Do your students struggle with reading the textbook?

Two summers ago, the Montana Historical Society invited Dr. Tammy Elser, who teaches in the education department at Salish Kootenai College (SKC), to give a workshop on helping students (and especially struggling readers) read and understand informational text. It was one of the best workshops I have ever attended and I have been integrating the strategies I learned that day into almost every lesson or unit plan I've written since.

We filmed the workshop and Tammy, with the help of colleagues like Christy Mock-Stutz at the Montana Office of Public Instruction, transformed the workshop into a four credit, self-paced online course for the Teacher Learning Hub.

Targeted at teachers of fourth through eighth grade, the course uses Montana: Stories of the Land and ancillary IEFA content to demonstrates ways to help any reader by modifying lesson structure, teaching and modeling comprehension strategies, and employing fix-up strategies when comprehension breaks down.

This is a readings methods course--which is something that most social studies teachers can use, especially with the increased emphasis on reading across the curriculum and the adoption of curriculum standards that emphasize literacy in history/social studies (along with science and technical subjects.) It was certainly information I found useful.

You can take Supporting Readers with Textbooks for 4 OPI renewal units on the Teacher Learning Hub at no charge (but registration is required.) While you are there, you may want to check out some of their other offerings.

Time Travel: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

When she was in grade school, my daughter loved the Good Times Travel Agency books by Linda Bailey. The Binkerton Twins would travel back in time, and it was never what they expected (for example, they became serfs, rather than a lord and lady, when they visited the Middle Ages and they were shocked by the hard work and poor living conditions.) Perhaps that's why I was smitten by this activity from one of my favorite social studies bloggers, Russell Tarr: "Design a 'Time Travel Holiday' to see a period from different viewpoints."

Tarr's initial exercise is simple: "When introducing students to a particular historical time and place, get them to research different geographical locations associated with it. The class should then produce a travel brochure designed to persuade holidaymakers about all the wonderful things to expect if they take a time-travelling vacation." 

What I thought was brilliant was his followup activity: "to force students to assess the period from a negative perspective, ask them to write a dramatic complaint letter [to the travel agency] outlining all the horrible sights, sounds and smells they experienced" during their "holiday from Hell." 

In his post, Tarr expands on variations of this activity (and provides details for visiting the sites of Ancient Rome).

I, of course, started thinking about how the activity could be applied to Montana. Certainly, students could promote "time travel" adventures to the romantic Old West, promoting a steamboat trip up the Missouri or Yellowstone rivers, a visit to a gold rush town, or to the cattle frontier of eastern Montana. Then tourists could complain about the lack of fresh fruit, being forced to push their stagecoach out of the mud, or the tedium of a steamboat voyage.

These time traveler assignments are good examples of RAFT writing. RAFT stands for role, audience, format, topic. In a RAFT assignment students take on a Role (in this case, promotional travel agent or unhappy customer), and write for an Audience (potential customer or misleading travel agent), adopt a Format (brochure or letter), and focus on a Topic (life in the assigned place and historical era). We have a RAFT-based lesson plan on Montana during World War I. If you want to learn more about RAFT or get some other suggestions for RAFT assignments I recommend these earlier posts. 

What Tarr's assignment does so well though is insisting that students take on two roles, one that looks at the positive and one that looks at the negative. I can imagine this dual approach beyond his original time travel tourism trope. For example, fliers recruiting homesteaders or men to work in the Butte mines matched by letters home from miners or homesteaders. Or letters from the same miner or homesteader--one back to family members during the journey anticipating the opportunities to be found and another after they had settled in. (Or in the case of homesteading, one during the wet years and the other during the drought.)

There are lots of possibilities here, so I hope you take it and run. If you do, I'd love to hear how you used it and how your students responded.

Hands-on History Made Easy

I’m not sure why, but we’re getting fewer requests for our hands-on history footlockers than we have in years past. So if you want to reserve a footlocker, now’s the time. Footlockers are free to order, except for the cost of sending the trunk on to the next user. That cost depends on weight and distance but averages around $40.

All footlockers come with user guides that you can download even without ordering the trunk. The user guides contain lesson plans (many of which can be used without ordering the footlocker) and narratives written on a fourth grade level.

So why bring a footlocker into your classroom? These traveling trunks are chock-full of interesting replicas, photographs, and artifacts that help bring history alive. Students of all ages absolutely love them.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Coming to Montana: Immigrants from Around the World. This footlocker showcases the culture, countries, traditions, and foodways of Montana's immigrants through reproduction clothing, toys, and activities. Artifacts include a Hmong story cloth, Norwegian hardanger, Swedish rosette iron, Basque bones, a Hutterite dress, a Chinese Mahjong set, Catholic medallions, a German Protestant Bible and a Jewish Menorah, an Irish drum, and trowel of the type Croatian stone masons would have used, a Chinese hat, and more.

The Home Fires: Montana and World War II. This footlocker describes aspects of everyday life in Montana during the 1941-1945 war years. Illustrates little-known government projects such as the Fort Missoula Alien Detention Center and Civilian Public Service Camps. Artifacts include military uniforms, a set of dog tags, propaganda posters, historic photographs, shadow boxes that display metals, ration coupons, and materials issued to servicemen and women, and more.

Original Governor’s Mansion: Home to the Stewart Family in Turbulent Times, 1913-1921. This footlocker investigates life and politics, 1913-1921, as well as the history and architecture of a magnificent building. With historic games (old maid, Parcheesi, and pick up sticks), Victrola records and a small model Victrola, calling cards and a calling card tray, a fully stocked sewing basket with a darning egg, embroidery scissors and hoop, a small braided rug and rag ball, napkin rings and cloth napkins, historic photos, and many more items, this footlocker is perfect for teaching what life was like for kids at the turn of the last century.  

Montana State Symbols. A few weeks ago, I wrote a whole post on this footlocker, which provides students the opportunity to explore hands-on educational activities to gain a greater appreciation of our state's symbols and their meanings. My favorite objects are the cast of a grizzly bear paw print (I couldn’t believe how big a grizzly paw is), the sapphire exhibit, and the singing stuffed meadowlark.

Oral History in the Classroom Mini Footlocker. One of the few footlockers designed for older students, this trunk includes eight Sony IC Audio Recorders, batteries and chargers, useful reference material, and detailed lesson plans for creating a classroom-based oral history project.

You can view all of our footlockers, preview the user guides, and make reservations online. Still have questions? Contact Katie White at kwhite@mt.gov or 406-444-9553.

P.S. Thanksgiving is so early this year! If you are looking for teaching ideas, check out these two past posts. This one mostly focuses on having students answer the research question "What has Changed and What Has Remained the Same" while this guest post from OPI Indian Education Specialist Mike Jetty includes links to IEFA lessons around the holiday. 

More IEFA Resources

In response to my recent post, IEFA Resources for Your Classroom, Harlem teacher Wendy Maratita shared a link for large maps: www.tribalnationsmaps.com. She said, "These maps are wonderful and he gives a little discount for teachers. They are pricey but very nice." 

I also came across a few new resources for learning and teaching more about the Métis.

The first is The Métis of British Columbia: Culture, History, and the Contemporary Community. It's an online version of a DVD project created to help disseminate information on Métis history and culture that includes many short videos. There are two main sections: Culture, History, and Dance, and Music and Dance. Although it is from Canada the material is relevant to Montana as well. 

The second is from The Gabriel Dumont Institute's "Virtual Museum of Métis History and Culture." This site has so much material that it is a bit daunting, but I particularly liked this lesson plan on finger weaving, which include instructional videos.   

Finally, the Métis Nation British Columbia created a cross curricular unit on the Métis for fourth grade. In addition to readings, links and lesson plans, it has a great list of picture books that librarians might want to consider for their libraries. 

If you have other IEFA resources you'd think people should know about, please let me know!

P.S. Don't forget to vote tomorrow if you haven't already cast your ballot. Democracy works best when we all participate.

Make Your Voice Heard

Guest Post by Colet Bartow

The research and review phase for Social Studies, Technology, Library Media, Career and Technical Education/Workplace Competencies, and Computer Science standards has begun and will continue through April 2019. 

Please follow the links below to review information on each of these content areas and then respond to the surveys you are interested in or have expertise with.  Please share this information with teachers, trustees, parents, or any stakeholder who can provide thoughtful feedback.

• Computer Science
• Career and Vocational Technical Education and Workplace Competencies
• Technology and Library Media/Information Literacy
• Social Studies

After reviewing the resources, each survey will take about 10-15 minutes of your time to complete.  Thank you in advance for providing feedback that ensures that Montana’s content standards reflect your priorities and best thinking in these content areas.

For questions or more information, contact Colet Bartow, Director of Content Standards and Instruction, cbartow@mt.gov.