Mississippi Council for Social Studies
Fall Conference
October 20-21
University of Southern Mississippi
Fostering Inquiry through Pairing Children’s
Literature with
Historical Photographs
Kenneth V. Anthony & Peggy F. Hopper
Mississippi State University
One
method for fostering questioning skills involves pairing non-fiction narrative
texts with related historical photographs. In this session, we
provide an example of one way that teachers can pair historical texts with
photographs from digital archives in the Library of Congress.
Anthony, K. &
Hopper, P.F. (2016). Fostering Inquiry through Pairing Children’s Literature
with Historical Photographs. Oregon
Journal of the Social Studies, 4(2),
pp. 31-41.
Jim Crow and Segregation from Library of Congress
NOTES from Conference Presentation
CCSS Focus on inquiry
• Anchor
standard 1: Students will “support claims in an analysis of substantive topics
or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence”
• Anchor
Standard 2 Students “write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey
complex ideas and information clearly and accurately through the effective
selection, organization, and analysis of content”
• Anchor
Standards 7 and 8: Require “sustained research projects based on focused
questions, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation” and
for students to “assess the credibility and accuracy of each source, and
integrate the information . . . “
(National Governors Association Center for Best Practices
& Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010, p. 63).
College, Career,
and Civic Life C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards
• The
Inquiry Arc includes 4 dimensions:
• Developing questions and planning inquiries,
• Applying
disciplinary concepts and tools,
• Evaluating
sources and using evidence, and
• Communicating
conclusions and taking informed action (NCSS, 2013)
Focus on inquiry
• CCSS
and C3 focus on independent research, using evidence, making claims, and
sharing conclusions.
The Importance of
Student Questions
• Focus
on inquiry is not a new idea:
In the 1916 Report: The Social Studies in Secondary
Education, the importance of student questions was addressed: “The best
question that can be asked in class is the question that the pupil himself asks
because he wants to know, and not the question the teacher asks because he
thinks the pupil sometime in the future ought to know.” (Nelson, 1916/1994, p.
19).
The importance of
questions
• In
order to get students to the point where they can make and support claims with
evidence, educators must strive to get students to formulate and then ask
appropriate inquiry questions.
Pairing of Texts as a Comprehension Tool at the Middle
Level
• Pairing
texts
• Twin
texts
• For
social studies, text pairings can help social studies teachers reinforce
reading skills by using forms of literature including both fiction and
non-fiction texts as “a springboard for discussions or reflective writing about
ways humans interact with their environment” (Virtue & Vogler, 2009, p.23).
Pairing Using Historical Photographs
• One
idea that can be used as a springboard is pairing short non-fiction narrative
texts with related historical photographs from digital archives for inquiry
learning (Virtue & Vogler, 2009).
• Chasing
Bandits and Photographs from the Library of Congress
Time, continuity, and
change
• The
goal of reading the book before a related lesson would be to get students to
begin thinking about how different life was in the 1930’s from life now.
• Fraenkel (1992) highlighted the importance of
contrast in helping students to develop “a clear understanding” (p. 266)
through the study of contrasting samples.
• In
this case, the contrasting samples would be the essence of understanding life
there and then to life here and now.
Compare and
contrasting with cultural universals
• Students
may take an interest in a variety of topics represented in this book: play,
segregation, work, day to day life for children in a farming/rural setting, etc.
• Teachers
could also introduce students to the concept of cultural universals.
• Teachers
could use cultural universals as a framework for comparing and contrasting life
at any given time in the past with current norms.
• Reading
the narrative text of Chasing Bandits may serve as the beginning of
students’ understanding cultural universals in Mississippi in the 1930’s.
• Transportation
• Interracial relationships
• Racial
prejudice.
Pairing text and
photographs
• Use
student interest to choose topics for pairing
• Provide
or have students locate photographs from the time period
• Students
analyze using the Library of Congress analysis process:
• Observe
• Reflect
• Question
Illustration from book Chasing Bandits: The Adventures of
John Hart and Theodore Roosevelt Hollumway Jones (Hopper, 2010). Permission
granted by author for use in this article.
“Kitchen in Negro tenant home on Marcella Plantation,
Mileston, Mississippi Delta, Mississippi.” Photograph from Library of Congress
Prints & Photographs Division Washington, DC 20540.
Example analysis
|
Observe
|
Reflect
|
Question
|
|
Three children in the kitchen with an older lady-maybe their mother
|
Chairs are missing
|
Where is Marcella Plantation?
|
|
Wood floor
|
No pictures on the walls
|
Where is the Mississippi Delta?
|
|
One boy, two girls
|
This images was made to show poor people in the Mississippi Delta a
long time ago
|
Why do they have newspaper on the wall?
|
|
Little girl is drinking and spilling what she is drinking onto the
floor
|
This was made with a camera
|
Is this a typical family for this time and place?
|
|
Boy is eating
|
I can learn that a long time ago people did not have the same
luxuries or appliances we have in their homes (at least where this picture
was taken)
|
Do the children own shoes?
|
|
Lady is mixing
|
If this picture was made today, there would be pictures on the walls,
wallpaper, chairs, a bigger kitchen, a refrigerator, oven and other
appliances
|
Where is the father?
|
|
In kitchen- curtains, wooden table with table cloth
|
|
What is the lady mixing?
|
|
Two children wearing hats
|
|
What was the typical daily diet?
|
|
Boy sitting on a bench
|
|
What is the boy eating?
|
|
It appears to be dark outside
|
|
What types of food did they have for meals?
|
|
Poor family
|
|
How big is the house?
|
|
|
|
Do the children have their own rooms?
|
Time, continuity, and
change
• By
going through the observe-reflect-question process, students are challenged to
consider the common things in life that they have that families in the
Mississippi Delta did not have in the 1930’s.
Developing Questions
• As
students conduct their analysis of the photographs, the goal is for them to
begin developing questions.
• The
goal of this example lesson would be for students to first ask “open ended
exploratory questions” (Mead, 1967, p. 29) based on
• the
narrative text from Chasing Bandits,
• their lists of comparison and contrasts with
life now based on the discussion of cultural universals,
• and
their analysis of the historical photographs.
Open ended
exploratory questions
• One
“open ended exploratory question” (Mead, 1967, p. 29) might be “What was life
like for a child in Mississippi in the 1930’s?”
• Students
could then begin to develop further questions based on cultural universals as
they look for clues in the text and in the photographs.
• These
questions can range from the seemingly mundane to the profound.
• Students
might be interested in something as simple as what a family’s typical meal was
or why their walls were covered with newspapers as the historical picture on
Marcella Plantation shows to questions regarding the nature of poverty in
Depression Era Mississippi.
Leading to Inquiry
• C3
Inquiry Framework
• Students
decide which questions to further pursue
• Dimension
1 of the C3 Inquiry Arc focuses on students developing compelling questions.
• Compelling questions are defined as those that
“focus on enduring issues and concerns” (NCSS, 2013, p. 23).
• Within
the context of the narrative and the photographs, students will be able to
develop many compelling questions. Inevitably one that will arise is about how
societies are organized.
• In Chasing Bandits, though the two boys
play together it becomes evident that there is a societal divide between them.
What is the nature of the divide? On page 7, we learn that “Theodore Roosevelt
Hollumway Jones and John Hart went to the movie matinee every Saturday during
the summer. They couldn’t sit together, but after the movie, they walked home
and talked about the action scene by scene.” (Hopper, 2010, p. 7).
Segregation
• To
further illustrate the concept of segregation, the teacher could provide
students with the photograph “Negro going in colored entrance of movie house on
Saturday afternoon, Belzoni, Mississippi Delta, Mississippi”
• The
pairing of the photograph and the narrative text is powerful in that the
photograph is a real image from Mississippi at the time of the story, and as a
result, it moves the concept of segregation out of the book into real life.
• Reading
the book serves as a support to student analysis of the image. Because the
narrative text mentions segregation in the context of theaters, the concept of
segregation as it relates to theaters will be fresh in their minds.
A compelling question
about segregation
• “Why
were there laws enforcing racial segregation in the 1930s?”
• Or
even more abstract, but equally compelling, “Why do societies create rules that
govern human interaction?”
• Supporting
questions are questions that students must ask in order to answer compelling
questions.
• Supporting
questions that students might develop in support of the compelling questions
above might include: “In what other ways was society regulated?”
Beyond questions:
Deeper into the Inquiry Arc
• To
support this inquiry, teachers can access a variety of online databases that
include photographs (including the Library of Congress and Mississippi
Department of Archives and History) that illustrate the nature and extent of
segregation in Mississippi, the South, and the United States.
• To help guide student inquiry, teachers can
teach students the Dimensions 2, 3, and 4 of the C3 Inquiry Arc
The Dimensions
• Dimension
2 is Applying Disciplinary Concepts and Tools which includes locating and using
primary and secondary sources to answer questions.
• Dimension
3 is Evaluating Sources and Using Evidence which can be done using the Library
of Congress Primary Source Analysis Tool.
• Dimension
4 is Communicating Conclusions and Taking Informed Action which will encourage
students to share their results with others outside the school in an authentic
setting.
Final thoughts
• “Children
and adolescents are naturally curious about the complex and multifaceted world
they inhabit” (NCSS, 2013, p. 83).
• Once
students have conducted their initial inquiry with the support of the teacher,
students can then be encouraged to continually engage in the process of
observing the world as it is represented in books, photographs, music, or other
mediums and asking questions.
• With
the help of teachers, some of these questions will be compelling questions that
can lead to further inquiry.
Looking forward….
• C3
Framework refocuses our efforts as teachers on the importance of students’
awareness of their world and the inquiry questions that they may ask as a
result of observation.
• Our
task as teachers is to translate this into classroom practice.
• We
have presented one way that teachers can open a gateway to inquiry by pairing
texts with historical photographs.
