Week 3 in Mr. Bruce's History

Parents and students,

After another great week with your kids, I am energized by the way they have taken to the beginnings of the study of the past. Here's what we've done this week to make me feel this way.

We didn't start all that awesome. Monday was the pre-test. This is essentially the final exam that they will take in June. They didn't take too well to it because it asked them to do things they didn't understand. And that's quite the point, that there's much to learn this year! Tuesday/Wednesday, we explored why this is such a valuable course of study and what it provides us as students, as well as members of a large civic body. Consider asking your son/daughter "why history"?

We finished the week by exploring that first step toward what makes "history" history: Questions. All history (that is the study of the past - an active discipline) begins with good questions. And good questions allow us an opportunity to dig deeper and truly understand the past, as opposed to settling for superficial trivia. We also explored categories of inquiry to help guide us toward the kinds of questions to ask of the past. For example, as them which question is better and why:

• Were people killed as a result of the “Boston Massacre?” 
• Were the British soldiers justified in firing on the colonists the night of the “Boston Massacre?” 

All this leads us toward building a better inquiry, a way to discover the past.

And because I brought up the idea of assessment, I might as well introduce you to the three main criteria I will ask them to demonstrate, and progressively improve on, through the year. I have attached the Historical Process Rubric. The three categories are what we will focus on into next week as we move through the three steps of this process: Questions, Evidence, and Interpretation.

Next week we will use what we learned about good questions to consider what it means to gather and evaluate the evidence needed to begin to answer our questions. This is step 2 in our process and it is, by far, the most difficult part. It requires deep text analysis and reading in a way that is altogether new. We will do this by jumping into content for the first time. I think we're ready...

Thanks for taking the time to come with on this "journey." Stay in touch. Keep me motivated to continue these updates :)

See you at the game tonight! Go QMS Band!!!
Mr. Bruce

Historical Process Rubric