NHEC Feed: Home page items

Oyez: U.S. Supreme Court Multimedia

superuser — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 22:21:19 -0500

Featured Website Reviews

Oyez: U.S. Supreme Court Multimedia

These audio files, abstracts, transcriptions of oral arguments, and written opinions cover more than 3,300 Supreme Court cases. Materials include 3,000 hours of audio arguments in selected cases since 1955 and all cases since 1995. Users can access cases through keyword searches or a list of thirteen broad categories, such as civil rights, due process, first amendment, judicial power, privacy, and unions.

Cases include Roe v. Wade (abortion), Gideon v. Wainwright (right to counsel), Plessy v. Ferguson (segregation), Grutter v. Bollinger (affirmative action), and Bush v. Gore (election results). Biographies are provided for all Supreme Court justices and "The Pending Docket" provides briefs and additional materials on upcoming cases. The website also includes links to written opinions since 1893 and podcasts featuring discussions of cases starting in 1793.

Description: Showcases primary sources from more than 3,300 Supreme Court cases since 1955.
Website: http://us.oyez.org/
Producer: Jerry Goldman, Northwestern University

Discovering Angel Island: The Story Behind the Poems

janek — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 19:11:44 -0400

Lesson Plan Reviews

Discovering Angel Island: The Story Behind the Poems

Students explore the immigrant experience at Angel Island through the analysis of poetry written by immigrants during detention at the San Francisco Bay island.

Review

Many U.S. history classrooms devote significant time to understanding the immigrant experience. In teaching the immigrant experience, however, many classrooms focus exclusively on European immigration through Ellis Island. This lesson, The Story Behind the Poems, provides students with an excellent opportunity to learn about Asian immigration through Angel Island, and the ways in which the Asian immigrant experience differed from the European immigrant experience. The topics covered in this lesson would be an excellent addition to a unit on immigration, and would couple nicely with lessons on Chinese Exclusion and nativism in the West.

The lesson first provides students with excellent historical background through an on-line video about Angel Island. The lesson then positions students to better understand the Asian immigrant experience through an analysis of poetry left by Asian immigrants on the cell walls of Angel Island. The poetry analysis allows students to connect with the words of the immigrants and hone the skill of analyzing the perspective of an author in a literary piece from the past.

The lesson is highly structured and provides plenty of guidance for teachers who are not experienced in using poems as primary historical documents. The lesson includes sample questions to pose with students while analyzing the poems and also provides students with a graphic organizer to help them organize their thoughts as they prepare to write a reflection on a poem.

Notes

The lesson includes a video that can be streamed for free on-line (or purchased). Teachers should arrange to either project the video or provide ample computer resources for students to view the video.

Rubric

National History Education Clearinghouse Lesson Plan Rubric
Field	Criteria	Comments
Historical Content	Is historically accurate	Yes The background and resources are historically accurate and contain links to supplementary materials.
	Includes historical background	Yes A high-quality video introduces students to the immigrant experience at Angel Island and is also a great resource for teachers who are teaching about Angel Island for the first time. Comparative immigration timelines are also excellent resources.
	Requires students to read and write	Yes Students interpret poems and write a reflection on the meaning of the poem and the perspective of the author.
Analytic Thinking	Requires students to analyze or construct interpretations using evidence	Yes
	Requires close reading and attention to source information	Yes The poetry analysis requires close attention to meaning and intent.
Scaffolding	Is appropriate for stated audience	Yes This lesson is appropriate for the students in late elementary to early middle school.
	Includes materials and strategies for scaffolding and supporting student thinking	Yes Materials include teacher guidelines for helping students analyze the poems and a graphic organizer to help students organize and focus their thoughts about the poems.
Lesson Structure	Includes assessment criteria and strategies that focus on historical understanding	No Students are assessed based on in-class discussion and a written reflection about the poems. However, the lesson does not provide specific criteria for assessing performance on the reflection.
	Defines clear learning goals and progresses logically	Yes The lesson aims to 1) teach about the Angel Island experience, and 2) provide opportunities to analyze and interpret poetry. The lesson progresses logically to these goals.
	Includes clear directions and is realistic in normal classroom settings	Yes The lesson-plan is clear and can be easily adapted to a wide variety of classroom settings.

Topic: Immigration; Asian American history; western settlement
Website: http://www.kqed.org/w/pacificlink/home.html
Features: Multiple Sources, Focus on historical thinking, Scaffolding of close analysis of text, Further resources for teaching this content, Useful for differentiating instruction, Useful for English language learners
Duration: 1-2 50-minute periods
Grade(s): Fourth Grade, Fifth Grade, Sixth Grade

Lesson Format

Download

Download a blank National History Education Clearinghouse Rubric to create and evaluate your own lesson plans. Blank Lesson Plan Rubric PDF

Evaluating the Validity of Information: Did the Chinese Discover America in 1421?

janek — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 13:56:29 -0400

Lesson Plan Reviews

Evaluating the Validity of Information: Did the Chinese Discover America in 1421?

Students learn to assess the validity of a historical argument as they evaluate the implausible theory that the Chinese discovered America in 1421.

Review

TV presents a great deal of historical information these days, but not all of it is valid or trustworthy. Unfortunately, many students lack the tools needed to assess historical information they see on television. This skill-building lesson presents students with some of the tools needed to assess the validity of an argument made through a persuasive, high-quality visual medium.

In this two-day lesson, students assess the validity of an argument that the Chinese discovered America in 1421. Retired submarine commander Gavin Menzies presents this argument and the evidence to students in two short video clips highlighting the resources available to ancient Chinese sailors to make seven epic ocean voyages during the Ming dynasty.

The lesson is clearly structured and guides students through steps they should take to evaluate historical claims. Helpfully, it includes a student handout that clearly explains the criteria for assessing the evidence of a historical argument. For example students are prompted to look at the qualifications of the person making a claim and to evaluate the persuasive techniques being used. A second handout has a worksheet to help students use the criteria to evaluate specific aspects of Menzies's argument.

Student learning is assessed both through classroom discussion and a culminating essay that prompts students to provide a reasoned evaluation of the claim that the Chinese had the naval capacity to travel to America in the 15th century. The lesson includes a detailed rubric to assist your evaluation of these essays.

Notes

The lesson requires that students view two online video clips. Teachers must either have the audiovisual tools needed to project the video clips from a computer or enough computers for student viewing. Teachers may use this lesson from Teachers Domain without registering for the site. However, registration is free if you want to do so.

Rubric

National History Education Clearinghouse Lesson Plan Rubric
Field	Criteria	Comments
Historical Content	Is historically accurate	Yes The process of examining historical evidence is presented accurately.
	Includes historical background	No The lesson provides clear criteria for assessing historical accuracy but provides little historical background about the specific time period under investigation.
	Requires students to read and write	Yes Students write a final essay, but the lesson does not require significant reading.
Analytic Thinking	Requires students to analyze or construct interpretations using evidence	Yes Lesson requires students to analyze the evidence.
	Requires close reading and attention to source information	Yes Requires close attention to the arguments made in a historical video. Attention to the source of a historical argument is an integral part of the lesson.
Scaffolding	Is appropriate for stated audience	Yes Appropriate for grades 6-8. Could easily be adapted for grades 9-12.
	Includes materials and strategies for scaffolding and supporting student thinking	Yes Provides a well-written student handout of criteria for assessing the validity of a historical argument. A table to help students apply these criteria to Menzies's theory is also provided.
Lesson Structure	Includes assessment criteria and strategies that focus on historical understanding	Yes The lesson provides a solid essay prompt and a clear rubric for assessing the essay.
	Defines clear learning goals and progresses logically	Yes The lesson progresses logically toward the goal of making students think about historical evidence.
	Includes clear directions and is realistic in normal classroom settings	Yes Directions are clear and procedures are realistic in most settings.

Topic: Exploration; Evaluating Historical Evidence
Website: http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/vtl07.la.rv.text.lp1421/
Features: Focus on historical thinking, Scaffolding of close analysis of text
Duration: 2 class periods
Grade(s): Sixth Grade, Seventh Grade, Eighth Grade

Lesson Format

Download

Download a blank National History Education Clearinghouse Rubric to create and evaluate your own lesson plans. Blank Lesson Plan Rubric PDF

Literature and Culture of the American 1950s

superuser — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 11:31:17 -0400

Featured Website Reviews

Literature and Culture of the American 1950s

This collection of more than 100 primary texts, essays, biographical sketches, obituaries, book reviews, and partially annotated links explores the cultural, intellectual, and political trends of the 1950s. Organized alphabetically and according to lesson plans, this eclectic collection of readings is structured around a few landmark texts and topics, including McCarthyism and anticommunism, Daniel Bell's The End of Ideology (1960), William H. Whyte's The Organization Man (1956), feminism, Philip Rieff's The Triumph of the Therapeutic (1966), and conformity in universities.

Materials include substantial excerpts from Vance Packard's The Status Seekers (1959) and the Encyclopedia of the American Left, in addition to retrospective analyses of the postwar period.

Description: Explore the cultural, intellectual, and political trends of the 1950s in a diverse array of primary and secondary sources.
Website: http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/home.html
Producer: Al Filreis, University of Pennsylvania

Stating Your Case: How to Write Thesis Statements and Use Them Effectively

janek — Wed, 20 May 2009 13:10:07 -0400

Teaching Guides

Stating Your Case: How to Write Thesis Statements and Use Them Effectively

What is it?

A three-activity lesson teaching students what thesis statements are and how to use them effectively in writing Document Based Questions (DBQs) and other history essays.

Rationale

Students asked to write brief essays on historical topics often lack a clear sense that such essays have a distinct structure. That structure varies with the topic the student is asked to address, but it usually consists of three tasks:

Using an introductory paragraph to pique interest and state clearly the essay's answer to the question it is addressing.
Using the essay's internal paragraphs to make the case for that answer, hypothesis, or claim.
Using a conclusion to sum up how well the body of the essay has addressed the question, along with any qualifications.

A clear thesis statement is crucial to managing these tasks. An effective thesis statement responds to all key components of the question posed. It provides an answer, or hypothesis, which the entire essay will support or explain. In a DBQ (Document-Based Question) essay, the thesis must also be one the primary sources can support. Finally, if the thesis is clear enough, it should suggest a structure for the entire essay, one that will deal with all key facets of the question or problem posed.

Description

This lesson is based on the belief that students cannot master an essay component such as the thesis statement in the abstract, but will best learn its nature by studying it in the context of a concrete historical problem. Therefore, the lesson's activities are based on an introductory essay and a set of primary source documents on one historical topic—the Haymarket Square bombing in Chicago in 1886. The Haymarket episode is a dramatic one that should also hold student interest well. A single DBQ on this topic and several alternate thesis statements are then used in three student activities. These illustrate what makes thesis statements effective, as well some common problems or mistakes in writing clear thesis statements. The lesson consists of the following handouts:

1. A background essay on the Haymarket anarchists
2. A set of seven primary sources
3. Three student activity sheets—What a Thesis Statement Is, What a Thesis Statement Does, Putting the Thesis Statement to Use
4. Teacher's Answer Key

Teacher Preparation

1. Ask students to read the one-page background essay provided for this lesson.
2. If they are not already familiar with what a thesis statement and a DBQ essay are, discuss the brief explanation at the end of the background essay.
3. Have students study the seven primary sources for this lesson, paying attention both to the content and the sourcing information for each source.

In the Classroom

1. Briefly discuss with students the single DBQ used in all three activities for the lesson.
2. Have students complete Activity 1 and Activity 2. In these activities they will make several choices among alternative thesis statements, all of which respond to the lesson's DBQ. If they have read the introductory essay and studied the sources, these activities will not take much time to complete.
3. Discuss the choices students make for these two activities. The Teacher's Answer Key sheet for the lesson lists the correct choices and offers additional ideas to discuss.
4. Ask students to complete Activity 3 by choosing several sources to use to back up or qualify one of the thesis statements. Either discuss student choices in class or ask students to use their notes and their thesis statement in a brief DBQ essay of their own.

Common Pitfalls

In writing history essays, students may think their task is simply to feed back as much detail and information as they can, perhaps to prove how much they know. If they lack a sense of the overall purpose and structure of such essays, they will not see the central importance of the thesis statement within that structure.
Students in a hurry often fail to tailor the thesis statement to the exact details and form of the DBQ or other essay prompt. They need to pay attention to the question's details, and also to its form (e.g. compare and contrast, explain and describe, assess the validity, etc.), which can guide the way they structure their thesis statement and the essay as a whole.
Students may view the thesis statement as an absolute claim and may make sweeping assertions they can't possibly prove without qualification. They need to see a thesis as a tentative hypothesis, one they should qualify by referring to primary sources that seem to contradict it.
Students need to see that a vague or overly broad thesis statement will make their task harder, not easier. A specific and divided, or segmented, thesis will delimit the task more effectively and make it easier for the student to organize the rest of the essay.

Handouts

Download the handouts for this Teaching Guide.

NHEC Feed: Home page items

Oyez: U.S. Supreme Court Multimedia

Oyez: U.S. Supreme Court Multimedia

At a Glance

Discovering Angel Island: The Story Behind the Poems

Discovering Angel Island: The Story Behind the Poems

Review

Notes

Rubric

At a Glance

Lesson Format

Download

Evaluating the Validity of Information: Did the Chinese Discover America in 1421?

Evaluating the Validity of Information: Did the Chinese Discover America in 1421?

Review

Notes

Rubric

At a Glance

Lesson Format

Download

Literature and Culture of the American 1950s

Literature and Culture of the American 1950s

At a Glance

Stating Your Case: How to Write Thesis Statements and Use Them Effectively

Stating Your Case: How to Write Thesis Statements and Use Them Effectively

Handouts