to the cause and do so now. 

What I Learned on My Summer Vacation

Just kidding--about the summer vacation, that is. (Darn COVID!) But I did learn stuff. 

We had two great sessions in August featuring Colleen Call Smith of the National Museum of the American Indian and Professor Sam Wineburg of the Stanford History Education Group.

Colleen Call Smith introduced us to lesson plans at Native Knowledge 360º, with a deeper dive into the lesson "Northern Plains History and Cultures: How Do Native People and Nations Experience Belonging?"  One of my takeaways from the session is how easy it is to mine the amazing material they've made accessible to add more and varied voices into our lesson plans--even if you can't incorporate an entire lesson plan.

 Sam Wineburg focused on Reading Like a Historian resources from the Stanford History Education Group and his new project Civic Online Reasoning. The biggest takeaway for most of us (based on the evaluations) was the idea of "reading laterally," a way to check to veracity of information on the web. Sam provided us with a handout of "Digital Hacks" for checking the reliability of websites and a reading list. He also announced that MIT EdX is offering a free online course based SHEG's work called "Sorting Truth from Fiction: Civic Online Reasoning." The four week class, which begins September 15,  is free and you can get a verified certificate of completion for $49. It looks great! Here are the units:

 Unit 1: Search Like a Fact Checker

Unit 2: The Two Big Fact Checker Moves: Lateral Reading & Click Restraint

Unit 3: Evaluating Different Types of Evidence

Unit 4: Adapting Civic Online Reasoning

Another really fun thing I did this summer was meet with a small group for a "Google Classroom and Montana History" course and with our "Teacher Leaders in Montana History." One thing that came out of those meetings is the Teaching Montana History Facebook group. This private group is a place for teachers (YOU!) to share resources with one another. Folks can post files as well as simply post to the group.  If you are a Facebooker, I hope you'll consider joining and participating.

During these classes, everyone expressed interest in continuing to gather--even virtually--so we are going to host online professional development meet-ups every third Tuesday of the month (except December). The first session, on September 15, from 4:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m., will be an introduction to Montana history resources. You can register here. We'll be offering renewal units to attendees.

Finally, the Montana Office of Public Instruction's Indian Education for All unit is hosting a free six-session live webinar series exploring the Essential Understandings regarding Montana Indians (EUs). Participants are encouraged to attend all six sessions to gain familiarity with each of the EUs; explore practical classroom integration of IEFA; engage in meaningful live discussions; build community and share resources; and earn renewal units (two per session.) The sessions will be on Wednesdays, 4:00-5:30 p.m., September 9, 23, 30, October 14, 28, and November 4. Register here or contact Jennifer Stadum for more information. 

Finally, don't forget to join us for the First (and hopefully last) Virtual and 47th Annual Montana History Conference. Happening every Thursday and some Saturdays in September (and continuing into October too).

Teaching Montana History is written by Martha Kohl, Outreach and Interpretation Historian at the Montana Historical Society.

 

 

 

Resources for teaching and assessing "Historical Thinking" (and, incidentally, meeting Common Core standards)

To prepare for a workshop I’ll be giving in Billings February 6-7 on Literacy in Social Studies and the Common Core, I’ve been haunting a website called “Beyond the Bubble.” 

 

Created by a Stanford University professor, “Beyond the Bubble” suggests ways teachers can use primary resources to create “innovative assessments that gauge historical thinking in easy-to-use, classroom-friendly ways.”

 

Historical thinking is a big buzzword these days. It basically means “reading, analysis, and writing that is necessary to develop our understanding of the past.”

Beyond the Bubble’s assessments require students to demonstrate both “historical thinking” skills and historical content knowledge by asking them to perform the following tasks:

• Sourcing (asking students to consider who wrote a document as well as the circumstances of its creation. Who authored a given document? When? For what purpose?)
• Contextualization (asking students to locate a document in time and place, and to understand how these factors shape its content.)
• Corroboration (asking students to consider details across multiple sources to determine points of agreement and disagreement.)

All of their assessments align with the Common Core—and provide interesting models that I think can be adapted to create assessments for Montana history classes—or any history class.

 

Those of you teaching American History might also want to check out Stanford’s Reading Like a Historian curriculum, with 75 lessons, each revolving around “a central historical question” and featuring “sets of primary sets of primary documents modified for groups of students with diverse reading skills and abilities. This curriculum teaches students how to investigate historical questions employing reading strategies such as sourcing, contextualizing, corroborating, and close reading. Instead of memorizing historical facts, students evaluate the trustworthiness of multiple perspectives on issues from King Philip's War to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and make historical claims backed by documentary evidence.”
 

You may also want to check out the Historical Thinking Matters website, which offers four investigations of central topics from post-civil war U.S. history, with activities that foster historical thinking and encourage students to form reasoned conclusions about the past. 

 

P.S. It is NOT too late to register for the Billings workshop, where we’ll be delving more into historical thinking and literacy in social studies. The deadline has been extended to this FRIDAY, January 25 for both the Billings workshop and our sister workshops in Helena (focused on fracking to address literacy in science and technical subjects) and Missoula (focused on health—also to address literacy in science and technical subjects.) Requirements for bringing a partner have been waived—and there’s sub money and other perks—so check it out and join us if you can.

 

 

Free PD from the Stanford History Education Group

 I think the world of the Stanford History Education Group and the materials they create for teachers.  

Their Reading Like a Historian curriculum "engages students in historical inquiry. Each lesson revolves around a central historical question and features a set of primary documents designed for groups of students with a range of reading skills.

This curriculum teaches students how to investigate historical questions by employing reading strategies such as sourcing, contextualizing, corroborating, and close reading. Instead of memorizing historical facts, students evaluate the trustworthiness of multiple perspectives on historical issues and learn to make historical claims backed by documentary evidence."

Their Beyond the Bubble History Assessments offer 130 assessments that "easure students' historical thinking rather than recall of facts."

There resources are EXACTLY what you need to meet Montana's new social studies standards.

You can learn more by attending one or both of their free webinars.

• Click here to register for the Reading Like a Historian webinar on September 7th at 5 p.m.- 6 p.m. Mountain
• Click here to register for the Beyond the Bubble assessment webinar on September 21st at 5 p.m.-6 p.m. Mountain

Email me (mkohl@mt.gov) a few sentences detailing which webinar you attended, one of the resources you looked at, and your plans to use it in your classroom (or why you won't be using it), and I'll send you a certificate for one OPI Renewal Unit. (If you attend both sessions, you'll earn two OPI Renewal Units.) 

Upcoming Professional Development Opportunities

IEFA Opportunities

Register now for OPI's fourteenth annual Indian Education for All Best Practices Conference, the theme of which is Honoring Indigenous Resilience and Persistence. The free conference will be held online from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 15 and Sunday, May 16. There are fewer sessions than usual (a concession to the online format, no doubt), but they've got some rock-star presenters, including keynotes by Oren Lyons, Onondaga Nation of the Iroquois Confederacy, and Patrick Armstrong Jr. of the Blackfeet Nation.

 

Broadwater Elementary School teacher Jodi Delaney and I will be presenting MHS's new hands-on history footlocker, Montana's First Peoples: Essential Understandings (unfortunately at the same time as the panel of the 2020 and 2021 Advocacy Award for Excellence in Indian Education Recipients and a presentation by Billings librarians Ruth Ferris and Kathi Hoyt on IEFA and primary sources, both of which I'd really like to attend!) Here's a link to the program and here's the link to register. 

 

The Best Practices conference is free, but if you are looking for a chance to go more in-depth (and earn graduate credits), you might want to check out the IEFA special topics courses offered by the Western Montana Professional Learning Collaborative (WMPLC). Summer semester courses are now open.

 

National Opportunities

Possibly the only good thing to come out of the pandemic is that we now can easily Zoom into courses offered outside Montana.

 

I encourage anyone interested in helping students cope with the barrage of fake, exaggerated, or biased information we experience every day to consider taking "Sorting Truth From Fiction: Civic Online Reasoning." This 9-week facilitated class offered by MITx is FREE (and for $50 and they'll give you a certificate of completion.) The instructors are legendary social studies Stanford University education professor Sam Wineburg, of Stanford History Education Group (SHEG) fame, and Justin Reich, comparative media professor at MIT. My colleague Deb Mitchell took the course, and found it tremendously useful. Learn more and find a link to register here. 

 

SHEG is offering a number of three-day workshops, including 

• Introduction to Reading Like a Historian Curriculum and Beyond the Bubble Assessments
• Reading Like a Historian: Local History, Opening Up the Textbook, and Discussion
• Reading Like a Historian with Younger Students, and more. 

They all seem to cost $375, but teachers at Title I schools can apply for scholarships. The deadline to apply for a scholarship is May 10.

 

Social Studies Skills, Continued

Last week I introduced a new periodic series on resources to teach the new social studies standards with post on developing questions. This week, I'm going to focus on planning inquiries and comparing and evaluating sources for relevance, perspective, and accuracy.  

Skill #2 (SS.K12.2): Plan Inquiries 

I bet most of you already work with students to conduct inquiries--from posters on the different tribes of Montana and "living statues/wax museums" in elementary grades to more in-depth research projects in middle and high school.   

To reassure yourself that you've been doing inquiry all along (or for a quick introduction to the idea) check out Edutopia's  "What the Heck Is Inquiry-Based Learning".   

Unless you, as the teacher, provide the guiding question, the first step is developing a research question. I covered developing questions pretty thoroughly in my email last week, but I forgot to mention resources from Teachinghistory.org that focus specifically on helping students develop research questions.  

The next steps typically include other skills listed in the standards (compare and evaluate sources for relevance, perspective, and accuracy; use sources to gather evidence to develop and refine claims; and communicate conclusions). That's why inquiry is so powerful!

National Geographic has educator resources to support implementing the Geo-Inquiry Process into your classroom. 

The Stanford History Education Group creates some of the smartest, best curricular material out there. Designed for middle and high school students, their Reading Like a Historian lessons ask students to engage in a historical inquiry by analyzing primary sources from different points of view to answer a guiding question. To access their lessons--over 150 of them--you have to register, but registration is free. If you teach middle or high school, and don't use SHEG's resources, I encourage you to take a moment and browse their site. You'll like what you see. 

For middle and high school classes, National History Day is a natural way to integrate inquiry.  Montana's contest is on hiatus this year, but that doesn't mean that you can't use NHD resources in your classroom to help students plan inquiries. Use these links to find NHD's Middle School Teacher Resources booklet and their two part high school booklet (Part 1 and Part 2).  

Do you have a favorite resource for helping students plan inquiries? If so, please share! And stay tuned for the next installment on the social studies standards.  

P.S. Don't forget to sign up for our next online PD,  October 13, from 4-5: "Diving into the New Social Studies Standards." Register here before October 12 to receive a link to the Zoom meeting.

 

Ideas from Middle School Colleagues

 The best lessons always come from classroom teachers, which is why I was delighted to hear from two middle school teachers recently about lessons/activities that have worked in their classrooms.

Angela Gordon, who teaches 6th and 7th grade social studies, wrote to recommend the Digital Inquiry Group's lesson on Edward Curtis. "We analyze some of his pictures and talk about his life and obsessive need to capture indigenous people and their culture in traditional dress and native environment. We discuss whether his mission was a success and how his pictures can be of use today."

By the way: Digital Inquiry Group (DIG) is the new name for the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG). All of their lessons engage students in historical inquiry, revolve around a central historical question, and feature primary source documents designed for groups of students with a range of reading skills. According to their website: 

"This curriculum teaches students how to investigate historical questions by employing reading strategies such as sourcing, contextualizing, corroborating, and close reading. Instead of memorizing historical facts, students evaluate the trustworthiness of multiple perspectives on historical issues and learn to make historical claims backed by documentary evidence. "

All of their resources are free for teachers (although registration is required).   

Angela hasn't been my only correspondent. Middle school teacher Bill Moe recently sent me two suggestions. The first was a worksheet he uses to help his students explore the Montana brand book during their study of Chapter 8 ("Livestock and the Open Range") of Montana: Stories of the Land.

The second was related to a troubling report by NBC News that more than 13 percent of Montana high school students had attempted suicide in the past year, the highest percentage in over twenty years. In response, Bill put up a sign in his classroom: "The World is a Better Place with You in It." He said, "This might be a good thing for kids to see or hear, or to maybe have kids write in a note or Valentine for their parents. Some of them are struggling." 

Thank you to Bill and Angela! And if you have lessons or resources that you think are worth sharing, please send them on.

Bell Ringers to Encourage Historical Thinking

 My colleague Melissa Hibbard shared this interesting article from Edutopia about using bell ringers in middle and high school classes to encourage historical thinking. 

The point of the article is well taken. Sometimes it's really hard to balance content coverage with teaching social studies skills and historical thinking. But to meet the standards and to help students become critical thinkers who actively engage with history, these skills need to be explicitly taught and practiced. 

The skills include:

• Sourcing
• Corroboration
• Contextualization
• Use of Evidence
• Close reading

The article has some good suggestions and is worth checking out. I'd also recommend spending some time on the website of the Digital Inquiry Group (formerly Stanford History Education Group.)  They have over 140 examples of what they call History Assessments of Thinking (HATs), "easy-to-use assessments that measure students' historical thinking." And they have them divided by skill as well as by era/topic. Using HATs throughout the year is a great way to measure student growth with specific historical thinking skills.

Also on their site are Reading Like a Historian Lessons, that engage students in historical inquiries that teach them "how to investigate historical questions by employing reading strategies such as sourcing, contextualizing, corroborating, and close reading."  

I also like their printable posters. My favorite is their Historical Thinking Chart, but they also have posters that focus on specific skills: Close Reading, Sourcing, Contextualization, and Corroboration. 

To access any of the Digital Inquiry Group's material, you need to register, but it's free and it would be well worth it even if it weren't. If I taught world or U.S. history in high school, or even eighth grade, I'd be very tempted to ditch the textbook and base my entire class around their lessons. In fact, this is what Melissa did when she taught eleventh and eighth grade U.S. History. At the very least, it's worth trying to incorporate at least one Reading Like a Historian Lesson and one HAT per unit.

P.S. If you teach media literacy, the Digital Inquiry Group also has you covered. Their Civic Online Reasoning materials are designed to teach students how to evaluate online information.

P.P.S. Don't forget to register for our upcoming PD, Teaching with Historic Places, February 11, 4:30-5:30 p.m., and earn one OPI renewal unit.

 

  

Looking for More Inspiration?

A subscriber recently wrote me to ask for suggestions of history-related sites/history education related sites.

Natasha and I have already told you about Chronicling America. Here are some others:

Teachinghistory.org bills itself as "A single destination for K-12 American history content, teaching methods, and current research." It has quick links for elementary, middle, and high school teachers, lesson plan and website reviews, and suggestions for best practices. 

Stanford History Education Group is changing the way history is taught with its "Beyond the Bubble" assessments of historical thinking and its "Reading Like a Historian" American and World history document-based lesson plans, now aligned to the Common Core.

A site I've recently discovered (and only because Ruth Ferris used it as a model for our newest 8-12 lesson plan, "Hazel Hunkins, Billings Suffragist) is History Labs.History Labs offers model lesson plan and a template to build your own lesson plan, one which asks an “overarching question,” builds background knowledge, and has students conduct source work in order to present and support their interpretations. Pretty spiff!

And, of course, there's our own website, Montana Historical Society Educator Resources. We've reorganized the page recently. In addition to multi-faceted resources like the Montana: Stories of the Land textbook, the Hand's-on History Footlockers, or Montana Mosaic: 20th Century People and Events, we've divided our lesson plans into the following categories: 

• Indian Education for All Lesson Plans  The Montana Historical Society has produced a number of lesson plans to help your students grasp the Essential Understandings regarding Montana Indians while learning more about specific Montana history topics.
• Integrating Art and History  Discover lesson plans on Charlie Russell, Montana's Cowboy Artist; Plains Indian pictographic art; and Plateau Indian beaded bags.
• Teaching with Primary Sources  Discover the many lesson plans the Montana Historical Society has created that provide students an opportunity to analyze primary source material, including artwork, photographs, letters, diary entries, historic newspapers, and more.
• Mining History Lesson Plans and Resources  Discover a wide array of resources for studying mining history, including a study guide to accompany the reminiscence, Girl from the Gulches: The Story of Mary Ronan, and a lesson plan to help students explore historic digitized newspapers.
• Teaching with Biographies  Find links to online biographies as well as lesson plans that ask students to investigate remarkable Montanans. 
• Women's History Resources and Lesson Plans Discover an abundance of material on Montana's women's history, including fascinating stories, intriguing photographs, and detailed lesson plans.
• Civics and Geography Looking for a lesson that explains the electoral process, provides an example of how laws affect individuals' lives, or introduces your students to Montana geography while improving their map reading skills? Find them here. 

If there are other categories you think would be useful (for example, Teaching with Images), let me know and I'll see what I can do. And send me a link to your favorite history/teaching site and I'll include it in a future post.

Best of, High School

 Every spring, I ask folks to share their favorite Montana history or IEFA lesson, the one they would absolutely do again. Here are what your fellow  teachers said (some anonymously) with comments by me in parentheses. Find elementary responses here and middle school responses here.

• My favorite was this lesson about Deb Haaland, the first Native Secretary of the Interior: Tribal Nations and the Department of the Interior (mt.gov).
• I teach French, and our French book has a culture section on Medieval shields & coats of arms. We then explored the tribal seals of the tribes in Montana. The students created their own personal shield as a concluding exercise. (Here's a link to OPI's high school tribal seals lesson. OPI also created tribal seal lessons for 6-8 and 3-5.
• Students examine the policies of the Indian Removal Act. Students then examine the Tribes of Montana to make connections of the similarities and differences of the U.S. government of handling during the Indian Removal Act and the U.S. governments treatment of Montana Indian Tribes down to policy, treaties, and interactions.--Kaine Berardinelli, North Star Schools
• Using Chronicling America and Montana Historic Newspapers to show our students that Japanese Internment Camp at Heart Mountain, WYO involved Montana and its youth. We examine articles related to sports competitions between a Montana School (Red Lodge) and the Wyoming internees. We have used the basic lesson for sometime, but are fleshing it out more and more each year.  Used in Grade 10 English with the novel Thin Wood Walls by David Patneaude.--Pam Roberts, Huntley Project, 7-12 Library, a collaborative unit with Grade 10 English
• Contemporary American Indian Issues: This lesson was easy to implement in my classroom this year. My students researched MMIW/MMIP and created bills (in government) and posters (my other classes) designed to shed light on this issue. (I don't know if this is what the teacher used, but the Indian Education Division at OPI has a lesson plan with the same title.)
• Great Depression images (I'm sure the teacher used these Farm Security Administration images, digitized by the Library of Congress.)
• We have used current events to discuss MMIP and extrapolate our discussions out to other native peoples around the world. Lyn Mason, Corvallis High School, Geography and World History
• The atlatl project. (This teacher may have used Making an Atlatl.)
• Little Big Horn Unit and field trip. (I'm not sure what resources this teacher used, but Stanford History Education Group has a lesson on the Battle of the Little Bighorn that's worth looking into.)
• A buffalo harvest, Bill Wagner, Drummond
• I adore the Mission US interactive lessons for immersive, thoughtful, and playful interactions with historical events. In regards to IEFA, the Cheyenne Odyssey is a particularly intriguing and individualized experience for students (https://www.mission-us.org/games/a-cheyenne-odyssey/). They are asked to take on the perspective of Little Wolf, a Cheyenne teenager who must navigate life on the Plains in 1866. The Battle of the Bighorn is figured prominently in this simulation, and the characters respond to realistic situations with diverse  perspectives. I have used this site with both Middle and High School social studies students and it is always a hit. Check out their lesson plans - they are worth it!--Cynthia Wilondek, Bigfork High School   

It's never too late! If you have a dynamite lesson you think other teachers would like to know about, let me know.

P.S. If you are new to teaching Montana history or just want to learn more about MTHS resources, don't forget to register for "Introduction to MTHS Resources". The hourlong workshop will be held September 12 from 4:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. on Zoom. Participants will earn 1 OPI Renewal Unit.

                                                                                                                          

 

Reading Like a Historian Paid Summer PD Opportunity

 Long time readers have heard me talk up Reading Like a Historian lesson plans for quite some time now. These lessons provide students opportunities to explore historical questions by examining documents and developing arguments supported by evidence. Teachers who use it report that the lessons are easy to implement and that when they do, deep learning happens. 

If you are a high school teacher who have not used this material, but are curious about it, do I have an opportunity for you.

The Digital Inquiry Group (DIG), formerly the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG), is working with the American Institutes for Research (AIR) to conduct an independent study of new Reading Like a Historian materials that incorporate research-backed digital literacy strategies from the Civic Online Reasoning curriculum. (I love Civic Online Reasoning too!)

This opportunity is being offered to high school U.S. history teachers who have not previously participated in a DIG or SHEG professional development and have not systematically implemented Reading Like a Historian or Civic Online Reasoning in their U.S. history classes.

Participating teachers will receive $1,000 and 20 hours of professional development, provided at no cost, and will implement the new curricular materials in their classrooms.  

To learn more about the opportunity, please review this flyer. You can also watch a pre-recorded informational session that provides an overview of the program and study (slides).

To apply to participate, please complete AIR’s Teacher Consent Form. 

Once you submit the consent form, AIR will be in touch with you with next steps for participation. 

Limited spots are available, and admissions are rolling, so apply as soon as possible, and no later than May 23, 2025.

P.S. Looking for something less time-consuming? Check out MTHS's free summer PDs.

P.P.S. If you are changing schools next year, and want to continue receiving Teaching Montana History, make sure to provide your new (or home) email! 

 

Literacy and Social Studies

I recently learned about ReWordify.com (thanks, Glenn Wiebe and Larry Ferlazzo.)  The site allows you to use free online software to simplify blocks of text by replacing more difficult vocabulary with easier words. "Enter hard sentences (or whole chapters) into the yellow box at the top of the page. (You can also enter a website URL.) Click Rewordify text and you'll instantly see an easier version, for fast understanding. The reworded words are highlighted— click them to hear and learn the original harder word. You can change how the highlighting works to match the way you learn!"

With an account, you can also edit "ReWordified" documents to select which words ReWordify changes. (For example, when I ran draft text from our new "Symbols of Montana" footlocker through ReWordify, it changed "agate" to "pretty stone." Since agates are one of Montana's state symbols, and a word students needed to learn, that's not a change I wanted to permit.) 

If you are looking to differentiate text--or looking to modify primary sources to make them easier to read--ReWordify can help. (On simplifying primary sources: many historians I respect, including the folks at the Stanford History Education Group and TeachingHistory.org, recommend this practice when necessary to make material more accessible to students. But I confess, it still makes me a little uneasy. Certainly, if you do it, share that information with your students.) 

ReWordify.com has great tutorials and a library of classic literature and other public domain documents. I recommend you check it out.

And speaking of reading: 

My recent post "Social Studies in Elementary Classrooms" received a hearty "amen" from former CRISS trainer, Montana history teacher, and reading instructor Sue Dailey (who also served as a consultant for our textbook Montana: Stories of the Land.) 

The post focused on University of Virginia psychology professor Daniel Willingham's assertion that to create strong readers schools must teach content because reading comprehension requires broad vocabulary and factual knowledge.

In an email to me, Sue wrote that early in her career, her biggest frustration when it came to teach reading/literacy strategies to students was that she didn't have any relevant content to use. "It was a constant search for articles at a relevant reading level to use to teach comprehension skills such as selective underlining and summarizing." Students would have different amounts of background knowledge and interest in the random articles she chose. This "would impact their comprehension."

Things changed once she started teaching Montana history. Teaching Montana history made her literacy instruction stronger because she had "stuff to teach," content that had a real purpose. Sue found that there were several advantages in teaching reading through Montana history, and since I found her list informative and thought-provoking, I'm sharing it with you. 

• First, I was able to provide the necessary background information (e.g. geographical locations, pertinent vocabulary, general knowledge of the historical period, etc.) before students read a particular chapter or selection.
• Second, subsequent reading selections built on previous selections provided content continuity rather than random subject matter.
• Third,  because of my familiarity with the content, it was easier to adjust the instruction to students of differing reading skills.
• Fourth, as the reading was of the same content and format it was easier to increase the difficulty of the comprehension strategies.
• Fifth, teaching this content allowed students to read more primary sources because of their increased background knowledge and literary skills. 
• Sixth, students learned that applying these literacy skills enabled them to be successful in both tests and writing assignments, so they saw a real benefit and therefore took them more seriously.

Sue taught seventh grade--not fourth--and her middle school focus brings another point to the fore. Not only is "literacy is best taught within the context of relevant and meaningful content" but all teachers (not just English teachers) need "to include literacy instruction within their content areas."   

Save the Date

 If you missed master educator Jim Schulz in Great Falls, Butte, Missoula, and Miles City this spring, you missed an excellent PD. But it's not too late. He's going to provide the same training--"Making It Real"--in Helena on Wednesday, August 17. 

The free, one-day workshop (which can be taken for 6 OPI Renewal Credits) is designed to

• Introduce the new fourth-grade Montana history curriculum Montana: A History of Our Home.
• Provide teachers specific lesson plans that they can use to teach Montana and U.S. history.
• Highlight the benefits of interdisciplinary teaching.
• Introduce teachers to Civic Online Reasoning, a curriculum created by the Stanford History Education Group to help teach students how to evaluate online information. 

If you've attended a Jim Schulz-led workshop in the past, you know how great he is, and you won't want to miss out. If you've never attended a Jim Schulz workshop, you are in for a treat.  

Here's what teachers have said about this workshop: 

• "I learned many strategies that I can immediately implement." 
• "Exceeded expectations! Lots of interaction and activity."
• “Excellent, dynamic instructor.”

You can find the detailed agenda here and the link to register here.   

We hope you can come! And we hope you'll help us spread the word. Please share this information and the registration links with colleagues you think may be interested. 

 P.S. Have you completed your end-of-the-year survey yet? 

We're coming to a town near you!

 The Montana Historical Society is very excited to be sending veteran teacher and workshop leader extraordinaire Jim Schulz back on the road this March and April with the workshop Making It Real. Jim will be traveling to Great Falls (March 23), Butte (March 25), Missoula (March 28), Bozeman (April 4), Billings (April 6), and Miles City (April 7). 

The free, one-day workshop (which can be taken for 6 OPI Renewal Credits) is designed to

• Introduce the new fourth-grade Montana history curriculum Montana: A History of Our Home.
• Provide teachers to specific lesson plans that they can use to teach Montana and U.S. history.
• Highlight the benefits of interdisciplinary teaching.
• Introduce teachers to Civic Online Reasoning, a curriculum created by the Stanford History Education Group to help teach students how to evaluate online information. 

If you've attended a Jim Schulz-led workshop in the past, you know how great he is, and you won't want to miss out. If you've never attended a Jim Schulz workshop, you are in for a treat.  

Here's what teachers have said about previous workshops Jim has taught for us: 

• “One of the most productive and informational PIR workshops I have ever done…”
• “Jim's workshop inspired to me reflect on my teaching practice."

You can find the detailed agenda and links to register on our website.  

We hope you can come! And we hope you'll help us spread the word. Please share this information and the registration links with colleagues you think may be interested. 

Register for the Great Falls workshop. 

Register for the Butte workshop.

Register for the Missoula workshop.

Register for the Bozeman workshop.

Register for the Billings workshop. 

Register for the Miles City workshop. 

In addition to the six "Making It Real" workshops Jim is giving, I'll be joining Teacher Leader in Montana History Jennifer Hall in Kalispell to present "New Standards? No Problem!: Resources for Fourth Grade Social Studies" for the Northwest Montana Educational Cooperative from 1:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m. on March 15. The coop has opened the class to all fourth-grade teachers, regardless of whether your school is in the coop, so if you teach fourth grade and are within an easy drive of Kalispell, I hope to see you there! Problems registering through PIRNet? Contact the coop at 406-752-3302.

 

More Podcasts, Thoughts on Core Themes, and a Free Resource

Some of our December posts garnered some good responses! Read on. 

More Podcasts

In response to the guest post by Whitehall High School teacher Merrick Parnell on using podcasts for high school social studies, Bozeman High School teacher Elaine Warn sent in a list of podcasts she loves: 

From the Washington Post:

• Presidential--an episode for each president
• Constitutional--an episode about various topics (less pointedly liberal than More Perfect)

Sounds like Hate from the Southern Poverty Law Center

Slow Burn from Slate (various seasons on interesting things like Watergate, Bill Clinton, David Duke, Tupac, and Rodney King)

Finding Fred, all about Mr. Rogers, seriously heartwarming, especially as an educator

Uncivil, looking at the Black perspective on the Civil War. There are some great episodes, such as one about women and their role in the war.

Give Me Liberty, The Making of American Exceptionalism, from The National Review

Floodlines, from The Atlantic about Hurricane Katrina

LBJ's War, from Public Radio International about Vietnam (great use of primary source phone transcripts in this one)

Unprecedented from NPR—similar to More Perfect and Constitutional, with a great look at some very important cases like Snyder v Phelps

Order 9066 from American Public Media about Japanese Internment

And Annie Hanshew of Helena suggested the first season of This Land from Crooked Media, which follows the United States Supreme Court case Sharp v. Murphy to discuss issues around Native sovereignty land rights. 

Core Themes

In response to "Tips from a Veteran High School Teacher," Red Lodge middle school teacher Steve Morris had this to say: "I sincerely enjoyed this post, thank you for sharing! Now in my third year of public school teaching, the 'core theme' concept has been one of my biggest learning points to date. This year I have been utilizing 'Questions are the Answer' which, of course, was sparked by my participation in the Right Question Institute workshop during the past summer. To complement this, I make sure that each unit I teach also focuses on this core question: How is this relatable to my life? Combined, these two themes ensure our studies utilize the newly adopted Social Studies Standards (Develop, Plan, Gather, Analyze, Communicate, Act) while reinforcing the wisdom of Frederick Douglass who opined that “We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future.” Time and again, I find the usefulness to be the sweet spot—that “aha” moment in which learners see the value of our shared time." 

A Free Resource

Bruce Wendt, whose philosophy of teaching history I shared in "Tips from a Veteran High School Teacher," wrote in with another recommendation. When he taught dual credit American history, he used The American YAWP: A Massively Collaborative Open U.S. History Textbook as his textbook. Published by the Stanford University Press, it is freely accessible online. I had never heard of this but it looks very exciting. Bruce says: "If you don’t know this text, it is fantastic with lots of links and visuals. Best of all, it is constantly updated and not 10 or 15 years old." He also reiterated that although he had students read the textbook, "class discussions/activities were based on issues, not the pages in the book."

Opening Up the Textbook

Last week I wrote about using primary sources for focus activities. Especially in middle school and high school, primary sources can also help in opening up the textbook. According to TeachingHistory.org, "Opening Up the Textbook, developed at Stanford University, is one method of using the textbook to help students learn how to think historically and read critically."

Opening Up the Textbook moves the textbook from its position as the one true story about the past to one historical account among many. Intended to help students slow down, read closely, and critically evaluate their textbook, this is not a strategy that fits well with reading lengthy textbook passages or chapters.

TeachingHistory.org lists six ways to Open up the Textbook. The two that work best with primary sources are

• "Direct Challenge: Using primary documents to challenge textbook facts or interpretation" and 
• "Vivification: Breathing life into a text that only mentions, or omits."

The other suggestions are

• "Comparison: Comparing two textbook accounts—e.g. U.S. to non-U.S, old to new."
• "Narrativization: Where does a textbook begin to tell the story, where does it end it?"
• "Articulating Silences: Who is left out of the textbook's narrative? Try bringing in voices of the silenced or moving issues of narrative choice to the surface." 
• "Close Reading: Careful, attentive focus on word choice, including adjectives, titles, and the like."

Opening Up the Textbook teaches students to question what they read and that "an authoritative tone ... does not necessarily convey the full or exclusive story." It asks them to compare and integrate multiple historical accounts (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.9) and to consider sources' perspective and purpose (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.6). 

Have you tried it? What sources did you use/topic did you address? And how'd it go? (I'd love to know!)

Free PD on Digital Literacy

The Digital Inquiry Group (DIG, formerly Stanford History Education Group, or SHEG) has developed a really good method for teaching kids how to effectively evaluate online information for bias and accuracy. I can't speak highly enough about it. And it is offering two free asynchronous courses this fall. Each course will include: 

• Evidence-based approaches to teaching digital literacy  
• Instructional videos
• Instructional simulations
• Discussion boards
• Optional webinars

The courses will run over four weeks to allow participants to complete them independently. Upon successful course completion, participants may request certificates of attendance indicating the number of hours of professional learning they completed. Email me your certificate of completion to earn OPI renewal units. 

Civic Online Reasoning 

In this 10-hour course, participants will learn about research-backed strategies for effectively evaluating online information and explore free curricular resources developed by the Digital Inquiry Group for teaching students these vital skills. The course will also address common student misconceptions and the pitfalls of outdated approaches to teaching digital literacy. The course will include three modules:  

• Module 1: Search like a fact checker with lateral reading
• Module 2: Verifying claims on social media and click restraint
• Module 3: Evaluating different types of online sources.

This course will run October 15 to November 12. Click here to enroll in the course.
 

Basics of Evaluating Online Sources

In this 3-hour course, participants will learn about research-based strategies for evaluating online information, with an emphasis on the skill of lateral reading. Participants will also explore free, research-backed curricular resources developed by the Digital Inquiry Group for teaching students these vital skills. The course will include one module: Search like a fact checker with lateral reading. 
This course will run November 12 to December 6. Click here to enroll in the course. 

Please note: The content of the two asynchronous courses will overlap, so educators should enroll in either the 3-hour or the 10-hour option, but not both. 

 

Teaching Rigorous and Meaningful High School History

Guest post by Bruce Wendt

 Martha Kohl’s recent column that linked to Michael Yell’s post on teaching history led to reflecting on my own evolution in teaching history on the high school level.  Very few students “get” history or understand why they are required to enroll in what is to many a numbingly boring class.  How do we tackle this? Here are some suggestions.

The ability for teenagers to think historically begins on the first day of class with a challenge for them to understand that the discipline is more than a stolid march of dates and folks.  I believe we start the year knowing where we want to be on the last day.  We study past events not as an antiquarian exercise but to begin putting together the puzzle to know where we are in the present and what the future holds.

Two specific suggestions to begin the year: First, work with the students to help them understand that reading history is different than enjoying a novel or studying a biology textbook. I assign the textbook, articles and academic books in the first week. Students need to look for the thesis/argument in the source they are examining. Throughout the course of the year, we continue to focus on the thesis. History centers on core themes or the threads that link the past with the present. Years ago, Carleton College’s history department published years ago a succinct essay on how reading leads to thinking.  I think we all want lucid discussions in the classroom and the ability to recognize ideas over time is crucial—early lessons help guide students to developing these skills.

Second, history is built on interpreting primary documents and making reasoned arguments both in verbal discussions and in writing. For years the first documents we examined in American history were the operating instructions for the Virginia Company and the Mayflower Compact. When we do this, we are moving on two fronts.  We practice interpretation, but we are also setting the stage for events later in American history.  These two documents also demonstrate stark differences in the Massachusetts and Virginia values of the early colonial period and then during the Revolutionary and Civil War.  As teachers who know where we are headed, we can push students to think for themselves about these threads.

 Multiple resources have published worksheets on interpretation including the National Archives. I would suggest reducing the questions to a simple 5 or 6 that still capture the essence of the document. After using them the first week, students are expected to use the process for the rest of the year in their analysis. I was more interested in weaving the source into the march of history than reading worksheet questions every time we used a document. The goal with these questions is not to achieve the “right” answer but to begin a process of critical examination and knowing/practicing the skills needed to build arguments.  

Be warned, however: students will be frustrated and annoyed (especially those who have scored well in earlier classes by putting on paper what the teacher wants) for the first several weeks. One must be patient and encouraging until students understand that they can be successful by articulating what they believe based on their interpretation. 

I’m always happy to answer questions or discuss ideas. For an extended view of establishing sophisticated student thinking, I would suggest Stanford’s Sam Wineburg’s Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts: Charting the Future of Teaching the Past. Also useful is the guide the National Council for the Social Studies published in 2010 that organizes the curriculum around ten themes with multiple classroom examples.

Bruce H. Wendt, Billings West High School (retired)