Innovation Through Source Analysis For The Classroom

Have students use their worksheet notes to debate the primary source documents as a class. Use the overheads to focus this discussion on each source in turn. Urge students to follow these ground rules: • Use your worksheets as a guide for the discussion or debate. • Try to reach agreement about the main ideas and the significance of each primary source document. • Look for points of agreement as well as disagreement between the primary sources. • Listen closely to all points of view about each primary source. • Focus on the usefulness of each source to the historian, not merely on whether you agree or disagree with that source’s point of view.

Why is there racial tension and political dissension in America? Why did Russia feel its Crimean invasion was justifiable? How did China become an economic power? These questions are answered by a proper understanding of history, helping us to better comprehend the world of 2015. Education’s role needs to be thus: to prepare students as learned individuals and to exist in such an international community. This is why I think history is still incredibly relevant despite focusing on the

In The Death of History is Bunk, Patrick Watson argues that the decrease of historical content in the curriculum does not indicate that history, as a subject, is declining. While many complain about the decreasing prominence of history classes in Canadian schools, the content of those classes is excessively dull as it consists of memorizing lists of facts. Despite this, there are still protests that knowledge of “defining events” is required to contribute to “the National Conversation”. However, history is not so simple as a list of events—it is the sum of the small happenings in society around the events. A whole variety of factors influence history, which is created by the common people. Unlike Americans, who turn to their constitution for

A more pressing matter is that of the history in the classroom. With the one sided history being instructed to Native students bring a message that “Their history does not matter,” alienation begins to form and all motivation soon leaves the students (Laura).

High school history textbooks are seen, by students, as presenting the last word on American History. Rarely, if ever, do they question what their text tells them about our collective past. According to James W. Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me, they should be. Loewen has spent considerable time and effort reviewing history texts that were written for high school students. In Lies, he has reviewed twenty texts and has compared them to the actual history. Sadly, not one text measures up to the author's expectation of teaching students to think. What is worse, though, is that students come away from their classes without "having developed the ability to think coherently about social

Every decent argument is backed by evidence. In “The Naked Source,” Linda Simon argues that students should learn history by interpreting primary sources. Simon supports her argument that students should confront primary sources to better learn history by using ethos, logos, structure, and tone.

The study of history and the teaching of history has come under intense public debate in the United States in the last few decades. The “culture-wars” began with the call to add more works by non-Caucasians and women and has bled into the study of history. Not only in the study of history or literature, this debate has spread into American culture like wildfire.

Majority of students who enroll in history classes partake in analyzing and gaining knowledge from secondary sources. Secondary sources are second hand accounts after an event has occurred. In particular, there are two secondary sources that students utilize and they are lectures and Wikipedia. Despite being secondary sources, there should be careful consideration when analyzing them. Any material that is taught, displayed, or portrayed in lecture are far more reliable than what is presented in Wikipedia. In an academic setting, it is better to always reference and use information from what was taught in lecture than from Wikipedia. It is not a bad resource to use. In fact, Wikipedia is a type of source that provides information for a variety of things that is accessible via the Internet. However, cautionary actions should take place since Wikipedia is a database that can is written or changed practically by anyone. Since this is the case, there can be instances

a historian about the past. This also shows students how to always make sure if a source is reliable or not and show them that they should question each document (or source them) to know of a source is a reliable one.

It is important to remember to children do not stop learning history when they finish their time at primary school. Maintained secondary schools follow the NC which maintains that all children will continue to learn history by means of the KS3 History Programmes of Study (2013). Therefore it is important to prepare children for more challenging and precise history learning. New topics shall be introduced so it is important children have the skills to ‘identify significant events, make connections, draw contrasts, and analyse trends’ (p.72). It is, furthermore, defined that pupils will ‘pursue historically valid enquiries including some they have framed themselves’ (p.72). This indicates towards children becoming independent critical thinkers, a valuable quality to have in adult

The book, Lies My Teacher Told Me, begins with an introduction in which author James W. Loewen empathizes with the students. He discusses how History, specifically American History, is taught incorrectly. Loewen is able to share his understanding of why high school students think history is boring. He begins his argument with facts and numbers by saying that out of all the subjects in school, history is almost every student's least favorite subject. He goes on to say that teachers also misrepresent history to students by teaching history as a ¨set of facts¨ rather than ¨showing how we got to this point.¨ Loewen’s writing style is much more relaxed than a typical non-fiction

Many Americans today are extremely uneducated and misinformed when it comes to the history of their nation purely because they find the learning of it boring. Because of the nature of American history courses and the distribution of knowledge in America, James W. Loewen wrote the book, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, to make history more relevant to people who’ve been “bored to tears by their high school American history courses” (xii) because to be effective citizens today we must be able to understand our past.

From the first day this year we learned about two different kinds of sources, primary and secondary this standard helped me because I know now the different difference between an image or document you want to use primary source is something that was made in the time here they 're made by someone who 's there during the time the secondary sources something that was not made in the time, or by someone in the time. This standard was a big part of our Native American images in the article story/facts. Another time this standard was used during was during our tiki toki timeline information and images. This is very important to have different perspectives on topics because it is easier to imagine what actually happened. While keeping in mind during my studies for any kind of historical figure I wanted more than just that person 's view, like maybe their wife, kids,mom, father, friend, etc. Native American studies using perspectives of other people really helped me to see through their eyes. For example, in my tribe I used our tribe 's chief as one of the perspectives. It showed what really happened between them and the white to during manifest destiny. For example, when we had to research about the different battles of our tribe, mine being the Cherokee, it really was much better for me to see what had happened through others perspectives. In one of our bigger battles the battle of horseshoe bend, it helped to see

In “Rewriting American History,” Frances FitzGerald claims that “each generation of children reads only one generation of schoolbooks,” and those children only have a particular version of America based on the textbook they read in schools. FitzGerald is correct in her claim that children read only one generation of schoolbooks; however, children do not get a particular version of American history based on their schools’ textbooks. Students should realize that American history is constantly changing, and they cannot only depend on historians’ opinions on historical events. Instead, they should be open-minded to multiple perspectives of history and understand why people interpret it differently.

Above all, the workshops need to emphasize the crucial role of historical thinking skills; how one would teach those skills; AND, how those skills are assessed on the test. While the new Curriculum Framework has done a nice job of explaining these skills, teachers need explicit instruction on how the skills are assessed on the exam. For example, in the CF, neither the description nor the proficient expectations explain that in a periodization essay students must explain how the period was different AND similar to the developments that preceded and/or followed. Even though this is clearly stated on the rubrics for the exam, a teacher new to the course would have to realize that both