Masterpiece Matchup and Other Instructional Strategies You'll Love

 

Masterpiece Matchup

It's brilliant, and yes, I learned about it from my favorite social studies blogger, Glenn Wiebe. He in turn learned about it from Kansas middle school teacher Laura McFarren, who adopted the idea from California teacher Amanda Sandoval. What's the "It" I'm talking about? Masterpiece Matchup, an "activity is to encourage kids to think and talk more deeply around a set of primary sources."

Here's how it works:

1. Find several written primary sources about a single topic. Laura used a Stanford History Education Group Reading Like a Historian Lesson that focused on Lewis and Clark's treatment of Native Americans. (If you teach 8-12 grade and aren't already using SHEG's Reading Like a Historian Lessons, I promise you want to start.)

2. Have students read through and analyze all of the sources using a traditional primary source analysis worksheet (Laura did this as an all-group activity.) 

3. Give each student one specific document to re-read and then have them "'recreate' the source visually." (Stick figures are fine.) Make sure they label their drawing with a letter that matches their document. (e.g., Doc. A, Doc. B., etc.)

4. Post all of the drawings of Doc A together on one wall, all of the drawings of Doc B. on another, etc.

5. Then have all of the students try to match the primary sources to the drawings. Encourage conversations during this activity and have them justify their thinking.

Laura followed this activity with a Structured Academic Controversy around the SHEG lesson's original question: “Were Lewis and Clark respectful to the Native Americans they met on their journey?“

She said that because they took part in the Masterpiece Matchup, students "really knew their documents and were able to dig into the SAC conversations at a deeper level. Definitely a redo."

I'd encourage you to read more details about this activity on Glenn's blog and if you do this in your classroom, tell me how it goes. 

Looking for More Great Instructional Strategies?

Or do you have a great one to share? Join Teacher Leader in Montana History Jennifer Graham February 13, 4:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. for the online PD, Instructional Strategies You'll Love. Jennifer will share Collaborative Instructional Strategies (CIS) that she says will improve students' Social Emotional Learning skills and increase student engagement. Participants are invited to bring their best strategies to share or just come to listen. Register here.

Black History Resources

Every month is Black History Month, right? But because folks pay more attention to Black history in February, I decided to share a few resources. The first two are probably most useful for middle and high school teachers. The last is probably most useful to elementary teachers. 

Hidden Stories: Montana's Black Past 

Everyone should watch this remarkable video, produced by Kate Hampton of the Montana Historical Society's State Historic Preservation Office. Completed in 2022, the 57-minute movie traces Montana’s African American history from the Civil War to the present day. It foregrounds Montana’s pioneering Black residents and frames their experiences within the greater context of Montana history across space and time. I just found out it is debuting on Montana PBS on February 13, but it is also available to view on YouTube.

Elementary and middle school teachers should watch it for background knowledge, but we think high school teachers should share it with their students. Colleague Bryan Baldwin created this teaching guide, which breaks the video into three parts, and provides summaries, discussion questions and vocabulary terms for each part. 

Montana African American Heritage Resources Website

There is so much information collected on this website, including a number of brief essays on various aspects of Montana's African American history; census data from 1910 and 1920; and a list of laws passed by the Montana legislature intended either to discriminate against or protect the rights of its African American citizens. My very favorite item on this site is the Story Map, “Montana in the Green Book”.

"Between 1936 and 1967, Victor H. Green & Company published The Negro Motorist Green Book, which offered listings of lodgings, restaurants, service stations, and recreation opportunities for African American travelers. According to the 1949 introduction, the publication's goal was "to give the Negro traveler information that will keep him from running into difficulties, embarrassments and to make his trips more enjoyable. ... It will be a great day for us to suspend this publication for then we can go wherever we please, and without embarrassment." Find out which Montana venues advertised that they welcomed African American travelers. 

Elementary Lessons

Last year I worked with the Helena Black History Education Initiative to create six elementary school lessons. Each is tied to an anchor text and includes an activity. Only one is related to Montana history. You can read more about and find links to the lessons here. 

 

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)

Place-Based Learning and Upcoming PDs

Upcoming Online PD/Sharing Session

February 13, 4:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m.: Instructional Strategies You'll Love, led by Teacher Leader in Montana History Jennifer Graham

Join other inspired social studies teachers to discover new ways to increase student engagement and curiosity, including Collaborative Instructional Strategies (CIS). Implementing CIS in the classroom can support your classroom community, SEL skills and bring a level of engagement into classrooms that will keep students coming back for more! Bring your best strategies to share and leave with ready-to-apply techniques that you can immediately put into practice to enliven your social studies classroom. Register here.

If this session is even half as good as the last one, you are in for a treat. And speaking of...

Place-Based Learning/Local Studies

I really enjoyed our January 9 PD, which focused on place-based learning and local studies. Bonner middle school teacher Dylan Huisken gave a great talk that both focused on the whys (e.g., why would you want to do this) and the hows. I'm not going to summarize his entire presentation, but I do want to share one project he does with his students--having them produce local history "one-pagers," which he makes available online and advertises using QR codes. 

Let me break that down:

1. He works with students to come up with topics that might interest them (his students find flipping through old yearbooks and talking to old-timers in the community to be great ways to come up with topics.)
2. He helps them come up with key words that they can use to look for information on their topics in digitized historic newspapers. 
3. He has them look for additional information on the Montana Memory Project (you could use your local museum for this if you have fewer collections digitized than Bonner, where Dylan teaches.)
4. He has them craft one-pagers. He says you can make them fancy using an app like Canva, but he keeps things simple and just has the students create their one-pagers in a Google Doc. Here's an example of a one-pager one of his students created on ice-skating in Bonner. 
5. The students create QR codes and post them around town (at the bus stop, at coffee shops, near the sites they are describing in their one-pagers) to share their research with the community. There are any number of free QR generators. Here’s one.

By having his students research local topics of personal interest and share their findings with the community at large, Dylan is giving his students an opportunity to connect to their community and become engaged and excited about history. He's also meeting SO many standards, including

• SS.K12.1 Developing questions;
• SS.K12.2 Planning inquiries;
• SS.K12.4 using sources to gather evidence to develop and refine claims;
• SS.K12.5 Communicating conclusions; and
• SS.K12.6 taking informed action.

Dylan said he'd be happy to visit with anyone with questions about how to implement a place-based education project at their school. He can be reached at dhuisken@bonner.k12.mt.us. 

The Rural Experience in America

If you are intrigued by place-based learning and live in a rural community, consider applying for The Rural Experience in America: Community Civics through Historical Inquiry. This is a three part program.

• Part 1 is a FREE online asynchronous class focused on using primary sources and inquiry. Frankly, this would be good for everyone--and if you take it and send me your completion certificate, I'll get you OPI Renewal Units.
• Part 2 is a FREE online colloquia consisting of three synchronous Saturday professional development sessions around the theme Rural Lives in Context. This is a prerequisite to apply for the very exciting Part 3 (but you can participate in this even if you don't plan on applying for Part 3). 
• Part 3 is an onsite colloquium at which teachers will work on a plan for their students to create a public history project in their own community. Fifteen K-12 teachers from rural schools will be selected to attend a two-day learning experience at the University of Oklahoma. Teachers will receive $750 to defer travel costs and up to $750 to support their community project.  

Learn more on the National Council for History Education's Rural Experience in America website.

 

 

IEFA Best Practices Conference

 OPI's Indian Education for All Best Practices Conference is one of my favorites, and I'm delighted that it will be held in person this year on Friday and Saturday, March 17-18, in Helena.  REGISTRATION HERE--IT'S FREE! (And, of course, OPI Renewal Units will be offered.) The preconference workshops (Friday morning) include 

• Indian Boarding Schools: From History to Healing Curriculum Development (Morgan Smith and Selana Coburn); 
• Tribal Sovereignty Curriculum Development (Mike Jetty and Lea Whitford); 
• Exploring Home: A Place-Based Educational Resource (Julie Cajune); 
• Everyday Native Curriculum and Resource Implementation (Jordann Lankford Forster); 
• Ethnobotany (presenter TBD);
• and Traditional Games (International Traditional Games Society).

They are still settling on the rest of the program and, in fact, are looking for presenters. If you've been doing something in your classroom worth sharing--around  culture, language, family engagement, IEFA implementation, Native youth leadership, or Indian student achievement, consider submitting a proposal to present. Deadline for submission Friday, January 20, 2023 - don't miss out on this opportunity to share the great work you are doing.

Hope to see you at the conference!

Strategies for Helping Students Think More Deeply

I was cleaning out an old computer file and came across two links to cool strategies I'd squirreled away for sharing some day. That day is today.

From the inimitable Glenn Wiebe: Somebody Wanted But So Makes Your Kids Smarter, in which Glenn shows how to adapt a long time ELA strategy that helps students learn how to summarize to social studies. 

From Facing History and Ourselves: Color, Symbol, Image, a strategy that " invites students to reflect on ideas in nonverbal ways and encourages them to think metaphorically" by asking them to translate something they've read or watched into a color, a symbol, and an image.

You can find many more really cool strategies from Harvard's Project Zero's Visible Thinking website and Thinking Routine Toolbox. Some of my favorites include: 

• I Used to Think... Now I Think
• Think, Pair, Share
• What Makes You Say That
• Circle of Viewpoints
• Creative Question Starts

I love all of these strategies because they encourage students to engage with the material, to think more deeply, and to wrestle with disparate ideas and perspectives. Isn't that always the goal?  

Do you have a favorite strategy or thinking routine you return to again and again? That makes  Let me know and I'll share it out.  

P.S. Don't forget to join Dylan Huisken today at our online PD: 

Hooking Students with History Mysteries

 Have you ever explored TeachingHistory.org? Funded by the U.S. Department of Education and managed by The Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, it is full of great projects, strategies, and resources. It's a site I highly recommend if you are looking for ideas. 

For example, I recently found a couple of old posts on engaging students through history mysteries. 

Former elementary teacher Lisa Cooper wrote this blog about students becoming "history detectives as they explore a historical question and analyze carefully chosen clues to formulate and test hypotheses. The mystery she used to illustrate the technique is extremely relevant to anyone teaching Montana history: "Why did the American beaver almost become extinct in the 1840s?" 

Visit her post for more details on how she implements the strategy, worksheets, and links to clues. Since it's an old post, some of the links are bad, but you can supplement with some judicious searching in the Library of Congress (check out this advertisement for a Philadelphia hat maker, for example) or the Digital Public Library of America (check out this trap, for example) 

I also came across this post by seventh-grade teacher Michael Yell on creating a climate of engagement. One strategy he talks about is "Discrepant Event Inquiry."  You have to scroll about halfway through his post to get to it, but it's worth it. Here's a teaser:

"Imagine that students have just come into your American history class. The bell rings, and you tell your students that they are going to solve a mystery. The first thing they must figure out is what has happened in this story:

A young boy named John lived on a farm in a beautiful, mountainous, wooded area in Eastern Tennessee in 1837. His family planted corn and raised animals for meat, milk, and eggs. John had four brothers and three sisters. The family appeared happy and prosperous. In 1839 the family moved to a treeless, dry, flat prairie. During the journey, two of John’s brothers and one of his sisters died. When they arrived at their new home, the family could not grow enough to feed themselves. John’s father became a member of the legislature and his mother helped publish the local newspaper. John missed his brothers and sister, and his beautiful home in the mountains.

"When the short tale is complete you say to your students: what you must figure out is why John’s family would leave their beautiful farm for a difficult life in this flat dry prairie.

"A timer is set and immediately students begin to question you. But these are all a particular type of questions—questions posed to you must be answerable with only a yes or a no. No open-ended questions allowed—students must figure this story out on their own."

Read more at Michael Yell's post, where he breaks down the four steps to creating a successful Discrepant Inquiry event.  And if you invent one for a Montana history topic, and are willing to share it, please let me know!

P.S. Don't forget to sign up to join Bonner middle school teacher (and 2019 Montana Teacher of the Year) Dylan Huisken via Zoom on January 9, 4:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. for a discussion about Place Based Learning/Local Studies. Register here.

Place Based Learning/Local Studies

 Join 2019 Montana Teacher of the Year, Bonner Middle School teacher Dylan Huisken, for a discussion via Zoom about Place Based Learning/Local Studies on January 9, 2023, 4:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. 

This session will provide ready-to-apply tips on how to implement placed-based education with local history! Register here.

Why should you integrate Place-Based Learning/Local Studies? According to Dylan, "students should be able to see themselves in the curriculum. One of the best ways to do this place-based education, which helps students create relevant and tangible background knowledge by looking for history in their own family, backyard and community.  If we want our students to grow up to be good citizens, we must first teach them how to be good neighbors. This requires perspective and student-led research in their local history."

This online session is an exciting kick off our 2023 learning and sharing series. Sessions will be held the second Monday of the month January-March from 4:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. via Zoom. Attendees may earn one OPI renewal unit. You must register to receive the Zoom link. Learn about other sessions in the series here.