Week 8 in Mr. Bruce's History

Parents and Students,

Happy Halloween! I hope those of us who go Trick or Treating will have weather on our side - it's not looking too promising. Might be a trip to buy some candy and stay indoors... Hey! Did you know that I am archiving all weekly emails on my blog? A few weeks ago I shared with you my class website. Now you can visit mrbruceshistory.blogspot.com to see all of the posts/emails. You can also get to them at the class site and click "Blog".

As I mentioned last week, the first Marking Period is coming to a close. And we are set to complete our first major historical interpretation just in time. This week, we practiced using background information to get a useful evaluation from a piece of evidence. We read two short excerpts written by George Washington, written just a week apart as he was camped at Valley Forge.

In the first letter, he expressed his feelings about Patriotism and its inability to sustain a "long and bloody war." We used what we learned about the deplorable conditions his army had faced that winter -- the defeats by the British that led to the loss of Philadelphia, the cold and poorly equipped soldiers, and the death of 2500 soldiers to cold, starvation and disease -- and how these conditions affected Washington's perspective and overall outlook on the war. As of April of 1778, it wasn't good.

In contrast, the second letter a week later, was full of celebration, opportunity, and hope! We used what we learned about the French commitment to the American cause and realized up that the second letter was written right after Washington heard the news of the Treaty of Amity and Commerce between the United States and France, where they promised full support for the American cause. This news, indeed, was the promise that Washington's army needed to leave Valley Forge and face the British. These things are not just good to know, it allowed us to see the benefit of building an understanding and applying that to how we evaluate our evidence. Through it we can see a deeper connection between and among events along the timeline of the American Revolution.

We spent the remainder of the week in the computer lab employing the strategies we learned to evaluate evidence to answer our individual compelling questions. We'll cap their work off with poster presentations next week where students will display their question, the evidence they used and what it said, and how it pointed to the interpretation they developed. This poster will conclude this unit as well as the Marking Period for Mr. Bruce's History.

I encourage you to explore the American Revolution a little more deeply this weekend and into the next. Ask your student questions about their investigation. What did they find that the textbook couldn't provide? Finally, why does that they discovered, learned, and concluded matter? I also encourage you to take a look again at these events through some of my favorite resources:

• The Revolutionary War - George Washington's Mount Vernon: There are a few short video presentations on here as well as short articles about the War, particularly Washington's influence
• American Memory Timeline Not a timeline in the traditional sense, this is a collection of primary documents from our nation's premier library. The topics list at the right will guide you to the sources which are organized by year
• Gilder Lehrman - Presentations on the War for Independence: Another set of video presentations, lectures, of prominent historians sharing their research and findings about the greatest era of our history

Our next steps are to determine what was created by the Treaty of Paris: One country called the United States of America? Or was it thirteen independently sovereign countries that together called themselves the United States of America?

Stay tuned. We can't learn about the Constitution of the United States unless we break down the reasons it was needed.

Yours,
Mr. Bruce

Gilder Lehrman Presentation - Joseph Ellis

Ellis shares about writing a book on the man who stood out among the greatest men in our history. Pay attention to how he begins (I'll give you a hint: how do we begin?)

Week 7 in Mr. Bruce's History

Parents and Students,

We're ready to round out Marking Period 1 next week. Just like that, a quarter of the school year is behind us. The second marking period is loaded with opportunities for us to practice this process of learning history through questions, gathering and evaluating evidence, and interpretation. Under significant guidance, we will apply this foundation to topics like the creation of the Constitution, putting that experimental government into practice, and a very shaky election year in 1800.

Before you read any further. We worked on two essential assignments this week. Both should be completed by all students before returning Monday:

• Chapter 6 Reading Guide: The Declaration of Independence
• Chapter 7 Reading Guide: The American Revolution

At this point in the year, it is helpful for me to introduce you to the guiding framework for why I lead students this way through History. For me it's been a process that has developed over the last 11 years since graduating from CMU. While CMU provided the right tools to be an effective teacher, it was later that I developed a truly effective practice for teaching history.

It began with a Federal "Teaching American History" grant that the Battle Creek Consortium received that they opened up to all Calhoun ISD schools. While at Union City, that included me - it was AWESOME. I worked with a small group of 8th grade teachers from the Calhoun ISD as well as historians and professors from MSU to build lessons and units. This effort gave us understanding into what history instruction could be. Part of this included an project called "Thinking Like a Historian" created by two historians from Wisconsin. Their framework has been my foundation. Since then, I have gotten further ideas from a book titled Why Won't You Just Tell Us the Answer by Bruce Lesh. His application of very similar methods gave me more strategies to employ. Finally, a project by Sam Wineburg, a renowned professor from Stanford, called "Historical Thinking Matters" has guided me to help students critically analyze primary and secondary sources.

What's more important is that in the last two years, Michigan has taken steps toward making this approach to teaching social studies a more concrete reality. Michigan sent a number of representatives to be a part of a group from several states to develop an instructional approach that can guide teachers in how to teach content standards. Content is what is taught and learned: topics. The C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards defines how social studies should be taught. It fits with how I teach perfectly. The link I included above takes you to a page on my website where I have listed just the C3 Standards. Attached is the PDF document of the Framework in its entirety. The introduction is an excellent read if you are interested.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I would describe what I do in Extension class for those of you who have or will have students in that class. I encourage you to take a peek at www.codeavengers.com (see video below). This website is one of a few resources for learning how to code. My particular emphasis is learning to create for the web, which includes two languages: HTML and CSS. Students take an introductory course and then the hope is to apply what they learn to create a personal site of their own before the 12 week rotation is up. Nowhere else in their public education are these skills provided except in these exploratory classes. Of all of the visual content they have consumed as a user of the web and web based mobile applications, it is essential that they learn about how to produce and create. Across the nation right now there are hundreds of thousands of jobs in the high-tech sector that go unfilled because there are no applicants available. It starts here. It's also incredibly challenging and helps to define academic character.

Until next week,
Mr. Bruce

Intro to Code Avengers:

Week 6 in Mr. Bruce's History

Parents and Students (I'll start including all student addresses to this list, too),

Happy Homecoming! The events and dress-up days of this week have certainly played a big role in making an exciting homecoming week. I hope we all bundle up tonight as we cheer on the ORIOLES!

We have spent a significant amount of time this week developing big questions that we can use to give us purpose to study the past. The unit we began last week is titled (for my purposes) the "Nature and Consequences of the American Revolution." While it is perfectly reasonable for me to create a list of questions that we could use to guide us through this content study, it is essential to "thinking like a historian" that students develop their own compelling questions that they can pursue as we tackle this unit. Here is a the document with all our questions, by hour. Clearly we have much work to do...

It's a perfect way to give us a reason to study the past. What we have done is identify what is called a "compelling" question. This term comes from the C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards - I'll explain more about that next week. A compelling question is one that needs to be answered - it draws us in. These have no easy answer. However, if we break it down into smaller, easier "supporting" questions that we can answer, we are able to build an argument that starts to satisfy our bigger question. Ask your student to share their compelling question with you and talk with them about some smaller supporting questions that need to be answered before we tackle the big one.

I'll save you the long read today. After all it is homecoming weekend. For now, I invite you to take some time to introduce yourself to the class website: mrbruceshistory.wikispaces.com. This has been the home to my class online for seven years or so and has undergone three major overhauls. Anything I need to publish goes there. Students will later use this site to publish their own material and create pages and projects within here to display their work as we communicate what we have learned about the past with the world.

That's all for this week! Obviously, we're headed somewhere now. ;)

Yours,
Mr. Bruce

Week 5 in Mr. Bruce's History

Parents and students,

Well, the second attempt in decorating the room was certainly more thoughtful than the first. During the first few days of school, I welcomed students (in groups) to claim a portion of the classroom wall and bulletin board space as their own and decorate it according to interests and maybe things that pertain to history, even their personal history. Some attempts were good; others, not as good. However, this time around, we had a renewed purpose; and what a difference.

As you read last week, we were to be making posters this week. On Tuesday, after completing the long week of learning about the historical process, I asked them to design (plan that combined both form and function, looks and content) a poster about any part of the process (see slide image below). Overall, it was a success. I'll be sharing some pics of a few of my favorites. And above all, it showed me that we have enough of a grasp of the process that we can move forward with our first unit.

Often, the best historical investigations begin with an artifact... a letter, a poster or a print of some kind. These things almost instantly make us wonder about the letter writer and it's recipient; or about what the picture means? For this reason, I began today by introducing a unit on the nature and consequences of the American Revolution with a letter written by the most misunderstood (in my opinion) of our Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton. It was written during the fifth year of the war and reveals a depth of despair we never read about in textbooks.

As Washington's "aide-de-camp" (personal secretary of sorts), Hamilton certainly had a unique perspective on the war. We want to use this document to insert us into the study of the American Revolution using an array of big questions to choose from. From there, students determine the sources needed to give them what they need to answer their question. And we're off! I can't wait to see where this takes us.

If you are so inclined this weekend and into the coming week, inquire about this letter. I've attached it for you (along with a special intro sheet students don't have ;) Also, ask them questions about the process of doing history: remember it's questions, evidence, and interpretation. Use the "Thinking Like a Historian Guidesheet" (attached) to make it clear to them that you know what you're talking about.

Lastly, ask about their week overall. What was the best thing that happened, what brought them down (don't forget to follow that with "What did they do to overcome that?").

Next week, I am going to try to mention what I'm doing in Extension. It's worth sharing...

Until then, yours,
Mr. Bruce

P.S. Have you seen the class website: mrbruceshistory.wikispaces.com ? I am going to be referring you there more and more as we go forward.

Week 4 in Mr. Bruce's History

Parents and students,

Hello, October! It certainly is starting to feel like Fall... And I am loving it. Honestly, the temperature of the classroom jumps what feels like an immediate 20 degrees as soon as the class of 34 enters the room. Having a cool breeze come through the windows is welcome, to say the least. Even so, we certainly heated things up this week with the process of history, or the historical thinking.

[I originally had this at the end of the email, but I feared that some might not get to the end... I hope you take a moment to read the entire email, but this paragraph was important enough to me to promote it]
I should also mention that earlier last week I began each hour with an excerpt from an article called "Ten Truths Middle Schooler's Should Know." It is written by a woman, named Kari Kubiszyn Kampakis, who works with and counsels adolescents (particularly girls). I have been featuring one truth each day and we will end Monday with "Truth #1: YOU ARE AWESOME!" Please check them out and talk to your adolescents about them to reinforce that #1 truth and the other nine.

Last week I provided a glimpse into what this week was all about. After a great deal of notes (which become an instant resource/guide in their binders), we have completed the overview of how historians engage with their craft. It's as easy as a three step process, but that really doesn't cut it. Historical thinking begins with questions that have no answers that can be "found". What this means is that we can't just use the textbook, although it's a great starting point. Our questions require us to gather and evaluate evidence in a way that a detective pieces together a crime (or Mr. Engel investigates an incident in the hallway). Digging into primary and secondary sources this way leads us to an understanding that transcends the textbook. As I tell them, our books simplify and dumb down history so it fits between the covers. We can't settle for that! No wonder why most of us thought history was boring in school...

If this is the case then answers are not "found" but are completely new thoughts, created from the analysis of multiple perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences and as people, ideas, and events collide in a unique time and place. In this way, your kids will be contributing to the historical record as baby student historians!

The number one thing that I may need your help with is the understanding that I am going to push them to stop settling for easy questions and answers. The work of history forces us to seek out understandings that are synthetic, that is, are completely new and original ideas that come out of their connections made from the evidence/sources. This is substantially different from finding ideas and concepts that are simply in the textbook or on Wikipedia. Our students are conditioned by the time they are in 8th grade to think that answers are findable. They will resist the notion that they have the cognitive capacity to interrogate the evidence. They will become desperate for a secondary source in which the answer is waiting for them. In fact, it doesn't exist. Yet.

There's a number of things I want you to have so you can look through it to support your baby student historian. Much of what we focused on is found on the page of my class website devoted to this: Mr. Bruce's History - Thinking Like A Historian. The slides embedded there contain the lesson on questions, evidence, and interpretation. You also have on that page the note sheets students used and created as a resource. Finally, I sent the rubric in last week's email (attached below). Please look at again. Read down the "Level 1" column to see what is considered "Below Expectations". You should see how simply finding answers and writing them down is not enough.

As always, let me know what you're thinking and with your struggles in support of your student.
Next week, we are going to loosen it up a bit and do some redecorating with posters about all this stuff - make sure we all get it... Have them ready with their creative side.

Yours,
Mr. Bruce

Historical Process Rubric