As many of us struggle through this transition from chronological to thematic teaching of history one idea is to teach history using big ideas. The link below is to the book, "Teaching History with Big Ideas," by Grant and Gradwell. Not only does it present ideas about framing history in more engaging ways for our students but offers interesting case studies of teaching History to Honors classes and more. Google Books offers the first 100+ pages of the book for free so take advantage!
Tom O'Toole, formerly of Waltham Public Schools, the current Humanities Director for Essex Tech visited Lawrence High School to present demonstration lessons in English and History. Mr. O'Toole used Brenna Chalifour's US History II classroom to demonstrate how history teachers can use close reading and his system of color-coding the text to write exemplary open responses on MCAS.
Several high schools on campus, notably HLD, utilized writing with colors last school year. HLD students averaged a 2.75 score on the ELA open responses last year. This was higher than the state average of 2.68.
Here is the introduction to Mr. O'Toole's lesson on writing with colors which shows the text they were using (The Things they Carried by Tom O'Brien) and how the system he uses works.
Mr. O'Toole goes on to demonstrate how to properly close read a text for an open response question with students. The lesson is below.
Finally, Mr. O'Toole shares with students anchor papers that illustrate what it entails to get a 4, 3, 2 and 1 on MCAS open response based on the question that was asked. Below Mr. O'Toole breaks down a 4 with students in Ms. Chalifour's class.
Years at LHS: 2 Courses Taught: US History I & US History II Bio: Kaitlin is in her second year of teaching at PFA. Prior to coming to PFA Kaitlin taught for several years in Connecticut at Platt High School in Meriden, Connecticut where she grew up. Kaitlin moved to Lawrence a few years ago and taught at Up Academy prior to joining the faculty at PFA. Kaitlin has experience as a coach and has been instrumental in bringing data analysis into the history department and at PFA. She currently serves as facilitator for the 10th grade team at PFA and is a member of the History Curriculum Committee as well as a member of the NEASC Steering Committee.
Kaitlin, like many, has been struggling with incorporating the Young People's History of America by Howard Zinn into the daily curriculum. Kaitlin utilized a chapter of Zinn on Westward Expansion to have students collaboratively take notes in an activity. Each group created a poster and shared their work with the class in a gallery walk that you'll see in the video. The lesson plan and handouts are attached in the email.
Also, for additional ideas on how to incorporate Zinn please see his website here that offers lesson plans for use with his books.
Years at LHS: 3 Courses Taught: World History, US History I Bio: Lenny is in his third year of teaching at HHS. Lenny came to education after working in the private sector. He did his student teaching with Bryan Ibbitson at the middle school level and then came to HHS after his time there. Lenny is involved with Team Adrenaline and has helped to build that program to a national contender at competitions. Lenny is pursuing his ESL license through the PETALLS program at UMass Lowell currently.
Lenny offered to share how he uses close reading to teach vocabulary comprehension. His classes typically start a new concept by skimming the reading and having students identify words that they don't understand in the context of the reading. Here Lenny is working with one of his 11th grade World History classes in this type of activity.
Our first campus-wide department meeting will take place Tuesday, October 6, 2015 from 8:00 to 9:29. The meeting will begin in the lecture hall from 8:00-8:30 where as a group we will review some key information regarding curriculum, literacy and goals. At 8:30 we will organize into our content groups and work in the library on establishing interventions for our identified learner centered problems.
During the meeting students in our courses will be administered assessments. Grade 10 students in US I & US II will take a diagnostic MCAS prompt on Boss Tweed. The link to the assessment is here. The prompt begins on page 33 (29 on the test) if you scroll down. Grades 11 & 12 students will take an SAT essay prompt on Martin Luther King and his views on the Vietnam War. While this prompt is difficult it is a good indicator of what we need to do to better prepare students for college readiness. The essay prompt is here.
Andrea Gobbi worked on a new graphic organizer that students with an IEP may use on the MCAS. The document is shown below. If you want you may have your students use the graphic organizer on the test if it is applicable to them.
I will be sending out an agenda for the meeting on Monday, October 5th to everyone. Please be on the lookout for this. All principals and APs have been notified regarding coverage for that day.
Courses: US History II, Humanities & AP US History
Bio: I have been a teacher for 14 years, all at Lawrence High School. I was a baker for 32 years before becoming a teacher. I attended Middlesex Community College and UMass Lowell earning my BA in History. After becoming a teacher I earned my Master's in Teaching History from Salem State. I was born an raised in Lowell, MA where I still live with my wife Cindy.
Jerry Hayes has spent countless hours preparing to instruct using a thematic approach between last spring and this summer. Jerry has been working with his students in the first few weeks to build their historical thinking skills specifically in the areas of sourcing, corroboration, contextualization, perspective, and now with this lesson is introducing the idea of essential questions. Please see the video below where Jerry is able to introduce and break down with students what an essential question is. His lesson plan and handouts are available as direct links in the email. Here is also a link to an ASCD article on Essential Questions for those who might be struggling with the idea:
Homework packet feedback was due at the end of last week for all electives and World History teachers. If you have not sent in the feedback please get that back to me ASAP.
We are going to delay the second round of homework packets until after our Department Meeting on October 6th
On October 6th all students will be writing an open response in 10th grade, and an SAT essay for 11th and 12th grades. These will be emailed to you the week before. We will run Test Wiz for the responses to get quick feedback and results.
Reminders
The readers are only suggested materials for US I & US II. It is not the required text. If you feel there are better materials that fit the needs of your students please feel free to utilize those.
I have purchased a copy of an ELL text that is written in a graphic novel form for students. If you would like access to that text please let me know and I can send you a copy of the book electronically.
All students should have been introduced to the essential question for the semester at this point, and the sub-essential questions for the quarter. These will be the focus for our assessments so it is important students have a deep understanding of the question itself.
