The primary goal I had at the beginning of this semester was to learn how to teach history. Most of my education so far has been focused around historical events, themes, and sources. I felt there was a wall standing between the knowledge I had gained throughout my career and the presentation of this knowledge to students. I feel comfortable teaching and I feel comfortable in the knowledge I have on the social sciences, but I was not comfortable combining these traits to become a successful teacher.
The work I have completed this term has helped me bridge this gap. I’m no where near perfect, but I feel much more confident in the classroom because I have learned strategies for teaching history in a way that is accessible and enjoyable for my students.
At the start of this term, I reflected on my past experiences as a student. By doing this, I was able to identify strategies that my past teachers had used that helped me be successful in learning history and grow to love the subject.
This term, I have deepened my own exploration of history by focusing on primary documents. By reviewing the analysis of primary sources and historical thinking skills, I was able to reevaluate what is important for my students to learn.
Lastly, I compiled the resources and strategies I had obtained to create a lesson for students about revolutions. This lesson explores an essential question that moves students toward an understanding not just of historical events but of themes in humanity.
Featured image from PICRYL. Coffee has been a lifesaver this term!
Project Showcase
To begin this portfolio, I want to highlight my final project for this class. The parameters of this project were to create an engaging history lesson, so I took inspiration from one of my favorite units in my student teaching experience. A couple of months ago, my students did a group read out of a chapter from Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States about Christopher Columbus. The group read culminated in a Socratic Seminar that had students discuss the following questions:
Was Christopher Columbus a hero or a villain?
What standards are around today that he violated?
Is he guilty of war crimes or was he a product of his time?
My students rocked the group read and Socratic Seminar, and this left them wanting to do similar activities in the future where they look at historical figures with contested legacies. I remember learning about Dr. Seuss’ racist background in my undergraduate history studies and I realized he would be a great topic for a group read leading up to another Socratic Seminar. For the final project, I figured it was the perfect opportunity to plan for this ahead of time. I found a collection of Dr. Seuss’ most racist cartoons that have him overtly reinforcing white supremacy and advocating for Japanese internment. These cartoons feature horribly racist caricatures that are in Dr. Seuss’ iconic art style. Each cartoon has a set of scaffolding questions that were adapted from the Stanford History Education Group’s historical thinking chart. The idea behind this learning activity is to lead up to a Socratic Seminar where students discuss how the works of Dr. Seuss, as well as Dr. Seuss himself, be remembered in history. Please see the below attachment for the lesson I developed:
TRIGGER WARNING! THERE ARE RACIST DEPICTIONS OF JAPANESE, AFRICANS, AND AFRICAN AMERICANS. THIS INCLUDES THE USE OF RACIAL SLURS
Guided Slides Research Activity
The next item that I want to highlight in my portfolio is a mini research project about Shintoism, Japanese feudalism, and culture during the Edo period. This learning activity pairs nicely with a unit on Japan (assuming the aforementioned topics were covered), but if this is not the case, there are two articles and a video that can provide context. In this learning activity, students are given a set of guided slides. Students are tasked with finding one picture for each of the aforementioned topics. Then, students explain how the picture they selected relates to the theme at hand. Students are able to find a historical or non-historical picture as long as they can relate it to the theme. Students then have to answer at least twosourcing questions from the Stanford History Education Group’s historical thinking chart. The guided slides have areas for students to insert their images, connect to the theme, and answer historical sourcing questions. There is a final slide for students to compile the pictures they find into a collage. Students are given an opportunity to share their work after independent work time. The idea behind this lesson is to have students engage in research and historical sourcing skills (can be applied to contemporary sources as well) that relate to themes covered in a unit on Japan. Please see the below attachment for this lesson:
The final item I want to highlight in this portfolio is my own research about Dearborn Heights, Michigan, a Detroit suburb. Several months ago, my fiancé and I were looking at apartment listings in Michigan because we are moving there in May 2022. While we were browsing, I noticed that the boundary of Dearborn Heights was highly peculiar… I knew there had to be some interesting history behind it. Fortunately, I was given the chance to conduct some historical research in this course, so I took this opportunity to look into Dearborn Heights. I expected this to be an easy, already well-researched story, but this was not the case!
The story behind Dearborn Heights is enveloped in systemic racism in Michigan. Essentially, the incorporation of Dearborn Heights was a meditated, racial gerrymander. The reason why Dearborn Heights has such peculiar boundaries today is because a significant portion of it used to belong to a predominantly Black village (now a city) called Inkster. County planners annexed roughly 10 percent of Inkster as a part of Dearborn Height’s incorporation. The annexed parts of Inkster were in the eastern areas with the lowest Black population. This annexation was fought in two separate court cases, known as Inkster v. Board of Supervisors and Taylor v. Dearborn (plaintiffs representing Inkster in both cases) and they both ended in favor of the incorporation of Dearborn Heights.
Fig. 1. Present-day map of Dearborn Heights and Inkster that indicates the boundary in question. From Google Maps, boundary of Inkster and red arrows added by me.
Fig. 2. Same map as in fig. 1, but with markings to show what Inkster would look like with its older boundaries in relation to Dearborn Heights. From Google Maps, boundary of Inkster added by me.
To learn more, I highly encourage you to check out the below attachment with my research that includes court reporter analyses, a dive into Michigan statutes, and other primary sources relating to the topic:
Between all of my classes and student teaching, this was the most brutal semester I have had in college. Fortunately, I feel that most of my hard work paid off because I am much more confident in my abilities as an educator. As I read through the posts I made in this class, I see a definite increase in my abilities to create engaging history lessons. For my first post in this course, I was asked to write about an engaging lesson in my former history studies. I remembered a mini-research project that a U.S. History high school teacher had me do, and I identified that Self-Determination Theory (SDT) was why I liked the project so much. Given that I never had a history methodology course at the time of this post, the analysis of why I liked this project was very generalized and not social studies specific. While SDT was certainly a reason why I liked the project, I now know that there was so much more at play that contributed to my engagement. In addition to SDT, I used a variety of historical thinking skills that made the assignment much more meaningful and memorable. Now that I am more confident in my teaching abilities, it is my goal as an educator to create lessons that combine elements of SDT, historical thinking skills, as well as utilize the EdTech platforms I learned about in this course to make history as meaningful for my students as it was for me.
My favorite thing about this class was that the work we did felt meaningful. I do not necessarily hate doing busy work, but I would rather be challenged to create something that I will be proud of. With that said, it means a lot that I now have a portfolio that shows off my skills. Here are a few highlights from the semester of assignments I felt strongly about my performance on:
My final project, “Massacre or Riot? Tulsa Race Massacre” is a good place to start. I focused my final project on the Tulsa Race Massacre. I thought it was just something that was appropriate given the general social climate in modern day. It was also something that has been “brushed under the rug” in American History. In its own way, the fact that it was brushed under the rug, almost makes it more representative of American History than many other events we learn about in school. I tried to draw a focus to the fact that history is written and recorded by those in power. It took nearly 100 years for the U.S. Congress to recognize this atrocity as a massacre, rather than a small civil disagreement/riot. The sad truth of history is that those who survive generally decide what is going to be shared to future generations. The mix of several newspapers, images, guided questions, and a redline map made it possible for me to both convey a narrative of why this massacre may have happened, as well as leading students to their own conclusion about why this massacre is being recognized nearly 100 years later.
The next project I was really proud of was my “Investigating the Rise in Cost of Oakland Homes” project. This was, in theory, meant to be an investigation of my mother’s childhood home. I ended up discovering that Oakland’s census data from 1940 was incredibly inaccurate and oftentimes not even complete. I discovered this by mulling through census data for hours, only to find that the data would stop right in the middle of streets, or that houses would just be missing entirely. There were also several discrepancies in data pertaining to the job/income of the homeowners listed which made it nearly impossible to estimate how much homes were worth. This was because the census had figures listed where these homeowners were living in 1.7 million dollar homes making the modern day equivalent of $27,908. It just didn’t make sense. I ended up using several online tools to find average incomes of certain professions, as well as using this average yearly income to estimate the appropriate home cost for someone in that income bracket to estimate the value of the homes I ended up comparing. I also ended up using a redlining map to compare household costs in a “green” neighborhood versus a “red” neighborhood. The green area was more representative of the area my mom grew up from ages 8-12, while the red was more representative of the house she was born in. In both cases, these houses were left out of the census data. Once I figured out the costs of the homes I compared, I then extrapolated that the costs of these areas are affected by crime rate, noise, and other factors that are available for viewing on real estate sites such as RedFin and Zillow. I was proud of this project because I felt like a detective creating it. I really had to dig deep to compare the houses in these different neighborhoods. It wasn’t as simple as viewing census data, and checking the boxes. I really had to use the resources available online to effectively compare the different neighborhoods. It was a lot of fun, and it is a good example of how resourceful I can be when it becomes necessary.
The “Reaction to Moon Landing: American vs. Russia” project was another one that I really enjoyed. It was an interesting challenge to teach an entire lesson with absolutely no lecturing (from videos or myself). With the exception of a short article used for background information, I used nothing except images and contemporary newspaper articles to teach “students” about the Russian reaction to Sputnik/Moon Landing versus the United States’. It was really interesting how much discussion these images invoked. With enough time, the students were able to completely teach themselves what the differences between the two countries’ reactions were. They knew it nearly as well as I did, and I read articles, watched videos, and listened to lectures about it. It was interesting how effective looking at images and reading contemporary newspapers can be for learning. It was fun to create, it was fun to teach, and the students enjoyed it. It was an all-around success.
Finally, “The ‘High Point’ for Vaccines” assignment was the last interesting assignment I am going to share today. Inspired by our current pandemic, I wanted to compare the vaccine response between the Polio Epidemic and the COVID-19 Pandemic. As a child, I always heard about how excited everyone was to get the Polio vaccine, and that they would give students the vaccines directly at school. After seeing the public response to the COVID-19 vaccines, I had to know whether or not Polio was handled in a similar way. I ended up discovering that Polio had nearly a 90% approval rating in the United States. This number has only decreased due to a number of factors such as social media, news outlets, etc. I wanted to show images of the Polio epidemic that elicited both an emotional response but also encouraged thought. I wanted these images to encourage students to draw connections between figures such as “Beewell” and other forms of propaganda used today. My guided questions also focused on how the fear of needles and a phobia of vaccines could potentially be linked. It also begs the question of when/why vaccines began to be administered through needles rather than through another means. This assignment was just a unique reflection on issues that affect us on a daily basis, and it allowed me a really good opportunity to ask interesting questions about how our society has learned to handle epidemic/pandemic threats over the last 70-80 years.
In the end, this portfolio will be an invaluable tool for crafting my future. I enjoyed putting it together, and I am happy that I came out of a class with a good amount to show for it.
Note: Topic and some photographs offer extreme/disturbing images.
Introduction& context: In November of 1978, 918 people perished (primarily by their own hand) in a remote jungle in South America. The event rocked the United States, bringing the word ‘cult’ to mainstream culture and inspiring the callous aphorism: ‘don’t drink the Kool-Aid.’ These people, along with many others, were part of a social organization/church called ‘The Peoples Temple,’ founded by James Warren Jones.
The passing of time and the hindsight of the ‘final day’ has overshadowed the initial intentions behind the movement. This lesson explores the reasons people were drawn too/joined the Temple, its evolution, and ultimate collapse.
This lesson examines multiple documents that span the chronology of the Peoples Temple and present the different ‘faces’ it possessed.
The documents will help build a more personal narrative, rather than a reduction of popular culture. This allows students to think critically about who the individuals in The Peoples Temple were, and their motivations in joining and staying with the group, despite its extreme decline.
I will ask the students to think about what was happening in the United States and why that is a significant factor.
It is ultimately an exploration of how the systematic racism and stratification built into the fabric of the American system is largely responsible for the deaths of these people.
Essential question: What reasons did the people of Jonestown have for joining the temple and why did they ultimately die because of it? Does American society hold culpability? If so, in what way(s)?
Assignment: Students will be exposed to multiple primary source documents and, drawing their own conclusions, asked to critically respond to the essential questions above in a short essay.
From looking at the image, what do you think some of the core values of The Peoples Temple were?
Were they successful?
The Peoples Temple Choir in San Francisco, 1974.
What is the message of this song?
What do you feel when you hear it?
Letter from Annie Moore to her family. Original Source: California Historical Society
What is Annie Moore saying in this letter?
Does it change any opinions you may have had about the Peoples Temple?
Children from all races were raised together. This image reflects one of the core values of the Peoples Temple: racial equality. Jim Jones with a Peoples Temple Member. California Historical Society.David “Pop” Jackson, with Rev. James Edwards in Background, Jonestown, Guyana. California Historical Society.‘Pop’ Jackson, pictured above, oral history. Taken from Stories From Jonestown. Fondakowski, Leigh. 2013
What mood does this picture convey?
Anonymous Poetry recovered from Jonestown. California Historical Society.
Anonymous Poetry recovered from Jonestown. California Historical Society.
Commentary on the disappointment found in the U.S.
