-
App Review: Goose Chase
There’s nothing more fun than a field trip. Or a scavenger hunt. Or a scavenger hunt-field trip! Each year we take our 5th-grade students to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to view their Ancient Egypt exhibit. The idea behind the visit is to pique their interest in order to motivate them to…
-
Political Efficacy & Midterm Elections
Happy Election Day, everyone! Today is an exciting, celebratory day in my classroom. Over the past couple of days my young citizens have been exploring the candidates in their legislative districts in order to be informed. We’ve been discussing why midterm elections matter, why their opinions count even though they are still too young to…
-
Focusing Middle School Research Papers: The Lens Question
Each year my colleagues and I embark upon an historical research journey with our students that we inevitably tweak for the following class. Students are asked to write a 5-page research paper about a topic from the North American continent between the years of 1600 and 1776. Easy, right? This year, the focus of our…
-
Reading Primary Sources: Middle School
If we truly want to make our classrooms a place where history is something to “do,” like students “do math” and “do science,” then we have to take note of what the teachers in other disciplines are doing and use those methods, such as observation and interpretation of fact. Cue primary sources.
-
Spotting Fake News
To open the year, our department began with defining and giving students tools to identify “fake news.” Fake news is defined as stories that appear to be true and appear to be from an official news site, but are untrue or have very little truth to them (Cnn10.com). It is especially true in today’s world…
-
National Council for the Social Studies Conference 2018
I am proud to announce that my colleague and I will be presenting at the NCSS 2018 Conference in Chicago. Please visit us if you’ll be there! Empowering Students: Teaching Civic Action in American History Engaging students in civic action is both practical and necessary. American history courses can take a hybrid approach to teach…
-
Invisible Founders: Pride Month Lesson Plans
I realize I’m somewhat delinquent in posting- the end of the year is tough. Professional development takes up a lot of my time, plus I’m hanging out with my family and taking summer courses. However, loyal readers, I bring you my lessons for Pride Month. In keeping with our philosophy of our classes being windows…
-
Reflection for Assessment & Growth
As a reflective practitioner, I see so much value in the way thinking about my teaching can help me improve. I leave myself post-its in my planner so that when I come back to units the following year, I know what I want to change, I keep a notebook for writing down ideas that I…
-
School Violence: Student Reflection
Today my class did a rehearsal for their Project Citizen public hearings, which are at the end of this week. In case you missed my post explaining Project Citizen, you can read it here. One of my classes chose to research and create policy about school violence in our home state, New Jersey. Not only is…
-
History, Political Efficacy, and PBL
I’ve always known that one of the primary goals of my teaching is for students to understand the philosophy behind their rights as Americans, analyze how people have interpreted and defended their rights in the past, investigate how they continue to do so in the present, and to reflect upon their roles in…