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
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