Week 2 in Mr. Bruce's History

Parents and students,

Each of us took a piece of a puzzle
and attempted to put it together. 

I would have thought our first 5-day week of this school year to have felt a little longer than it did. Rather, it blew by...! At this rate it will be Thanksgiving before we know it.

We began with the follow-up presentation from the "My Three Artifacts" assignment that went home last weekend. These 60-second presentations allowed students a chance to share a piece of themselves to their classmates and what that object says about them. While this is a task directly aimed at making them see embedded into the study of history, it also allows us to build community.

This aspect of community is essential to learning history by "doing" history. We ended this week with our first glimpse into what history really is: the study of the past through questions, analysis of evidence, and constructing an interpretation of what we find. In order to introduce this extended definition of history, we use the puzzle as an analogy and each piece as an artifact. If puzzle pieces are scattered around in the possession of many individuals/owners, we must be able to communicate and collaborate in order to put artifacts together and construct the bigger picture. Consider discussing these questions at home:

• How is history like a puzzle? 
• What does each puzzle piece represent? 
• What do you think historians do when there are puzzle pieces missing (see the attached image)? 
• Is it possible to force a puzzle piece where it doesn't actually belong? What if a historian does this? 
• If history is like a puzzle, what makes a good historian? 

Next week we are going to extend this conversation and dip our toes in the water. That is, after we take a pre-test. Nothing to prepare for - just a way to create a baseline of data to compare students to themselves at the end of the year. We will be deep into doing history and ready to apply some new skills by the end of the month. Next week I'll be sharing more about what this process looks like on paper and how I will be assessing it. From there, you'll learn more about what content we will learn through this process.

Have you subscribed to Remind yet? Has your son/daughter? If so, awesome. If not, take literally 30 seconds and text @qms-ushist to 81010 and follow the instructions. Curious about the benefits? See Resources for Parents.

Shaping up to be a fantastic year!
Mr. Bruce