Today Dr. Nicole Miller and I presented our session to 18 middle level social studies teachers at the MAMLE Conference in Bay St. Louis, MS
http://www.mamle.org/mamle/site/default.asp. Our focus was on how social studies teachers can use primary sources to support language arts objectives in the Common Core State Standards while maintaining a focus on citizenship education. We also shared some Web 2.0 tools that students and teachers can use to analyze primary sources and present what they have learned. The paper is below.
You can also access the paper and presentation at
www.learnbydesign.net
1.
Aims
matter
Common Core State Standards focus
on college and career ready. In the informational reading standards and reading
standards for Literacy in history/ social studies 6-12 the focus is on literacy
skills: “The Standards insist that instruction in reading, writing, speaking,
listening, and language be a shared responsibility within the school. The K-5
standards include expectations for reading, writing, speaking, listening, and
language applicable to a range of subjects including but not limited to ELA.
The grades 6-12 standards are divided into two sections, one for ELA and the
other for history/ social studies, science, and technical subjects. This
division reflects the unique, time-honored place of ELA teachers in developing
students’ literacy skills while at the same time recognizing that teachers in
other areas must have a role in this development as well.” (CCSS, 2010, p. 4)
Social Studies aims:
College and career ready is a very important goal and all teachers should be
included in reaching these goals, but as social studies teachers we need to
focus on and protect our primary mission: citizenship education. Both the
Mississippi Social Studies Framework (2011) and the National Council for the
Social Studies define the aim of social studies to develop and promote
citizenship (NCSS, 2010). The threat is that social studies aims can be lost or
subordinated to literacy goals during implementation of CCSS. Our task as
social studies teachers is to promote civic competence, while supporting
overall literacy goals with quality social studies instruction.
2.
Historical
thinking
Our
goals as social studies teachers and the CCSS standards have the potential to
improve instruction that develops historical thinking making social studies
instruction more rigorous, more student focused, and more authentic. Using
primary sources to reach literacy goals of CCSS and the civic education goal of
social studies is an excellent way to successfully wed the two aims. An example
from the CCSS:
Reading
standards for informational text 5th grade Craft and Structure 4:
Determine the meaning of general academic and domain specific words and phrases
in a text relevant to a grade 5 topic or subject area.
This is obviously a literacy goal, but as social
studies teachers we can achieve the literacy goal or aim but focus on social
studies goals. Our students can read primary sources related to a topic of
study (perhaps excerpts from the Mayflower Compact or Magna Carta as called for
in the MS SS Framework). They will encounter words and phrases that are
unfamiliar and will have to research the meanings of to successfully understand
the document. For the Mayflower Compact (http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/mayflower.asp)
students will have to tackle with a variety of difficult vocabulary and
concepts including:
·
Geographic locations: Great Britain,
France, and Ireland; Virginia; Cape Cod
·
People: Sovereign Lord King James, by
the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the
Faith, &c.
·
Domain specific vocabulary: voyage,
colony, Constitution, Ordinance
·
Domain specific concepts: Body Politick
·
Time: 1620 (what else is going on in the
world?), Anno Domini (what does this mean?)
Other CCSS standards that could be addressed using
the Mayflower Compact include:
·
Key ideas and details 2: Determine two
or more main ideas of a text and explain how they are supported by key details;
summarize the text.
·
Key ideas and details 3: Explain the
relationships, or interactions between two or more individuals, events, ideas,
or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text based on specific
information in the text.
·
Integration of knowledge and ideas 9:
Integrate information from several texts on the same topic in order to write or
speak about the subject knowledgeably.
All of these standards are gateways to not only
improving students’ abilities to deal with complex texts, but also gateways to
deeper understanding of the development of our democracy, the actual events
surrounding the founding of the colony at Plymouth Rock and subsequent events,
and their ability to conduct further research using the initial document as a
spring board for further study.
Though we can support the CCSS using this document
from Social Studies we must focus on our social studies goals. Our social
studies goal might be to teach to the 5th grade Competency: Civil
Rights/Human Rights 3. Understand how political, religious, and economic ideas
and interests influenced the founding of the United States. Objectives A and D. As social studies
teachers we must focus on the social studies goals, while supporting literacy
goals. These two goals can coincide, but the danger is that the social studies
goal will be lost in the narrow focus of college and career.
The point is that we use the standards from CCSS to
meet a social studies goal and not let the social studies goal be lost in the
effort to improve literacy.
3.
Further
thoughts on historical thinking. It is imperative that
we use primary sources in conjunction with the CCSS and the Mississippi Social
Studies Framework to supplement text book based instruction for a variety of
reasons. I base my argument on Clausewitz’s (1832/1989) four uses for
historical events as examples. He wrote that people use historical examples (he
was focusing on military events and the art of war, but his ideas apply to all
of history) for four main reasons:
a.
Explanation of an idea- to make an
abstract idea concrete
b.
Application of an idea- used for proof
of the efficacy of an idea
c.
To support of statement- prove the
possibility of some phenomena or effect
d.
To support a doctrine or theory-
“detailed presentation of a historical event” to prove a theory through
deduction.
Textbooks generally focus on the first two reasons
which only touch lightly on a historical event, which causes problems when an
event is new to students. Because they don’t know enough about the subject,
students will accept poorly formulated or weakly supported ideas or develop
erroneous understandings. Clausewitz advocated the detailed study of an event,
because it is “more instructive than ten that are only touched on.” In other words, to get value from historical
examples and events teachers must teach a “detailed presentation of a
historical event.” (Clausewitz, 1832/1989, p. 170-174) One way for us to do
this is through primary sources.
An example of a making a statement that might be
challenged is from A Placed Called
Mississippi (Sansing, 2013): “The decade of the 1950s was capped by the
presidential election of John F. Kennedy in 1960. President Kennedy was as
committed to the civil rights movement as Abraham Lincoln was to the abolition
of slavery.” (p. 263) In the text book analysis of Kennedy’s commitment to
civil rights the author writes in such a way as to codify the opinion into fact
resulting in many students unthinkingly accepting that view .
An example would be to use the CCSS Reading
Standards for Literacy in History/ Social Studies 6-12 Standard (Grades 6-8) 8.
Distinguish between fact, opinion, and reasoned judgment in a text and 9. Analyze
the relationship between a primary and secondary source on the same topic. This would reinforce the MS frameworks in the
4th grade Competency 4/ Objective B that addresses historical
figures, circumstances and conditions related to the struggle for civil/human
rights in Mississippi and their impact on Mississippi’s society and 9th
grade Competency 4 Objectives A, B, and C which also focus on civil rights.
Students can use primary sources to determine both the extent of Lincoln’s
commitment to abolition and Kennedy’s commitment to civil rights. They could
also compare President Kennedy and President Johnson. Students can use primary
sources and other secondary sources to evaluate claims made in texts.
Analyzing
primary sources. The Library of Congress Teaching with
Primary Sources website has many resources to help teachers and students find
and analyze primary sources: http://www.loc.gov/teachers/tps/.
There are collections of primary sources as well as analysis sheets you can use
with your students. I like the idea of a three step process when analyzing
primary sources:
e. Consider
the context- when was it written, why was it written, and by whom was it
written?
f. Consider
the content- what was said, what arguments were made, what supporting points
were made?
g. Make
connections- to your life, to other events and people in history
So
what is a primary source? According to the Library of
Congress: “Primary sources” are the raw materials
of history — original documents and objects which were created at the time
under study. They are different from secondary sources, accounts or
interpretations of events created by someone without firsthand experience.
Students will most often work with primary sources that have been digitized. (http://blogs.loc.gov/teachers/2011/10/what-makes-a-primary-source-a-primary-source/)
Why
primary sources? The Library of Congress says? “Primary sources
provide a window into the past—unfiltered access to the record of artistic,
social, scientific and political thought and achievement during the specific
period under study, produced by people who lived during that period.” They also
1) Engage students, 2) Develop critical thinking skills, and 3)
Construct knowledge. (Library of
Congress) http://www.loc.gov/teachers/usingprimarysources/whyuse.html
4.
Example.
As a prompt we’ll use another excerpt from The Enduring Vision (2011). In a
discussion of the suffrage movement in the 1870s the text mentions, “When Susan
B. Anthony mobilized about seventy women to vote nationwide in 1872, she was
indicted, convicted, and fined” (p. 476). This is a factual statement but a
“detailed presentation” of the entire event provides a multitude of
opportunities for our students to go beyond the light touches of history and
simple memorization of the fact that Anthony voted illegally in the 1872
election to do what Thornton (2005) emphasized was the main goal of social
studies to “the cultivation of good citizenship” (p. 22). Our students can do
this by tangling with primary sources about Anthony’s trial.
Students could be provided or encouraged to find
documents related to the trial of Susan B. Anthony for voting illegally in the
1872 election. Using the CCSS and while
focusing on the objectives in the Social Studies Framework a teacher can help
her students create their own “detailed presentation” of the event and learn
important knowledge, skills, or dispositions that contribute to effective
citizenship. (Links to several Susan B.
Anthony documents can be found here: http://pinterest.com/ncm39/susan-b-anthony/
Here’s an example: Students can learn about the
concept of a trial by jury, where it is guaranteed in our Constitution, and who
should determine the guilt or innocence of a defendant.
Things
to consider when using primary sources: Immediate context of
the document; larger context of the
document to understanding basic American philosophical and political ideas and
ideals; when the document was written, by
whom, and why; arguments made and
supporting evidence; validity of arguments;
study of diverse sources about the trial; definition of difficult
vocabulary words and concepts; geography; identifying and explaining the
significance of people mentioned in the document, identifying and defining
important concepts, related events.
5.
Web
2.0 Applications.
a. Affordances
of web 2.0 tools can facilitate work with primary sources as well as support
student engagement.
i.
Collaboration: Work in groups to share
ideas about student understanding of primary source documents
1. Highlighting
and sticky notes (can be shared with a class)
6.
Conclusion.
CCSS are here and they provide an opportunity
for social studies teachers to improve social studies instruction by teaching
historical thinking using primary sources. We must insure that the primary goal
in our lessons is a social studies goal focused on increasing civic competence,
understanding we can do this while supporting literacy goals.
7.
References.
Boyer, P., Clark, Jr., C.,
Halttunen, K., Kett, J., Salisbury, N., Sitkoff, H., Woloch, N. (2011). The Enduring Vision: A History of the
American People (Volume II: Since 1865). International Edition. Boston, MA:
Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Clausewitz, C. (1989). On
War (M. Howard & P. Paret Ed. and Trans.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press. (Original published 1832).
National Governors
Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers.
(2010). Common Core State Standards for English, Language Arts, and Literacy
for Technical Subjects. Washington D.C.: National Governors Association Center
for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers.
National Curriculum
Standards for Social Studies.
(2010). Silver Spring, MD: National Council for the Social Studies
Sansing, D. (2013). A Place
Called Misissippi. Lilburn, GA: Clairmont Press. Thornton, S. (2005).
Teaching Social Studies
that Matters: Curriculum for Active Learning.
New York: Teachers College Press.
