Teaching with Primary Sources to Prepare Students for College, Career, and Civic Life-Volume 1

Teaching with Primary Sources to Prepare Students for College, Career, and Civic Life

Volume 1

This book was funded by the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) grant.

For more information about the Teaching with Primary Sources program, visit loc.gov/teachers.

Editor Scott M. Waring

For National Council for the Social Studies Staff Editors Laura Godfrey Nancy Driver Designer Rich Palmer Executive Director Lawrence M. Paska Project Coordinator Ashanté Horton

ISBN 978-0-87986-124-7 © Copyright 2024 National Council for the Social Studies This e-book may be used freely for educational purposes. It is not for resale.

ii Teaching with Primary Sources to Prepare Students for College, Career, and Civic Life, Volume 1

National Council for the Social Studies 8555 Sixteenth Street • Suite 500 • Silver Spring, Maryland 20910 • socialstudies.org

NCSS BOARD OF DIRECTORS, 2023–2024 OFFICERS Wesley Hedgepeth PRESIDENT Collegiate School Richmond, VA

Jennifer Morgan PRESIDENT-ELECT West Salem Middle School West Salem, WI

Tina Ellsworth VICE PRESIDENT Northwest Missouri State University Maryville, MO

Shannon Pugh PAST PRESIDENT Anne Arundel Public Schools Annapolis, MD

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Alex Cuenca Indiana University Bloomington, IN (2026) Carly Donick Cabrillo Middle School Ventura, CA (2026) Kimberly Huffman Wayne County Schools Smithville, OH (2024) David Kendrick Loganville High School Loganville, GA (2025)

Heather Nice Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum Springfield, IL (2026) Stephanie Nichols Narragansett Elementary School Gorham, ME (2025) Carla Powell Zachary High School Zachary, Louisiana (2024) Chanda Robinson Robinson Consulting, LLC Columbia, SC (2024)

Joe Schmidt Bill of Rights Institute Augusta, ME (2024) Sharon Thorne-Green Katy Independent School District Katy, TX (2025) Marc Turner Spring Hill High School Columbia, SC (2026) Anne Walker Edison High School Alexandria, VA (2025)

Deborah Robertson Ex Officio|House of Delegates Steering Committee Chair (2023–2024) Harper Woods School District Harper Woods, MI

NCSS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Lawrence M. Paska EDITORIAL STAFF ON THIS PUBLICATION Laura Godfrey, Nancy Driver DESIGN AND PRODUCTION Rich Palmer

The following reference information should be used in the citation of this book: Waring, S. M. (Ed.). (2024).

Teaching with primary sources to prepare students for college, career, and civic life (Vol. 1).

National Council for the Social Studies.

iii Teaching with Primary Sources to Prepare Students for College, Career, and Civic Life, Volume 1

Table of Contents Introduction p. VI Scott M. Waring, University of Central Florida Lawrence M. Paska, National Council for the Social Studies Chapter 1 p. 1 Welcome to the Wonderful World of Primary Sources! Let’s Get Sourcing!

Brian Furgione, University of Central Florida Corey R. Sell, Metropolitan State University of Denver Tina M. Ellsworth, Northwest Missouri State University Chapter 2 p. 22 An Inquiry Approach to Planning With Primary Sources Corey R. Sell, Metropolitan State University of Denver Brian Furgione, University of Central Florida Ilene R. Berson, University of South Florida Michael J. Berson, University of South Florida Chapter 3 p. 43 What Makes a Family? See, Think, Wonder Ilene R. Berson, University of South Florida Michael J. Berson, University of South Florida Chapter 4 p. 69 Geographic Thinking With Primary Sources: How Does the Geography of Where We Live Influence How We Live?

Ilene R. Berson, University of South Florida Michael J. Berson, University of South Florida

iv Teaching with Primary Sources to Prepare Students for College, Career, and Civic Life, Volume 1

Chapter 5 p. 87 Bayard Rustin: Does Your Labor or Label Matter More?

Corey R. Sell, Metropolitan State University of Denver Chapter 6 p. 122 How Are We Connected to Those in the Past?

Tina M. Ellsworth, Northwest Missouri State University Chapter 7 p. 151 Using Library of Congress Resources in Purposeful Social Studies Assessment Jeffery D. Nokes, Brigham Young University

v Teaching with Primary Sources to Prepare Students for College, Career, and Civic Life, Volume 1

Introduction If you are reading this introduction, then we are guessing that you are a social studies educator and/or teacher candidate who is interested in finding diverse, authentic, and engaging ways to better prepare your student population for participatory citizenship through the use of primary sources. If so, then this book will be a terrific resource for you. The authors of the chapters in this book are some of the leading thinkers, scholars, and educators in social studies education and routinely utilize primary sources in amazing and dynamic ways in their methods courses, as well as in pre-K–12 classrooms across the country.

This book was developed as part of the Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) project of the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) through a grant generously provided by the Library of Congress. NCSS and the University of Central Florida are proud members of the TPS Consortium, which is comprised of educational organizations nationwide to support high-quality teaching and learning using the vast and free public collections of the Library of Congress. This project was born out of a desire to provide first-class resources for teaching with primary sources through the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards.

The C3 Framework was released in 2013 and published by NCSS based on a partnership with hundreds of social studies educators and over a dozen social studies-focused organizations. It has since been adopted or adapted into the social studies standards by a majority of states and, thus, is a significant source of design and implementation of social studies curriculum, instruction, assessment, and professional development for grades K–12.

The framework itself is organized by four key dimensions outlining critical elements for authentic and engaging social studies education: •

Dimension 1: Developing Questions and Planning Inquiries. What questions can we consider for social studies inquiry in grades K–6 or grades 6–12?

•

Dimension 2: Applying Disciplinary Concepts and Tools. What does interdisciplinary practice look like in order to prepare all students for college, career, and civic life?

What is a case study that helps us structure interdisciplinary learning with primary sources?

•

Dimension 3: Evaluating Sources and Using Evidence. How do we access and select specific primary sources to answer our inquiry question? What are proven strategies for working with primary sources? What accommodations, scaffolds, and considerations should we consider with primary source use? How do we supplement additional resources with our primary sources?

•

Dimension 4: Communicating Conclusions and Taking Informed Action. How do we assess student learning through primary sources and through answers to an inquiry question? What do we do with our “answered questions”? In other words, how we can

vi Teaching with Primary Sources to Prepare Students for College, Career, and Civic Life, Volume 1

apply the concept of “informed action” as an action from our inquiry learning?

The C3 Framework and its Inquiry Arc were chosen as the organizational basis for this book, both because NCSS is a proud and active supporter of professional standards and learning built on this Framework and also because the Framework models and supports how primary sources work in all four dimensions of the Inquiry Arc. The authors of the chapters found within this book focused on all four dimensions of the Inquiry Arc found within the C3 Framework; however, special attention was paid to Dimension 4: Communicating Conclusions and Taking Informed Action as we wanted this resource to help educators think about how to take learning with primary sources beyond the confines of the classroom walls in a variety of ways with real-world application.

As we embarked on this journey of developing a series of books focusing on the C3 Framework, taking informed action, and teaching with primary sources, we wished for and envisioned chapters such as the ones that have come to fruition here. Our hope is that this book can serve as an introduction and resource for teacher candidates and/or educators at all levels who are passionate about social studies education and who want to help their students better understand how to construct narratives based on available evidence and how their acquired knowledge can inform action. The chapters that follow are from some of the best methods professors and educators who are teaching with primary sources as a means to producing and supporting active and engaged citizens.

Lastly, we want to personally thank you for your effort and time in reading this book and for having the desire to provide opportunities for authentic inquiry in your own classroom. One of the most powerful gifts and lessons that you can provide your students is to help them to learn and understand authentic and effective ways of understanding the past and the world in which they live. From this, these empowered individuals can take the knowledge gained in your classroom out into their own communities to take informed action to better the world in which they learn, work, and live.

Scott M. Waring, Ph.D.

Lawrence M. Paska, Ph.D., CAE

Professor and Program Coordinator of

Executive Director

Social Science Education

National Council for the Social Studies

University of Central Florida

vii Teaching with Primary Sources to Prepare Students for College, Career, and Civic Life, Volume 1

Chapter 1

Welcome to the Wonderful World of Primary Sources!

Let’s Get Sourcing!

Brian Furgione, University of Central Florida Corey R. Sell, Metropolitan State University of Denver Tina M. Ellsworth, Northwest Missouri State University

1 Welcome to the Wonderful World of Primary Sources! Let’s Get Sourcing!

Figure 1. Construction of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., April 19, 1893

Note.

Handy, L. C. (1893). Construction of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., April 19, 1893 [Photograph].

Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/item/2007664045

Give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking, or the intentional noting of connections; learning naturally results. (Dewey, 1916, p. 181) Take a moment and think about how our world is shaped, how perspectives are built, how narratives are created, and how evidence is left behind. The study of social studies hinges on high-quality inquiry driven by strong, relevant source materials. This book is intended to engage you (and, more importantly, your future students) in authentic, inquiry-based lessons that leverage primary sources to do so! (A primary source is an artifact created during the time period which is being studied—more on that later.) The chapters will equip you with tools, skills, and approaches to develop social studies inquiries grounded in primary sources.

A variety of inquiry designs will be leveraged including the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework (National Council for the Social Studies [NCSS], 2013). Let this chapter serve as an introduction to primary sources and the purposes of teaching with them. We will introduce you to the Library of Congress (the de facto national library; see Figure 1) and its website, and provide navigation tips for locating primary source materials that will help build a foundation from where you can curate the resources necessary to enhance your approach to teaching social studies in the PK–12 classroom.

When it comes to incorporating sources into the classroom, the sky’s the limit. Using intriguing sources in conjunction with compelling questions will support you in developing authentic inquiries and investigations that challenge students to think and develop as scholars and citizens. To set the stage and prime your thinking for using primary sources to paint vivid narratives of history, we must first ask ourselves, what is a source?

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What’s in a Source? An Overview of Primary and Secondary Sources When you think about the study of social studies, the conversation often relies heavily on textbooks and second-hand (or third- or fourth-hand) accounts of the story. But where do those stories come from? How do we know that the stories we hear are accurate? In their pursuit of answers, historians ask questions about the past and consult evidence left behind from people who lived at the time. They engage with sources to solve mysteries of events and time periods long gone. These sources allow historians to construct meaning of the past and bring historical narratives to life. As social studies teachers, it is our job to position students to engage in the same type of work, which is critical to developing responsible and active citizenship skills. Accessing quality sources allows for authentic inquiry-based social studies.

But what is a source, and how do you know if the ones you have are of high quality?

If you were to go out and research “sources,” you would find a host of definitions, examples, and conceptualizations. Historians often label sources they use to construct narratives as “evidence” in the study of history, as the sources serve as evidence to support a claim (Barton, 2005). Some scholars argue for the labeling of these artifacts as “historical sources” (Barton, 2005; Faculty of History, 2020), as they serve to encompass a more inclusive definition and limit the binary categorization bias that may occur when attempting to label all sources as primary or secondary. For the authors in this text and specialists and librarians at the Library of Congress, the common vernacular utilized to describe sources in the PK–12 classroom is primary and secondary sources.

• Primary sources are artifacts created during the time period which is being studied.

There are many different kinds of artifacts, but they often include letters, diary entries, newspaper articles, photographs, and videos. In contemporary studies, they may also include tweets, Instagram or Facebook posts, and even TikToks.

• Secondary sources, on the other hand, are synthesized items, typically one-step removed and not created at the time of study. There has been a level of analysis or interpretation applied to the source by someone else. Secondary sources may include textbooks, interpreted data, and scholarly articles.

Table 1. Examples of Potential Primary and Secondary Sources Examples of Sources You May Investigate at the Library of Congress Traditionally Labeled Primary

Traditionally Labeled Secondary

• Diaries/Journals • Photographs • Audio Recordings • Government Documents • Newspapers Note.

• Textbooks • Encyclopedias • Biographies • Altered Images • Synthesized Videos

The introduction to primary sources from KidCitizen may be used to help introduce your elementary students to sources: www.kidcitizen.net/episodes-blog/what-are-primary-sources.

3 Welcome to the Wonderful World of Primary Sources! Let’s Get Sourcing!

If you read this list and thought to yourself, Wait, some of these things could be both … you are right! What is considered a primary source or a secondary source is often a moving target.

As the time period of study changes and the lens of inquiry is shifted, a secondary source may become a primary source. For example, a textbook from the 1800s could be considered a fantastic primary source if you are studying the educational experience of students in the 1800s. Imagine if you were exploring the lives of the Algonquin People and came across an engraving of an Algonquian Village created in 1619. We know this was created during the time the Algonquin People lived in this depicted area, but the drawing was created by John White, an English explorer and settler, not by the Algonquin People themselves, so it would be considered a secondary source rather than a primary source. If, however, your question was centered on the perspective of the Anglo-settlers, this would then be considered a primary source. It is crucial to understand that a source type is not binary, meaning that it is not one or the other, primary or secondary: It can be either, depending on the question (Bober, 2018). What is considered a primary source or a secondary source will depend on the question driving the inquiry. The question you and your students are investigating will alter the lens through which you will look at each source. In other words, the categorization of the source is contingent on the question being asked.

Some common misconceptions regarding primary and secondary sources should be addressed: • Misconception: Primary and secondary sources are one-size-fits-all.

• Reality: Depending on the question, the lens by which the sources are viewed can be changed, altering the status of the source from primary to secondary. For example, in 2020, The New York Times, a newspaper, published an article on the 1918 influenza (Berry & Dickerson, 2020). Just because this article was printed in a newspaper does not mean it is automatically a primary source. Instead, it is a secondary source about the 1918 influenza, as the authors are interpreting a historical event and use embedded primary sources to serve as evidence for their argument. If your question was about the 1918 influenza, this article would be considered a secondary source, with primary sources inserted within. If, in 50 years, you want to know what newspapers were saying about the 1918 influenza in 2020, then it would be a primary source. It is all about the question.

• Misconception: Primary sources are more reliable than secondary sources.

• Reality: A source’s categorization does not equate to its reliability, bias, or quality.

Primary sources are often littered with the bias of the creator, and while primary sources do serve as windows into the past, they need to be evaluated from a holistic lens. At times, a secondary source, which corroborates multiple sources, may provide a more real account than a singular primary source. For example, there is a preponderance of evidence that American slavery was horrific; however, a very narrow/limited examination of evidence may mean that you only see a source or two

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from slavery apologists who glorify slavery, or at a minimum, downplay the severity of the institution. This type of primary source in an investigation about American slavery, without corroboration, could lead investigators to draw inaccurate and dangerous conclusions about the subject. When historians construct secondary sources, they first have to corroborate multiple sources like these to try to gain a more holistic view of slavery.

Having grounded an understanding of sources, let’s have some fun with sources made by you (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Library of Congress—Adapted Professional Development Activity Pop-Out Leaving Evidence Behind 1. Think about all the activities you were involved in during the past 24 hours.

2. List as many of these activities as you can remember on a piece of paper.

3. For each activity on your list, write down what evidence, if any, these activities might have left behind. Examples might include receipts, notes, text messages, security surveillance data, signed credit card documents, voice messages, social media posts, etc.

4. Which of your pieces of evidence would be labeled a primary source?

5. Review your list of evidence left behind and reflect on the following questions: • Which of your daily activities were most likely to leave trace evidence behind?

• What, if any, of that evidence might be preserved for the future? Why? • What would a person from the future be able to tell about your life and your society based on evidence of your daily activities that might be preserved for the future? What might be left out?

6 Now, think about a more public event currently happening, such as a court case, election, public controversy, or new law being debated, and think about the following: • What kinds of evidence might this event leave behind?

• Who records information about this event? How might their perspective impact their recording?

• For what purposes are different records of this event made?

• What evidence seems most reliable?

7. Think about your 24 hours and compare it to the public event. Is there a different criterion for quality primary and secondary sources? If so, why?

Wrap Up: Reflecting on this brief activity, what is the importance of primary source evidence in social studies, and how might you use this activity in your classroom?

Note.

This activity was adapted from a Library of Congress professional development activity. The full activity and supplemental materials are available on the Library of Congress website: www.loc.gov/programs/teachers/professional-development/activities/.

5 Welcome to the Wonderful World of Primary Sources! Let’s Get Sourcing!

The Aims and Purposes of Teaching With Primary Sources When you think about a social studies class—or any class for that matter—helping students construct meaning and develop understanding of core content and multiple perspectives is essential. To do this, powerful and authentic narratives need to be analyzed and investigated.

Short of taking a field trip to an actual location, can you think of a better way to transport your students back in time than reading diary entries from actual historical figures, watching the same videos children their same age were watching, or listening to a radio broadcast from the exact moment of a life-changing event?

Teaching with primary sources allows a teacher to create classroom experiences that bring history to life and meaningfully engage students in their studies. Primary sources have the ability to leverage the first-hand accounts of history, which make up the rich fabric of the stories that students are studying. Within a classroom, teachers can use primary sources to provide students a space to construct knowledge and grapple with difficult contradictions within the traditional historical narrative. For example, questions such as these can emerge from a primary source: • Should the United States have used the atomic bomb during World War II? • How was the institution of slavery antithetical to the Constitution and the principles of democracy?

• How were children impacted by legislative actions regarding work conditions in the 1930s?

Armed with a rabbit-hole-style question and some good sources, a teacher can turn almost any topic into an inquiry-based adventure.

There are a multitude of reasons to engage students in the study of primary sources.

Students who engage with primary sources are more likely to develop critical thinking skills (Seixas, 2011; VanSledright, 2011), have the ability to decipher fake news (Breakstone et al., 2018), and engage in deeper, more meaningful classroom inquiry (Reisman, 2012).

Engaging in source-driven inquiry also ensures that students do not view historical events and developments from a monocausal lens; instead, sources embed various layers of nuance, causality, and perspectives that impact historic events (Waring & Robinson, 2010). Primary sources allow students to not just study the past but truly engage with it. Sources have the power to transport students to another place and time and allow students to view the world from a different lens. Teachers can utilize primary sources to create lessons that not only teach content but also have students constructing meaning and building their own historical narratives, which will create lasting impressions on the student’s ability to think deeply.

Further, the Library of Congress (n.d.-b) points out that teaching with primary sources has the ability to 1. Engage students • Primary sources help students relate in a personal way to events of the past and

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promote a deeper understanding of history as a series of human events.

• Because primary sources are snippets of history, they encourage students to seek additional evidence through research.

• First-person accounts of events help make them more real for students, fostering active reading and response.

2. Develop critical thinking skills • Many state standards support teaching with primary sources, which require students to be both critical and analytical as they read and examine documents and objects.

• Primary sources are often incomplete and have little context, so students must use prior knowledge and work with multiple primary sources to find patterns.

• In analyzing primary sources, students move from concrete observations and facts to questioning and making inferences about the materials.

• Questions of creator bias, purpose, and point of view may challenge students’ assumptions, allowing students to develop critical thinking skills.

3. Construct knowledge • Inquiry into primary sources encourages students to wrestle with contradictions and compare multiple sources that represent differing points of view, confronting the complexity of the past.

• Students construct knowledge as they form reasoned conclusions, base their conclusions on evidence, and connect primary sources to the context in which they were created, synthesizing information from multiple sources.

• Integrating what students glean from comparing primary sources with what they already know, and what they learn from research, allows students to construct content knowledge and deepen understanding.

With a better understanding of primary sources, let’s visit the Library of Congress and explore the resources available to you as a teacher and how you might find them!

The Library of Congress: The Nation’s Library!

A Brief History of the Library of Congress Now that you have a general idea about what primary sources are—and how fantastic they can be—let us explore where you can begin your search for quality sources. Given the expansive nature of topics taught in the classroom, this can feel a bit overwhelming, but we will show you how to navigate the rich primary source collection from the Library of Congress.

7 Welcome to the Wonderful World of Primary Sources! Let’s Get Sourcing!

If the Library of Congress is new to you, head over to the History of the Library of Congress to learn more about it. The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world, and it serves as the main research resource for Congress and is home of the U.S. Copyright Office. Beginning with an act of Congress in 1800 that appropriated $5,000 to purchase books, the Library of Congress has grown to hold over 168 million items in a variety of formats, languages, and subjects. Today, the Library of Congress serves to “preserve and provide access to a rich, diverse and enduring source of knowledge to inform, inspire, and engage you in your intellectual and creative endeavors” (Hayden, n.d. para. 2). For educators especially, the Library of Congress serves as a wealth of resources—including a vast quantity of digitized historical primary sources—that will help inform and engage your students in powerful ways that just might inspire them on a journey within and beyond your classroom. From the fireblazes of the War of 1812 to oral interviews with formerly enslaved people, to digital albums capturing folk life around the country, the Library of Congress is inarguably a wonderful repository for teachers. Given the Library of Congress and its scope, it is time to talk about how to search and navigate the website for the best results.

What Does the Library of Congress Have to Offer Me? (Hint: Sources!)

A quick glance at the main webpage for the Library of Congress will reveal the various roles one can take when browsing through the website (e.g., researcher, teacher, visitor, or student). The goal of this section is for you to become a consumer of the Library of Congress as a teacher. Framing our lens in this way will narrow the scope of the website and make it more manageable for you to navigate, aiding you in locating primary sources for use in your classroom.

To exemplify just how much fun (and academically beneficial) finding and using primary sources can be, let us get into some basic search approaches and helpful tips. You will need to open a new tab in your internet browser to really get into the “searching mood,” but do not worry if you are unable to do so at the moment; we will provide an overview in the coming pages of where and how you can find sources.

Look at the image in Figure 3, a screenshot of the Library of Congress homepage from May 2023. On the homepage, you will find carousel of pictures with clickable links, navigation headings along the bottom, and if you continue to scroll down, you'll find trending topics and some primary sources that are featured at that moment. If you look towards the top right, you'll find something of special note—the search box. This is where we recommend beginning your search of sources available to you. Take a few moments and search for a topic that is of interest to a grade or subject you may want to teach in the future. Odds are, you picked a topic like “American History” or “World War II,” something broad and very expansive (see Figure 4). A wide-ranging search like this will return hundreds of thousands of results, far too many to sort through for a potential lesson or activity. Simply typing in a topic will not yield

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the most beneficial items, but using specific keywords, with proper specifications, will help to ensure that you find what you are looking for in a more streamlined fashion.

Figure 3. Library of Congress Homepage

Note.

Screenshot from May 2023

Figure 4. Sample Search Results for “American History”

9 Welcome to the Wonderful World of Primary Sources! Let’s Get Sourcing!

A vital component of searching for resources available at the Library of Congress is understanding how the search feature works. This, of course, takes practice. As a teacher, knowing what to search for, what to leave out, and even how phrasing and vocabulary have changed throughout the years becomes very important as the items are tagged based on these terms.

Not Sure of What You Want?

Start Here!

Locating and selecting primary sources to teach social studies is not a skill to take lightly; it is considered a core teaching practice (Fogo, 2014) that involves thinking through how teachers might represent historical knowledge within the curriculum and transform historical content into appropriate instruction for students (Levstik & Barton, 2010; Monte-Sano & Budano, 2013). Primary sources serve as the content of any inquiry and assist students in developing content-based claims to answer an inquiry question (Swan et al., 2018). The authors of this book understand the importance of locating and selecting sources and hope to provide you with tools to support your development of this practice through the Library of Congress. This section provides a brief overview of where you may find resources on the Library of Congress website when you do not have a specific idea in mind.

The Teachers Page One of the most helpful aspects of the Library of Congress website is the Teachers page (see Figure 5). Teachers can access the Teachers page by going to the Library’s homepage and clicking on “Teachers” in the bottom center portion of the screen. On the Teachers page, you can find everything from classroom resources, curated primary source sets, and information about professional development opportunities from the Library of Congress to build teacher capacity for teaching with primary sources.

There are a variety of links to explore on the Teachers page, but let us start with links at the top of the page, highlighted in blue text. Here, you will see About this Program, Getting Started with Primary Sources, Classroom Materials, and Professional Development.

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Figure 5. The Teachers Program Homepage

About This Program This page provides an overview of the Teaching with Primary Sources program. This page provides a link to the Teaching with the Library of Congress Blog that teachers can subscribe to and have new blogs sent to their inbox. This page also provides information about teacherin-residence programs, partner programs, and other collaborations.

Collaborations. The Library of Congress awards grants to organizations to create teaching materials using Library primary sources. Some recipients include KidCitizen, State Historical Society of Iowa, and The University of South Florida. There are several projects featured here for students in K–12 classrooms that all include teaching with primary sources.

Teaching with Library of Congress Blog. Educational resource specialists at the Library of Congress maintain this blog to provide teachers with digitized primary sources for use in their classrooms around any number of topics. Moreover, the authors offer teaching strategies, lesson plans, and other Library of Congress resources that teachers can readily

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use within their own classroom. The blogs can be searched by category and are an excellent place to begin researching a topic of inquiry.

Getting Started with Primary Sources On the top center portion of the Teachers page, let’s explore Getting Started with Primary Sources. This page explains the goals and purposes of teaching with primary sources and provides tools to analyze them. On the left-hand sidebar is the Finding Primary Sources link.

Here, you will find tips on searching the Library of Congress website. On the bottom left of this page are related resources teachers will love: Today in History and Free to Use and Reuse Sets. The Today in History page features a person, place, or event in history for today’s date and has a primary source to accompany it. The content changes daily and would serve as a quick and easy way to introduce primary sources into the classroom. Free to Use and Reuse Sets feature items from the Library’s digital collection. The sources are culled together by themes such as: Writers and Writing, Gardens, LGBTQ+, Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Birthdays, Teachers and Students, Kitchens and Baths, Dragons, the list goes on. The collections will include newspapers, photos, prints, maps, musical scores, and films among others.

This page also provides a Teacher’s Guides and Analysis Tools subpage, linked on the left-hand sidebar. These guides assist students with analyzing any source from documents to audio recordings. Each guide outlines questions to support student analysis and interpretation of the particular source type.

Classroom Materials On the Classroom Materials page, you will see links to primary source sets, lesson plans, and presentations. We will provide an overview of what each has to offer below. Remember, these resources can be explored to spark your own ideas of an inquiry topic, to glean more about specific primary sources or topics instead of conducting a general search on the website, or to use directly with students in your classroom. They are definitely worth a look to see if they may be of use to your particular classroom.

Primary Source Sets. These sets are a collection of primary source documents centered on a particular topic. Teachers can search by topic or browse predetermined topics such as “women’s suffrage.” The primary sources are provided in a thumbnail image along with a link to the source in the Library of Congress, and when teachers scroll to the bottom of the collection, they can see an option to view an accompanying teacher’s guide. The teacher’s guide for each set provides (a) historical background on the topic for the teacher, (b) suggestions for using the primary sources in the classroom, (c) additional resources within the Library of Congress.

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Lesson Plans. The Lesson Plans page includes a variety of lesson plans that can be searched by topic or era. Each lesson plan includes an overview, objectives, and directions for preparing, teaching, and evaluating the lesson. More importantly, the primary sources to be used in the lesson are already linked inside the lesson plan for easy access. The page currently contains over 100 lesson plans.

Presentations. The resources found on the Presentations page were developed to help teachers and students use the Library of Congress’ online collections. There are links within each presentation that lead to a variety of primary sources on the subtopics. Background information provides context of the time period for a given topic. Each presentation provides a multitude of links directing teachers to digitized primary sources and giving them access to the primary sources that they could use to teach this topic.

Professional Development From the Teachers page, click on the Professional Development link. Located on the left-hand sidebar is information about onsite workshops, interactives, webinars, and other activities, including professional development videos. Many of these three- to five-minute videos offer quick insight into topics such as using particular primary source catalogs at the Library of Congress.

You Have an Idea of a Source in Mind. How Do You Find It? The first step toward teaching with primary sources, whether it is a single source for a comprehension activity or a variety of sources for a historical inquiry, is to locate primary sources that fit within a particular topic you want to teach.

In this section, we show you how to search the website when you have a particular idea in mind. What follows are just a few examples of ways to search within the Library of Congress website. Please know that there is no “right” way to search the Library of Congress. In fact, you may find your own nuanced ways to search the Library of Congress that work for you and your topic of interest that are not described below, and we welcome that.

Research Guides could be a useful place to start if you do not have a specific topic in mind but want to explore particular time periods, events, or identified historical themes. Browsing the alphabetized list is the first step, and once you find a collection that piques your interest, you can explore this collection in more depth.

13 Welcome to the Wonderful World of Primary Sources! Let’s Get Sourcing!

Search Tip: When conducting your searches, look for the “available online” filter on the left-hand side of the website under the heading “access condition.” Though it may not work for all formats, it can prove to be a helpful tool at times to ensure your materials can be viewed online.

Searching the Entire Library of Congress Teachers can go to the Library’s homepage and type in a search word or term for which they know they want to find a related primary source. The search box will use whatever words are entered to search across most of the webpages managed by the Library of Congress.

The search results will provide a varied selection of records and resources that may or may not be helpful. One unique feature of the search box is the “smart search” feature; once you start typing, “smart search” will populate a list of suggested terms to use that may result in a more successful search. Once you enter a term into the search box, a list of webpages and records with this term will appear. You can skim through the items to quickly determine if something looks useful, or you may choose to refine your search. On the left-hand side of the screen, you can choose to refine your search results by format (e.g., periodical, manuscript, video recording, map, etc.), date, subtopic, location, or access condition, as described above.

You can also refine the search results by the part of the Library of Congress where the item is located (e.g., the Online Catalog, Prints and Photographs Division, General Collections, etc.).

It should be noted that the search results can be populated to appear in a few formats: list view, which displays items in a scrollable list; gallery view, which displays large thumbnails with titles of each item; and grid view, which displays larger thumbnail images of the items with no titles, perhaps useful for looking at photographs during a general search.

After locating at least one item that could be applicable to your topic, it might be helpful to review that item’s record. Within the item record, look for the subject headings provided for the item. These alternative terms can be applied to conduct other general searches for items similar to this one and are helpful in propelling your search forward. For example, when searching for items related to the “Dust Bowl,” alternative search terms like “FDR,” “migrant camps,” or “WPA projects” might be useful in locating primary sources on your topic. In addition, further down within the item’s record, you will see the source collection where the item is housed within the Library of Congress. This collection might be helpful in conducting a more specific search later. Lastly, toward the bottom of the record, you will find related items of interest to explore.

Searching Digital Collections From the Library’s main page, you can access the Digital Collections. You may choose to search all the digital collections, or you may find it helpful to search the digital collections within a particular Library of Congress division (such as prints and photographs, manuscript, music, American Folklife Center, geography and maps, etc.). You may even choose to narrow a

14 Teaching with Primary Sources to Prepare Students for College, Career, and Civic Life, Volume 1

search to a particular division or two, depending on the particular format you are looking for in your search. We recommend checking out a variety of the division’s digital collections, as you will want to locate various types of primary sources (i.e., images, videos, maps, etc.) so that your students can access them and make meaning of them in your curriculum.

When searching the digital collections, you will not locate individual records of items but rather collections. You will then need to determine which collections are viable for exploring.

Once you locate a collection, click on it and you will see a search bar at the top of the page with a dropdown menu that has pre-selected “this collection.” Make sure you then use your search terms in this search box and that “this collection” is selected so that it searches only the selected collection you have chosen. You may also review the “about this collection” introduction for a background on the collection, including its contents and authors. This may be worth checking out before searching to determine if the collection will be a fit for your topic.

Searching the Teachers Page The Teachers page, as mentioned in the previous section, provides a starting place for those who may not have a specific search topic in mind. If you do have a specific topic in mind, you may begin with either the primary source sets, lesson plans, or presentations for your selected query. You may find a curated set of primary sources that could be used within your classroom, or you may locate a few primary sources on your topic that, upon examination of their record, will lead you to conduct a more specific search for other items on that topic.

Either way, these valuable resources are worth searching to locate ready-made collections of primary sources or individual ones, as well as aid you in conducting further searches based on the items’ records found.

Searching the Library of Congress Blogs One of our favorite starting points in searching the Library of Congress is the Blogs page, which can be found on the main page by clicking Blogs next to the Teachers link. There are several blog links posted here with links to the most recent posts from each division. Each blog is maintained by a different division within the Library of Congress and therefore will pertain to different topics. Given your role as an educator, we strongly encourage you to check out the following blogs: • Picture This: Library of Congress Prints & Photos • Worlds Revealed: Geography & Maps at the Library of Congress • Headlines and Heroes: Newspapers, Comics and More Fine Print • Inside Adams: Science, Technology, & Business All the blog posts are meant to spark curiosity on a given subject and highlight fascinating and intriguing primary sources within the Library of Congress related to that subject. The blogs are a place for you to engage with a subject area and learn about the accessible primary

15 Welcome to the Wonderful World of Primary Sources! Let’s Get Sourcing!

sources the Library of Congress has available to bring that subject to life for students. If you already have a topic in mind, you can begin with the blogs listed above. The search bar will allow you to search a particular blog to see if there is a post about your topic. Doing so might provide you with background knowledge, suggested search terms, and collections to search, as well as a few primary sources that fit your topic.

Searching Library of Congress Special Projects or Collaborations The Library of Congress has some unique collections that are worth checking out when conducting a search. First, the American Folklife Center has embarked on a project—with generous support from Congress—to collect, preserve, and make accessible the personal accounts of American war veterans through the Veterans History Project. The project collects first-hand account materials such as correspondences, written memoirs, and audio- or videorecorded interviews from veterans who served as early as World War I through the Iraq War. You can search the online database and even refine your search by the conflict/era, branch of service, gender, etc. You can also limit your search to the digitized collection, so you have access to the materials you find.

Second, Chronicling America is a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress. It provides access to a searchable database of select U.S. newspapers. There are millions of digitized newspaper pages for you to access. You can search the online database using key terms and narrow your search by state and a range of years. You may also choose to do an advanced search where you can search for an exact or approximate match of words and phrases. The results will populate with a thumbnail image of a newspaper page with the search terms highlighted—a great feature that allows you to focus on the exact sentence/paragraph where your term is used. A helpful tool that can save you time in searching is the recommended topics link on the left-hand side of the main page. Here, you will find a list of topics, categorized alphabetically, by subject category, or by date range.

The subject categories are particularly helpful as they can provide you with particular topics that you are guaranteed to find within the digitized newspaper pages in order to use them with your students.

Third, the Library of Congress, in collaboration with WGBH in Boston, established the American Archive of Public Broadcasting. The archive was created to digitally preserve and make accessible public radio and television programming with historical significance. There are over 7,000 public radio and television programs digitally available on the website currently. These broadcasts include regional and local programming, local news and public affairs programs, local history productions, and programs that deal with the environment, religion, art, music, and more. You can conduct a general search using the search bar at the top of the main webpage, or you could search the special collections on topics such as abolitionists, LGBTQ+, Civil Rights (i.e., Eyes on the Prize interviews), Civil War, Woman

16 Teaching with Primary Sources to Prepare Students for College, Career, and Civic Life, Volume 1

Series, and The Great Depression Interviews. Additionally, for many of the video or audio recordings, transcripts are provided to make the primary sources accessible to all your students—and helpful for you in determining whether a primary source is worth selecting.

When All Else Fails, Ask a Librarian As you dive into your search, you may come to realize that you need more support sifting through information or finding a specific resource. Fear not; the Library of Congress has you covered! The Ask a Librarian page (see Figure 6) allows you to engage with librarians from specific divisions and receive support in finding the resources needed to bring your classroom to life. You can also submit an email form directly to an education specialist within the Library of Congress by selecting the link found on the Teachers page. From there, you can ask questions related to the Library of Congress’ teacher resources and get assistance in locating primary sources on a topic to teach within your classroom. There may be a turnaround time when submitting a request, so be sure to plan ahead.

Figure 6. Ask a Librarian

17 Welcome to the Wonderful World of Primary Sources! Let’s Get Sourcing!

Digging Deeper With Some Additional Resources The Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) program awards grants to universities and organizations that develop curriculum and online interactives leveraging primary sources. Many TPS Consortium members create and deliver professional development, extending the reach of the Library of Congress across the country. This means that there is another avenue for you to locate primary sources and accompanying instructional ideas. All of the current TPS Consortium members, along with their websites, are listed on the Teachers page. Below, we list a few TPS Consortium members to highlight the variety of ways the Library of Congress resources have been developed for use in the classroom: 1. TPS Minnesota Historical Society focuses on the use of primary sources to support Ladson-Billings’s (1995) Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP). It provides readings and videos of this work in action, all demonstrating how primary sources support CRP through (a) challenging students, (b) bringing in “windows and mirrors” (Bishop, 1990) for students to view themselves and others more accurately and honestly, and (c) teaching skills for critical analysis (see the Inquiry in the Upper Midwest Handout).

On their webpage, click on Primary Source Packets and Classroom-Ready Resources to find the readings and videos.

2. TPS Metropolitan State University of Denver program provides annotated resource sets and lesson plans developed by teachers that can be found on the Primary Sources and Strategies subpage under the TPS Connect heading on their main page. In addition, they direct the Western region of the U.S., which funds grants for school districts and organizations to develop primary source professional development and curriculum.

These projects can be viewed by state. The Latino History Project is one example of a grant-funded project, which worked to correct the lack of Latinx history and culture in schools and textbooks. Their website provides primary source sets for teaching a more inclusive Latinx history.

3. TPS Eastern Region, directed by Waynesburg University, has compiled lesson ideas, activities, and plans that cover a variety of topics. In addition, they have a link to the Eastern Region projects on their homepage. There, you will find specific state projects with links to resources.

4. TPS Southern Illinois University Edwardsville provides short readings on instructional strategies like Gallery Walks, Pass-Backs, and See-Think-Wonder that are worth reviewing for ideas on how to use primary sources from the Library of Congress.

18 Teaching with Primary Sources to Prepare Students for College, Career, and Civic Life, Volume 1

Wrapping Up Within this text, the authors are looking to provide a basis for how you may incorporate primary sources for deep inquiry into your future classrooms. With a focus on inquiry and primary sources, the subsequent chapters explore how an educator can leverage the Library of Congress and other organizations’ repositories of primary and secondary sources—from the planning process, to sample implementations, to purposeful assessment. Teaching can be challenging. This book will not give you all the answers, but what it will give you are tools to add to your practitioner tool belt. These are tools that will help promote critical thinking, authentic inquiry, and engaged learners.

19 Welcome to the Wonderful World of Primary Sources! Let’s Get Sourcing!

References Barton, K. C. (2005). Primary sources in history: Breaking through the myths. The Phi Delta Kappan, 86(10), 745–753. https://doi.org/10.1177/003172170508601006 Berry, D. & Dickerson, C. (2020, April 4). The killer flu of 1918: A Philadelphia story. The New York Times. www.nytimes.com/2020/04/04/us/coronavirus-spanish-flu-philadelphia-pennsylvania.html Bishop, R. S. (1990). Mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. Perspectives: Choosing and Using Books for the Classroom, 6(3).

Bober, T. (2018). Elementary educator’s guide to primary sources: Strategies for teaching. Libraries Unlimited.

Breakstone, J., McGrew, S., Smith, M., Ortega, T., & Wineburg, S. (2018). Why we need a new approach to teaching digital literacy. Phi Delta Kappan, 99(6), 27–32. https://doi.org/10.1177/003172171876 2419 Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. § 107 (1976). www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107 Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education: An introduction to the philosophy of education. Macmillan.

Faculty of History. (2020). What are historical sources? University of Cambridge. www.hist.cam.ac.uk/ getting-started-reading-primary-sources Fogo, B. (2014). Core practices for teaching history: The results of a Delphi panel survey. Theory & Research in Social Education, 42(2), 151–196.

Hayden, C. (n.d.). Welcome message from Carla Hayden, 14th Librarian of Congress. Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/about/ Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). But that’s just good teaching! The case for culturally relevant pedagogy.

Theory Into Practice, 34(3), 159–165. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405849509543675 Levstik, L. S., & Barton, K. C. (2010). Doing history: Investigating with children in elementary and middle schools (4th ed.). Routledge.

Library of Congress. (n.d.-a). About the Library. www.loc.gov/about/ Library of Congress. (n.d.-b). Getting started with primary sources. www.loc.gov/programs/teachers/ getting-started-with-primary-sources/ Monte-Sano, C., & Budano, C. (2013). Developing and enacting pedagogical content knowledge for teaching history: An exploration of two novice teachers’ growth over three years. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 22(2), 171–211.

National Council for the Social Studies. (2013). The college, career, and civic life (C3) framework for social studies state standards: Guidance for enhancing the rigor of K–12 civics, economics, geography, and history.

Reisman, A. (2012). Reading like a historian: A document-based history curriculum intervention in urban high schools. Cognition and Instruction, 30(1), 86–112. https://doi.org/10.1080/07370008.201 1.634081 Seixas, P. (2011). Assessment of historical thinking. In P. Clark (Ed.), New possibilities for the past: Shaping history education in Canada (pp. 139–153). University of British Columbia Press.

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Swan, K., Lee, J., & Grant, S. G. (2018). Questions, tasks, sources: Focusing on the essence of inquiry.

Social Education, 82(3), 133–137.

VanSledright, B. A. (2011). The challenge of rethinking history education: On practices, theory, and policy.

Routledge.

Waring, S. M., & Robinson, K. S. (2010). Developing critical and historical thinking skills in middle grades social studies. Middle School Journal, 42(1), 22–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/00940771.2010.114617 47

21 Welcome to the Wonderful World of Primary Sources! Let’s Get Sourcing!

Chapter 2

An Inquiry Approach to Planning With Primary Sources Corey R. Sell, Metropolitan State University of Denver Brian Furgione, University of Central Florida Ilene R. Berson, University of South Florida Michael J. Berson, University of South Florida

22 An Inquiry Approach to Planning With Primary Sources

If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.

—Yogi Berra, Professional Baseball Player Take a moment and think about your time in the classroom … as a student! Can you recall a lesson, lecture, or activity vividly? Was there a science lab, like dissecting a frog or exploring communicable diseases? Perhaps you remember a Socratic Seminar in an English class or a programming class, where you built a website. What about a history class focused on recreating an event or historical time period? If you can recall a lesson or experience from your time in the classroom, odds are your teacher developed a well-designed, well-thoughtout lesson plan before engaging you as the learner. Lesson plans centered on inquiry, which activate students’ minds and engage them in the learning process, create a lasting impact. The planning process is arguably the most important element of a classroom teacher’s practice since planning accounts for nearly every facet of a classroom including aspects such as the content taught, understanding relationships with and between students, differentiation for individual learners, and the physical layout of the room. As such, your process of intentional planning, particularly with inquiries, becomes vital to implementing a powerful, meaningful learning experience.

In this chapter, we will describe a planning process for developing social studies inquiries with a focus on questions, sources, and tasks. We will posit multiple ways of conceptualizing an inquiry and introduce you to several blueprints for designing an inquiry. First, we would like to draw attention to the most important factor in your planning process—the students.

After all, you will not be teaching sources or even standards for that matter. You will be teaching students!

Keep the Focus on the Students We are all big fans of teaching with sources. We find ourselves fascinated by the historical mysteries that we uncover when we come across a compelling photograph or recording that reveals clues about a time long ago. We love following the breadcrumbs of the past to revelations in the present. However, not every source connects with us or our students.

Knowing your students is the very first, and perhaps most important, step in planning for an inquiry. Before you begin looking through curated source sets or searching the Library of Congress collections, stop and think about who your students are, what your students’ prior experiences are (both in and out of the classroom), and what your instructional goals are.

Ayers et al. (2000) argue the following: The good teacher communicates a deep regard for students’ lives, a regard infused with unblinking attention, respect, even awe. An engaged teacher begins

23 Teaching with Primary Sources to Prepare Students for College, Career, and Civic Life, Volume 1

with the belief that each student is unique, each the one and only who will ever trod the earth, each worthy of a certain reverence. Regard extends, importantly, to an insistence that students have access to the tools with which to negotiate and transform the world. (pp. 2–3) Below, we will describe in detail three particular ways to keep the focus on students during the inquiry planning process: (a) ground your planning in culturally relevant pedagogy, (b) know your role in selecting sources, and (c) be aware of developmentally appropriate practices with regards to sources.

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy Gloria Ladson-Billings (1995) defined three criteria for culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP).

First, teachers must attend to the academic success of all their students and promote rigor in their academic pursuits. Second, teachers should “utilize students’ culture as a vehicle for learning” (p. 161). Third, students should be taught to question and critique cultural norms and values as well as examine issues of power and inequities in society with opportunities to act—termed critical consciousness. It is important to note, though, that educators have engaged in this work long before Ladson-Billings named this phenomenon CRP in 1995 (Paris, 2012). In fact, Muhammad (2020) asserts that African philosophies of education, Black literacy societies in the 1800s, and Black-centered schools in the early to mid-1900s promoted this form of pedagogy.

Culturally relevant pedagogy is a powerful lens to utilize when trying to conceptualize what we mean by “keep the focus on students,” the title of this section. Though all three criteria are crucial in developing CRP, the second one (i.e., cultural competence) can be quite useful when planning for an inquiry and selecting sources to use with students. Ladson-Billings (2006) defines cultural competence as helping students to recognize and honor their own cultural beliefs and practices while acquiring access to the wider culture, where they are likely to have a chance of improving their socioeconomic status and making informed decisions about the lives they wish to lead. (p. 36) Finding ways to ensure that the curricula (e.g., the inquiry topic and the sources selected) are relevant to students’ identities and cultures in some way promotes higher forms of interest among students, supports student-teacher relationships, and provides an avenue for students to examine their position in society with regards to privileges and oppression.

Therefore, we strongly advocate for a culturally relevant approach to planning an inquiry that highlights students’ cultural identities, ways of knowing, lived experiences, and interests— especially when it comes to selecting sources to use.

24 An Inquiry Approach to Planning With Primary Sources

Your Role in Selecting Sources We recognize that the selection of appropriate primary sources is just one step in the inquiry planning process. However, your role in selecting sources is pivotal to the overall design of your inquiry, the experiences students have during the inquiry process, and the learning outcomes. As a teacher, you have choices to make when you design an inquiry. With millions of digitized sources available on the Library of Congress website, the selection process can seem overwhelming. Before we share some strategies for selection, we should note that when we use the term “sources,” we are referring to both primary and secondary sources.

Let us examine criteria for selecting appropriate sources using a Teaching with Primary Sources blog post, “Selecting Primary Sources, Part I: Knowing Your Students.” Notice how each criterion highlights the needs, background, and interests of the students: • Content: Will your students want to look closely, ask questions, and learn more about this particular primary source?

• Age-appropriateness: Is the content suitable for your students? Is the content too complex?

• Length: Will the length of the letter, diary entry, or newspaper article affect student comprehension? Is an excerpt more appropriate?

• Readability of text or handwriting: Is text clearly printed and legible? Will cursive handwriting impact your students’ understanding?

• Reading level of students: Will your students be able to decode the text of the primary source?

• Prior knowledge needed (historical; vocabulary): Do outdated terms need to be defined? Will your students understand the content of the primary source? (Suiter, 2011) To tempt our students’ palates with a taste for learning, we use sources to respond to each student’s need to find purpose and challenge in their classwork, which is at the core of effective teaching. Our lessons need to be compelling for students, both individually and collectively. We invest our time in identifying sources that excite our students and drive them to think and puzzle over the content. This intentionality in planning communicates to students that you have designed learning experiences specifically for them and that the experiences are important and relevant to them now and for the future.

Additionally, the selection of sources positions you as a decision-maker with the authority to choose content that either reinforces dominant narratives or challenges them through counternarratives, which emphasize first-person accounts from diverse individuals and communities often not represented in the curriculum (Bell, 1995; Delgado & Stefancic, 2017). Dominant narratives are stories that “are not often questioned because people do not see them as stories but as ‘natural’ parts of everyday life” (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002, p.

28). These narratives express stories of privilege (e.g., racial, gender, class, heteronormative, and cisnormative) and seek to distort and silence individuals and groups in the margins of

25 Teaching with Primary Sources to Prepare Students for College, Career, and Civic Life, Volume 1

society (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002) while maintaining the status quo. Counternarratives challenge the dominant perspectives and center stories on individuals and groups who have been marginalized in our society based on race, class, gender, sexual orientation, etc.

Providing sources that depict counternarratives (i.e., stories that challenge whiteness, heteronormativity, settler colonialism, and male-dominated perspectives) and reframe representations of minority groups away from “narratives steeped in pain or even smallness” creates spaces for students to build affirming identities of themselves (Muhammad, 2020).

These opportunities sustain “the lifeways of communities who have been and continue to be damaged and erased through schooling” (Alim & Paris, 2017, p. 1).

Generally, collections may lack representativeness or be missing perspectives that were not originally curated for inclusion (Berson & Berson, 2020), and the Library of Congress’s collections may also be the same. Therefore, consider selecting sources through a critical lens. Some questions to consider when selecting sources include: • Who is marginalized or privileged by the representation in the image?

• Whose account of a particular topic or issue is missing? Whose voices are silenced?

• Whose voices are dominant?

• Whose reality is presented?

• Whose reality is ignored?

The selection of sources matters to students and impacts the ways students view themselves historically and presently in our pluralistic society. Moreover, your selection can promote anti-racist teaching by providing students with stories, experiences, and perspectives that dismantle whitewashed, dominant narratives of the past.

Developmentally Appropriate Practice Developmentally appropriate strategies for the use of sources capitalize on the social and active nature of students’ learning. Inquiry-based learning with sources sparks students’ curiosity and builds on prior experiences to make academic content meaningful and engaging.

Sources provide a conduit for students to use their real-world experiences and background knowledge to make inferences about time and place (Fuhler et al., 2006). In the primary grades, exemplary instructional models demonstrate how to engage young learners in source inquiry with familiar objects, images, and sounds. Elementary-age students often have difficulty understanding that their lives today are different from people’s way of life long ago (Morgan & Rasinski, 2012). Students may struggle to understand concepts of historical time, especially young learners who tend to analyze information from the vantage point of their own personal experience and current time frame.

As older students develop knowledge of historical events, people, and time periods, students may find sources most engaging when they have an opportunity to question, evaluate, and challenge these informational sources. Rather than focusing on learning

26 An Inquiry Approach to Planning With Primary Sources

strategies that rely on the management and recall of historical data, students employ the tools of historians and explore archival evidence, using other sources to corroborate, enrich, and extend their thinking about events and people (Nokes, 2012). Teachers may also support students’ critical thinking by introducing multiple perspectives using sources.

An Inquiry Approach An inquiry approach to learning can be defined as when students actively construct meaning from sources in order to answer an overarching question that they either develop on their own or that has been provided for them to investigate. Inquiry focuses on process skills instead of specific subject matter content (Maxim, 2014). John Dewey (1916), a prominent educational philosopher who promoted this approach to learning in the early 1900s, argued that students may not be as refined as the professionals, but they can still question, inspect, inquire, discover, and explore their world. In fact, Swan et al. (2020) suggest that students inquire on a daily basis, often making evidence-based decisions without recognizing this as an inquiry process.

True inquiry is open-ended, unstructured, and iterative (Maxim, 2014). Students develop questions and seek sources they can evaluate to help them answer questions. A structured inquiry approach scaffolds this process for students and has the teacher bear some, if not all, of the responsibility for developing the inquiry question and also for gathering the majority of sources for analysis. There are also variations in between, so think of inquiry as a continuum with open inquiry at one end and structured inquiry at the other (Maxim, 2014).

In addition to viewing inquiry on a continuum, there are a variety of ways to conceptualize inquiry in relation to teaching. Boyle-Baise and Zevin (2014) outline a seven-step process: 1. Raise a question that either comes from the teacher or the students.

2. Elicit hypotheses (educated guesses) from students.

3. Provide evidence for students to examine.

4. Allow students to revise their hypothesis based on each piece of evidence.

5. Draw conclusions based on all evidence provided.

6. Compare conclusions to original hypotheses.

7. Ask students how the investigation process changed their minds.

As you can see, this is an investigative process that centers students as creators of knowledge based on the pieces of evidence they find, analyze, and interpret, resulting in an evidencebased claim. Another way to view this process is through the Stripling Model (Stripling, 2009). This model includes six phases that are not linear but are meant to be explored in recursive and reflective ways: (a) connect, (b) wonder, (c) investigate, (d) construct, (e) express, and (f) reflect (see Figure 1). For a more detailed explanation of this inquiry model, check out the Summer 2009 edition of Teaching with Primary Sources from the Library of Congress. In addition, this Teacher Resource video (Library of Congress, 2015) about using

27 Teaching with Primary Sources to Prepare Students for College, Career, and Civic Life, Volume 1

y with Primary Sources inquiry with primary sources from the Library of Congress might prove helpful.

for student learning?

Figure 1. Stripling Model of Inquiry e learning that is driven by questioning and critical thinking. The understandings ugh inquiry are deeper and longer lasting than any pre-packaged knowledge dents.

ows a process that s, but is recursive The six phases and re detailed in this

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ngage students both emotionally and personally because the sources represent s. StudentsNote. connect to the Model people who produced or were subjects of theB.primary The Stripling defines inquiry as a six-step, recursive process. Stripling, (2009). Teaching inquiry ver, connect to textbooks and other secondary sources.

Finally, with primary sources. Teaching with Primary Sources Quarterly, 2(3), 2. the conflicting elps students see the complexity of issues and recognize the importance of context his multiple-perspective approach is particularly important for historical inquiry.

For elementary students, inquirED has designed a research-informed approach to inquiry-

be used during the phases of inquiry? based learning that streamlines the process into three stages: (a) the opening, which sparks support learning throughout the inquiry process when educators select appropriate curiosity, activates prior knowledge, introduces the essential question; (b) active inquiry, ential thinking skills, and carefully structureand learning experiences.

A brief example ary sources.

An American History teacherlearning and school collaborated to and (c) which includes student-centered tasks librarian to explorehave and investigate content; on from 1850 to 1950, focusing on the essential question of: How does society’s the closing, provides a culminating inquiry to promote informed s during a crisis revealwhich deeply embedded societalexperience attitudes for andthe values?

action. In an Inquiry Field Guide, inquirEd offers tools to facilitate inquiry unit design and

can be used during the initial phase of inquiry to open students’ minds to the curricular materials that encourage sustained investigation. d questioning an information source, in contrast to secondary sources that shut off The National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS, 2013) Career, and ppear to be authoritative and complete.

At the beginning of theCollege, unit, students areCivic Life e brief documents that reveal conflicting points of view about the treatment of (C3) Framework for social studies state standards represents another way to conceptualize ftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

ng

e

the inquiry process. The C3 Framework is unique in that it conceptualizes inquiry as having four dimensions. These dimensions outline an inquiry process, which is referred to as an & teaching Strategies Inquiry Skills Arc, for the social studies:

Cautions to Consider Be aware that:

to Teach Show students how to:

IdentifyDimension prior knowledge and • Lack context Inquiries & background 1: Developing Questions andofPlanning misconceptions knowledge makes interpretation of Dimension 2: Applying Disciplinaryprimary Concepts and Tools • Identify point of view and its effect sources difficult on information presented • Students without clear conceptual Dimension 3: Evaluating Sources and Using Evidence • Use concept mapping to develop focus may see primary sources as Dimension 4: Communicating and Taking Action framework of overall themes, major Conclusions disconnected bits ofInformed information concepts • Students may develop misinterpre• Make valid inferences tations based on their limited prior Dimension 2 is worth further discussion as it includes four subsections, each for the four • Develop context through acquiring exposure background knowledge •

most common disciplines taught in K–12 social studies curriculum. Delineating these www.loc.gov/teachers/tps/quarterly

28

An Inquiry Approach to Planning With Primary Sources

OVER ALL DOCUMENT ORGANIZ ATION The C3 Framework begins with disciplines within Dimension 2 provides space the disciplinary and tools unique two narrative explanations: the Inquiry Arc,for which provides theconcepts organizing structure

to each onedocument; to be discussed, literacyArts/Literacy lens for teaching the social for the and thepromoting Overviewaofdisciplinary English Language Common Core

Connections, which highlights the important relationship studies.

See the C3 Framework organization in visual form in between Figure 2.the C3 Framework

and(2017) the Common Corean State Standards forsystematic, ELA/Literacy.

Next, the Framework Saye argues that inquiry must be rigorous, andC3 public in order for

presents the following four Dimensions: 1 Developing questions and planning inquiries; 2 Applying disciplinary concepts and tools; 3 Evaluating sources and achieve each of these elements. First, the four dimensions provide a structure that can be using evidence; and 4 Communicating conclusions and taking informed action. utilized students and taught a systematic Thewith C3 Framework closes withinfive appendices.fashion. In fact, research has shown that

students to develop deep understanding, and the C3 Framework Inquiry Arc can help you

students benefit from explicit instruction and modeling of disciplinary thinking required— especially in Dimensions 2–4 (Saye, 2017). Second, Dimensions 2 and 3 support rigorous Inquiry Arc. The Inquiry Arc highlights the structure jurisdictions in incorporating these expectations as of and rationale for the organization of the Framethey upgrade their state social standards. instruction through the use of source-related work.

Here, students are studies presented with a work’s four Dimensions. The Arc focuses on the nature

variety of primary and secondary sources that often represent complex texts, and they must of inquiry in general and the pursuit of knowledge Dimensions and Subsections. The C3 Framework through questions in particular. is organized into the four Dimensions, which support not only comprehend them but determine how they fit together to build an argument that a robust social studies program rooted in inquiry.

bestOverview answers of the compelling question.

Third, Dimension 4 includes a public element when the Connections with the ELA/ Literacy Common Core Standards.

The C3 Dimensions 2, 3 and known 4 are further students communicate their findings—making their statements andbroken opendown for into public Framework recognizes the important role that the

subsections. For example, Dimension 2, Applying

comment.

This can be a “holistic learning environment promoting Common Coreprocess State Standards fordescribed ELA/Literacyas play Disciplinary Concepts and Tools, includes four

in definingachievement K-12 literacy expectations in most states. subsections—civics, economics, geography, andthe C3 intellectual with value in the real world” (Saye, 2017, p. 342).

Overall, This overview outlines how the C3 Framework con-

history—which include descriptions of the structure

Framework Inquiry Arc a disciplined intoasthe experience nects to and elaborates on promotes the ELA/Literacy Common inquiry and toolsapproach of the disciplines wellhuman as the habits of Core Standards for social studies inquiry. mind common those disciplines.

See Table 1 for a through active and authentic engagement with primary andinsecondary sources (Cornbleth, graphical representation of the organization of the C3

2015), positioning students as inquirers and you,Framework. the teacher, as a facilitator of the learning In addition to the overview of Common Core connections,as each of the fourto Dimensions includesof graphical process opposed a transmitter knowledge. and narrative descriptions of how the C3 Framework connects with the standards to guide states and local

Unique Structure of Dimension 2. Dimension 2 has an additional layer of three to four categories

Figure 2. C3 Framework Organization TABLE 1:

C3 Framework Organization

DIMENSION 1: DEVELOPING QUESTIONS AND PLANNING INQUIRIES

DIMENSION 2: APPLYING DISCIPLINARY TOOLS AND CONCEPTS

Developing Questions and Planning Inquiries

Civics

DIMENSION 3: EVALUATING SOURCES AND USING EVIDENCE

DIMENSION 4: COMMUNICATING CONCLUSIONS AND TAKING INFORMED ACTION

Gathering and Evaluating Sources

Communicating and Critiquing Conclusions

Developing Claims and Using Evidence

Taking Informed Action

Economics Geography History

12 • C3 Framework

Note.

The C3 Framework is organized into four dimensions. From The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards: Guidance for Enhancing the Rigor of K–12 Civics, Economics, Geography, and History by National Council for the Social Studies, 2013, p. 12.

29 Teaching with Primary Sources to Prepare Students for College, Career, and Civic Life, Volume 1

Developing an Inquiry As noted in the previous section, there are many ways to conceptualize an inquiry within the classroom. The conceptualization selected (e.g., inquirED, Stripling Model, C3 Framework, etc.) will provide you with guideposts, but developing an inquiry that challenges students to construct and build a claim is challenging. Further, creating a critical inquiry requires teachers to challenge the “commonsensical ways” of thinking and “begin with the premise that there is no such thing as neutral or objective knowledge,” as outlined by Crowley and King (2018, p.

15). In doing so, it begins to frame the planning process and the materials students will access through a lens which contests traditional or dominant narratives. In the sections below, we utilize a blueprint that scaffolds the design process referred to as the Inquiry Design Model (IDM) blueprint (Swan et al., 2018). Though the IDM blueprint can be quite prescriptive as there are a series of steps outlined in a particular order that one can follow to develop an inquiry, we have found the general structure used in this blueprint helpful when designing an inquiry. This structure includes three phases of planning that Swan et al. refer to as framing, filling, and finishing an inquiry. We will now explore each in further detail below. Further examples in the chapter “Bayard Rustin: Does Your Labor or Label Matter More?” by Corey Sell, will provide additional details on utilizing the IDM Blueprint to develop an inquiry.

Framing the Inquiry When framing the inquiry, you need to consider the content and standards you want to teach, an entry point for students that will inspire authentic engagement from the start of the inquiry, and the end result of learning you hope will happen with students. Attention to these elements within the planning process will create a foundation for the next two phases of planning, so they are the first steps you should take in planning. Below, we describe these first steps in planning to ensure that you are set up for a successful inquiry which positions students as active and engaged learners.

Content and Standards The standards you will be required to teach will vary from state to state, and even district to district. Oftentimes, standards are related directly to the content that you are teaching, though many states have skill-based or process-oriented standards that provide minimal guidance on the specific content to teach. Previewing the standards that you are responsible for teaching is a great place to begin your planning journey. Depending on the type of standards (i.e., process, skill, or content), you will gain more insight into the social studies content you want to teach. It is important to note that content standards will prescribe specific content for you to teach, like events, people, and dates, whereas process or thematic standards tend to focus more on larger concepts and thinking processes, allowing room for you to fill in the content. Either way, the standards will jumpstart your planning process and provide some general ideas of what you will teach your students.

30 An Inquiry Approach to Planning With Primary Sources

Another approach would be to start with the students and build an inquiry around their curiosities. This approach can be as simple as asking students or observing their interests from your work with them. Simultaneously, you can review the standards to determine where there is a fit between the students’ curiosity and the required state standards. This approach will ensure that the inquiry fits with the learning interests of the students and is strongly relevant to students. Though a student-centric approach can be powerful, not all inquiries can come directly from students, and many teachers find some middle ground between starting solely with the standards or the opposite: starting solely with the students.

In either case, once you have a sense of the content you want to teach, you are ready to begin finding sources. Yes, you heard us right. It is time to begin looking for sources! In a way, a cursory search into the source world helps you determine what is out there and available if you choose to teach your selected content. This initial search is also a means for you to gain more knowledge yourself on the topic and establish a more nuanced understanding of the associated concepts and skills, which will be important when planning your inquiry.

Why start with sources and not a textbook? Well, most states throughout the U.S. have standards requiring the use of primary sources beginning in kindergarten (Veccia, 2004).

The use of primary sources establishes social studies as an interpretive, evidence-based area of inquiry that requires multi-literacies to identify and interpret data from diverse sources.

Primary sources are also a fundamental informational resource, which “simultaneously broadens students’ worldviews and supports their critical thinking abilities” (Morgan & Rasinski, 2012, p. 586).

Developing Questions A lesson would not be an inquiry without the use of questions. Questions can focus student learning and, if developed well, can produce powerful learning outcomes for students (Grant, 2013; Wiggins & McTighe, 2012). As with the content chosen, the process of developing questions can be a fully student- or teacher-centered process. Allowing students to engage in developing an inquiry question can ensure your content is more culturally relevant and grounded in their interests and allows for more student “buy-in” when answering questions.

This process will require time as you must work with students to plan questions that can be answered through an inquiry process involving the social studies. One approach for engaging students is with the Question Formulation Technique (QFT) created by the Right Question Institute. In the QFT, students produce questions (or statements that can be turned into questions) in a brainstorm-like fashion. The teacher designs a prompt related to the overarching topic or desired learning outcomes to focus and stimulate questions. Next, students categorize their questions into closed-ended (i.e., those that can be answered with a “yes” or “no”) and open-ended questions (i.e., those that require a longer explanation). Then, students prioritize the questions they would like answered and pick one or two to answer. As facilitator, you, as the educator, have an important role to step in and guide students toward

31 Teaching with Primary Sources to Prepare Students for College, Career, and Civic Life, Volume 1

questions that the social studies disciplines could answer as well as any questions that may fit with the required standards you must teach. In a way, you are looking for these state standard connections as students are engaged in this process.

If you were to take a more teacher-centered approach, which would allow you to scaffold the inquiry process more and ensure sources are accessible to be provided for students to interpret, you would want to frame questions in a way that captures students’ interest. There is not an easy prescription to follow for you to create a question. However, researchers do provide different ways to frame this pursuit that will guide you in developing this skill, which will improve with continued practice and reflection.

McTighe and Wiggins (2012) use the term essential question (EQ) and define it with the following seven characteristics: 1. having no single, final answer (i.e., open-ended) 2. thought-provoking or being able to spark discussion 3. demands higher-order thinking (i.e., cannot be answered by recall alone) 4. points toward transferable ideas within disciplines 5. sparks further inquiry 6. requires support and justification and not just an answer 7. recurs over time (i.e., a question that can and should be revisited again) They argue that the aim of an EQ is to stimulate thought on concepts or big ideas that are foundational to a discipline. These types of questions should be used to organize a unit of instruction in contrast to a daily lesson.

The C3 Framework (NCSS, 2013) and IDM Blueprint (Swan et al., 2018) both use the term compelling question (CQ), and we find this concept helpful for teachers when developing an inquiry question. Like an EQ, a CQ is meant to frame an entire inquiry, not a single-day of instruction—we will get to those questions later. Swan et al. argue that crafting a CQ is “a way to find the common ground between content and students” (p. 31). With regard to content, the question should be “intellectually meaty,” meaning the question needs to “reflect an enduring issue, concern, or debate in social studies and draw on multiple disciplines” (Grant, 2013, p. 325). With regards to students, the question should matter to them in terms of being something they consider worth knowing.

When creating CQs, Swan et al. (2018) suggest realizing the value of a “working CQ.” In other words, your question will change as you move through the other phases of planning, and that is okay. Oftentimes, you may start with a CQ that centers on content but has no relevance to students like, “What happened at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom?” As you learn more about this content over time, you will find ways to make the information relevant for your students and revise your instruction. Understand that developing your inquiry question is an iterative process that requires you to continually

32 An Inquiry Approach to Planning With Primary Sources

come back and reflect upon your approach. That is why you may find it helpful to develop a “working CQ” in the beginning and modify it as you move further in the planning process.

Assessment You do not want to get too far into your planning process without thinking about how you will assess student learning. Planning the assessment requires you to recognize what you want students to learn from your inquiry and how students will demonstrate this knowledge.

There are a variety of ways to frame student learning within a unit of instruction, but one of the more useful is McTighe and Wiggins’ (1999) Understanding by Design (UbD) model. This model employs “backwards planning”—meaning you start with the end results in mind then move to plan your instruction. Identifying student learning at the beginning of your planning process ensures that you will create a pathway for students to reach these results.

Wiggins and McTighe (2012) begin the process by asking, What should students be able to know, understand, and be able to do (KUDs)? This model might be a useful means to think about what you want your students to learn by the end of an inquiry. The understandings are the big concepts and ideas, whereas the knowledge is the specific content such as people, facts, dates, etc. Lastly, the skills are the processes you want students to be able to do by the end. Recognizing the KUDs upfront will ensure that you develop robust assessments that measure your intended outcomes and that align with your instruction, which will be planned for at a later point. We suggest simply listing out your learning goals into the three categories described above and consider this a working list. You will need to pare the list down or perhaps add to the goals as you continue developing your inquiry. What matters most is that you have these end goals in mind in order to then move toward developing your actual inquiry assessments. You will develop assessments that capture student learning at the end of the inquiry (i.e., summative assessments) and during the inquiry (i.e., formative assessments). Both types of assessment development are discussed below.

Summative Assessment. The summative assessment details how you will determine that students have mastered your objectives and specifies the criteria you will use to assess student learning. Within the IDM Blueprint, the summative performative task provides the space for you to plan with the “end in mind” and develop this assessment. This element of the inquiry includes two parts: (a) argument task and (b) extension. The argument task is ultimately the answer to your CQ (i.e., the student’s argument). Swan et al. (2018) define an argument as “a collection of claims supported by relevant evidence that answer a compelling question” (p. 48). This is your end goal of the inquiry. Therefore, at the start of your planning process, you want to construct a response to your CQ as best you can, which can be referred to as stress testing the CQ (Swan et al., 2018). This stress test will ensure that you “articulate a position or stance along with an overview of the major claims that students can potentially make at the end of the inquiry” (p. 54). You will want to develop a range of possible arguments that students might make with the sources you provide throughout the inquiry. These

33 Teaching with Primary Sources to Prepare Students for College, Career, and Civic Life, Volume 1

potential responses to your stress testing the CQ are referred to as argument stems in the IDM Blueprint. It is crucial to pinpoint different argument stems students can make with sources at this point as this process will reveal the worth of your sources (i.e., some may not be helpful to answer the question), whereas other sources may need to be the focus. At this point, you will also realize the variety of sources you should provide so that you allow students space to develop varying responses using multiple perspectives.

The extension task provides students an opportunity to expand upon what they learned from answering the CQ. Swan et al. (2018) explain that these tasks help students make connections across the curriculum, practice communication skills, and express arguments in different modalities. For example, knowing how students might answer the CQ, you might choose to have students use a discussion protocol and share out their thinking with the class or in small groups. Another idea would be to have students create an online infographic explaining their point of view and then share this with others. The point is for students to take their argument or claim and make it public, which promotes literacy skills, such as speaking and listening.

Formative Assessment. The assessment phases of the individual lessons provide ideal opportunities to use sources to measure not only what students know but also how they think. At the beginning of the lesson, a pre-assessment may reveal students’ prior knowledge and skills. Teachers can use this information to differentiate the lesson and provide appropriate scaffolding to meet students’ individual needs. Throughout the lesson, formative assessments provide more immediate feedback about students’ understanding of the concepts and skills introduced in the lesson. As students practice and refine their analysis of sources, teachers need targeted tasks to quickly gain insight into patterns of students’ thinking, identify gaps in understanding, and immediately adapt instruction to address misconceptions. Think of these assessments as checkpoints in a game or on a road trip.

Students may revisit items introduced earlier in the instruction, or they may demonstrate their analysis skills using new sources that are related to the topic of focus or that present diverse perspectives.

Beyond the Bubble, on the Stanford History Education Group website, provides examples of History Assessments of Thinking (HATs) that link to documents in the Library of Congress’ digital archives. Short videos explain the assessments and offer multiple ideas to embed them into instruction. The website also details the following steps to inspire the design of similar formative assessments with primary sources: 1. Decide if you are assessing content knowledge or process skills (i.e., sourcing, corroboration, etc.).

2. Use one of the Library of Congress’ primary source sets or search the archives for appropriate material to use in the assessment.

3. Create a question about the primary source(s) that aligns with the focus of the

34 An Inquiry Approach to Planning With Primary Sources

assessment (Step 1). Example questions include “Which came first?” “How would this source be useful to historians?” “Is this source reliable and why?”

4. Cross-check that the assessment requires students to demonstrate the skill or content knowledge you identified in Step 1.

5. Pilot the assessment and revise as needed.

By following these steps, you can gauge students’ historical understanding and evaluate their ability to apply critical thinking skills as they analyze primary source materials.

The Opening Beginning an inquiry provides you the space to capture students’ attention and interest. A strong opening has the power to sustain student learning through the duration of the inquiry.

The IDM Blueprint labels this element as “staging the compelling question,” and it should be noted that this opening is meant for the entire inquiry (i.e., unit of instruction). Later, we will address opening a daily lesson, which you are probably more familiar with in planning (i.e., bell ringers or hooks).

Swan et al. (2018) define four purposes of an opening that you may want to think about when you design this element. First, the opening simply introduces the entire inquiry to students, and second, this introduction should indicate the relevance of the topic and question to students’ lives. Third, the opening should introduce the understandings (i.e., big ideas or concepts) the inquiry will cover. Last, the entry point can be used to capture students’ background knowledge and dispositions towards the inquiry content, which is a powerful means to “build early interest and engagement in an inquiry” (p. 111).

Sources are a strong resource you could draw upon to design an opening activity. For example, you could preview a source from the unit. Previewing will allow students multiple exposures to sources, which helps if the source is a particularly complex text. You could also utilize a source that intrigues students and makes them ask questions about the topic at hand. Much like how the opening of a movie can draw in a viewer, the opening of the unit can pull students in and drive them to dig deeper.

Filling the Inquiry The second phase in planning will help you “develop a clear instructional path that allows students to acquire the content knowledge and argumentation skills necessary for the summative performance task” (Swan et al., 2018, p. 59). In other words, you should plan out a sequence of lesson plans. There is a plethora of ways you can design lesson plans and even more templates for writing them. This work is beyond the scope of this chapter. Therefore, we will take a more general approach to planning—one that focuses on three components essential to teaching a social studies inquiry that we pull from the IDM Blueprint. These three components, which can be embedded in a variety of lesson plan designs and templates,

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will ensure the integrity of teaching inquiry using the C3 Framework approach. The three components are: (a) questions, (b) tasks, and (c) sources (Swan et al., 2018). Before discussing each of these lesson planning components, we will draw your attention to the opening of a lesson, which sets the stage for the learning that follows.

Lesson Openings During the introduction of a lesson, you want to build a relationship between the students and the focus of study using sources. Bell ringers, anticipatory sets, hooks—the opening to a lesson goes by many names, and a key attribute to a good opening is sparking interest in the topic and making connections to prior knowledge. Leveraging sources is a great way to frame the inquiry and engage students in the lesson from the very start, creating the opportunity for mini-inquiries by presenting mysterious, intriguing, and thought-provoking content at the onset of the lesson.

In this introductory phase, you want to choose an engaging source, such as a resource that supports a clear aim, is accessible to students based on their background knowledge, yet offers a riddle or puzzle-like element. During the launch of the lesson, source analysis may take many forms. Just as efficient readers choose from a diverse complement of strategies depending on the demands of the text, teachers need to introduce students to strategic and flexible approaches to optimize learning with sources and foster active engagement.

Questions Though you have framed your unit with a CQ, you can still use questions to guide your daily lessons. The IDM Blueprint labels these as supporting questions (SQ), and they are a means of giving focus to particular content and of sequencing this content toward students being able to answer the CQ (Swan et al., 2018). The use of a SQ also ensures that students inquire and engage with the sources in powerful ways. A set of sources may need questions to support students in how they approach and analyze the sources at hand. In a sense, you can think of this work as mini-inquiries that require skills they will then use to answer the larger inquiry CQ. We suggest 3–4 SQs per unit; however, this will vary depending on your context— especially the grade level you teach.

Sources The sources used in your lesson plans help students build content knowledge as well as construct and support arguments related to the SQ. Three to four sources are often suggested, but the number of sources really depends on the SQ and the complexity of the sources you choose for students. The sources that you provide here (or have students acquire here) ground the disciplinary literacy work that will be asked of them and influences their perspective. It is crucial for you to select sources that represent diverse perspectives—as you will see in many of the chapters throughout this text, sources can transform the classroom.

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Scaffolding. Understanding the extensive amount of time and resources that are necessary to lesson plan effectively, lesson planning also requires an in-depth understanding of how to scaffold student understanding. Students cannot just be given sources and be expected to “understand” content, history, or other nuanced materials. Students will need to have structures in place, within the lesson, to support the inquiry process. Similar to the scientific process or operations in math, studying social studies has methods for analysis that can be embedded within lessons. The Observe, Reflect, and Question protocol, provided by the Library of Congress, scaffolds the analysis of sources in a circular fashion (Figure 3). Students engage and re-engage with a source in an effort to build meaning and support inquiry in a guided fashion.

As noted in the protocol, an inquiry is driven by questions and the search for meaning. As you plan lessons, structuring the inquiry process for students through scaffolded measures, like the Observe, Reflect, Question protocol, helps to build their critical thinking and analysis skills.

Figure 3. Teacher’s Guide to Analyzing Primary Sources

ST

E

C

T

QU

OBSERVE

E

Analyzing Primary Sources

REFL

Teacher’s Guide

BSERVE

ION

O

Guide students with the sample questions as they respond to the primary source. Encourage them to go back and forth between the columns; there is no correct order.

REFLECT

Have students identify and note details.

QUESTION

Encourage students to generate and test hypotheses about the source.

Have students ask questions to lead to more observations and reflections.

What do you notice first? · Find something small

Where do you think this came from? · Why do you

What do you wonder about...

but interesting. · What do you notice that you

think somebody made this? · What do you think

who? · what? · when? · where? · why? · how?

didn’t expect? · What do you notice that you can’t

was happening when this was made? · Who do you

explain? · What do you notice now that you didn’t

think was the audience for this item? · What tool

earlier?

was used to create this? · Why do you think this

Sample Questions:

item is important? · If someone made this today, what would be different? · What can you learn from examining this?

F U R T h E R I N V E S T I g AT I O N

Help students to identify questions appropriate for further investigation, and to develop a research strategy for finding answers.

Sample Question: What more do you want to know, and how can you find out?

A few follow-up activity ideas:

Beginning Have students compare two related primary source items.

Intermediate Have students expand or alter textbook explanations of history based on primary sources they study.

Advanced Ask students to consider how a series of primary sources support or challenge information and understanding on a particular topic.

Have students refine or revise conclusions based on their study of each subsequent primary source.

For more tips on using primary sources, go to http://www.loc.gov/teachers

LOC.gov/teachers

Note.

The Observe, Reflect, Question protocol scaffolds the analysis and interpretive processes involved in making meaning of primary sources. Prompts are provided to support the teacher in guiding students through each component of analysis and interpretation. From the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/ programs/teachers/getting-started-with-primary-sources/guides/

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The scaffolding process can be tailored to the source you select. Check out some of the other teacher’s guides based on the type of source below: • Analyzing Political Cartoons • Analyzing Motion Pictures • Analyzing Newspapers • Analyzing Books and Other Printed Texts • Analyzing Maps • Analyzing Photographs and Prints

Tasks The tasks provide a means for students to use sources in order to answer the SQ. Swan et al. (2018) define these tasks as “a series of learning experiences that enable students to demonstrate their knowledge of the content, concepts, and skills that are needed to produce clear, coherent, and evidence-based arguments” (p. 92). In a way, tasks provide opportunities for students to practice skills and learn content they will need to complete the summative performance task (i.e., answering the CQ). If viewed in this light, tasks “provide teachers multiple opportunities to evaluate what students know and are able to do so that teachers have a steady loop of data to inform his/her instructional decision-making” (Grant et al., 2014, “Formative Performance Task” section).

Finishing the Inquiry Oftentimes, the end result of “learning” is a score on an exam or test. However, what makes an inquiry approach to social studies unique is the summative performance task—described earlier in the “Summative Assessment” section—that allows students to respond to the CQ with an argument/conclusion leveraged from the sources used throughout the inquiry.

Therefore, the ultimate aim with the summative performance task is not simply content knowledge demonstrated with a final test score but skills and dispositions, such as the ability to explore varying perspectives, build understanding by creating linkages and analyzing conflicting ideas, and communicating one’s argument to an audience.

You could choose to stop students here, thinking they have answered the CQ and asking, what more could be achieved? However, finishing the inquiry (as outlined in the IDM Template with the term Taking Informed Action) provides students opportunities to practice citizenship (Swan et al., 2018). Here, students apply the skills and content knowledge learned throughout the inquiry to take informed action about a current issue or problem. Swan et al. eloquently refer to this phase of planning as crescendoing the intellectual pursuits from the inquiry into opportunities for civic action. Therefore, this phase should be viewed as the ultimate aim of a social studies inquiry, and this step of taking informed action will ensure you fulfill the purpose of the social studies as defined by the National Council for the Social Studies in 1992: “to help young people make informed and reasoned decisions for the public

38 An Inquiry Approach to Planning With Primary Sources

good” (NCSS, 1994, p. 3).

To plan the taking informed action section, you want to start with what students learned throughout the inquiry about an issue or issues and provide space for them to think about it outside the context of the inquiry—demonstrating a deeper understanding of the issue or issues. Second, you should provide space for students to assess possible solutions to the issue or problem at hand, and assessment can be done in large or small groups. Finally, you want to allow students the opportunity to act in a way that promotes a solution to the issue or problem. This action can vary in complexity, depending upon your students and their possible forms of impact, but the desired outcome is to mobilize students as transformative agents who use their knowledge to enact meaningful changes that address contemporary social justice issues in their classroom, school, and/or community (Agarwal-Rangnath, 2015, 2020).

For example, at the elementary level, Picower (2012) outlines six elements of social justice design. These elements include (a) appreciating oneself, (b) respecting others, (c) addressing issues of injustice, (d) understanding social movements to evoke change, (e) raising awareness, and finally (f) taking social action against injustice. You may want to think of action, also, in terms of the locus of the activity. Swan et al. (2018) define three areas where students can take informed action: (a) classroom, (b) school, or (c) community. Thinking about the reach of students’ action here may be helpful when planning for this phase of the inquiry.

It should be noted that this section, unlike the others, may require planning in conjunction with the students as opposed to planning in advance. For example, facilitating a discussion with students at the end of an inquiry about how their learning connects to a current issue or problem will provide you insight on what students are curious about and what types of connections they are making to current issues or problems. From here, you can plan out more specific ways to help students understand, assess, and act. Continued conversations with students will lead you to know more about what actions the students are interested in, which is important because you want students to develop an action that connects to their interests and gives them ownership of the issue or problem. The important element with regards to planning, then, is to listen to students, acknowledge their voices and choices, and provide space for them to take ownership of their actions.

Reflective Activities Planning an inquiry takes time, effort, and understanding of the process. As a reflective practitioner, it is important that you engage in cycles of development and explore a variety of methods relating to planning to support your growth as an educator. To help you continue to explore these themes, the following prompts and activities are provided to close this chapter: 1. Review a grade level and topic of interest linked to relevant social studies state standards in the state you plan on teaching. How would you approach teaching this standard? How might you use an inquiry approach to engage students? Using

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the framework provided in this chapter, see how you would construct a lesson incorporating primary sources from the Library of Congress.

2. Head to the Classroom Materials webpage and select one lesson plan presented by the Library of Congress. Explore the description and background information and, of course, the lesson structure and internal components. What do you like about the lesson? How might you leverage these sources with your future students? How do these lessons embed an inquiry focus?

3. Planning lessons will task you with accounting for a variety of learners and a host of issues that a classroom can offer. You will most likely have a template or guide that your school or district will work from, but deliberate planning is key. Check out the templates provided by C3 Teachers to explore how to structure the daily lessons and reflect on how you will do so with a focus on inquiry.

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Cornbleth, C. (2015). What constrains meaningful social studies teaching? In W. C. Parker (Ed.), Social Studies Today (pp. 276–284). Routledge.

Crowley, R. M., & King, L. J. (2018). Making inquiry critical: Examining power and inequity in the classroom. Social Education, 82(1), 14–17. www.socialstudies.org/social-education/82/1/makinginquiry-critical-examining-power-and-inequity-classroom Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2017). Critical Race Theory: An introduction (3rd ed.). NYU Press. https://doi. org/10.2307/j.ctt1ggjjn3 Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education: An introduction to the philosophy of education. Macmillan.

Fuhler, C. J., Farris, P. J., & Nelson, P. A. (2006). Building literacy skills across the curriculum: Forging connections with the past through artifacts. The Reading Teacher, 59(7), 646–659. https://doi. org/10.1598/rt.59.7.4 Grant, S. G. (2013). From inquiry arc to instructional practice: The potential of the C3 Framework. Social Education, 77(6), 322–326. www.socialstudies.org/social-education/77/6/inquiry-arc-instructionalpractice-potential-c3-framework Grant, S. G., Lee, J. K, & Swan, K. (2014). Inquiry design model. C3 Teachers. http://www.c3teachers.org/ IDM Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). But that’s just good teaching! The case for culturally relevant pedagogy.

Theory Into Practice, 34, 159–165. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1476635 Ladson-Billings, G. (2006). “Yes, but how do we do it?” Practicing culturally relevant pedagogy. In J. Landsman & C. Lewis (Eds.), White teachers, diverse classrooms: Creating inclusive schools, building on students’ diversity, and providing true educational equity (pp. 29–41). Stylus.

Library of Congress. (2015, November 19). Teacher resource: Inquiry & primary sources overview [Video]. www.loc.gov/item/2021689968/

41 Teaching with Primary Sources to Prepare Students for College, Career, and Civic Life, Volume 1

Maxim, G. W. (2014). Constructivist classrooms: Inspiring tomorrow’s social scientists (10th ed.). Pearson.

McTighe, J., & Wiggins, G. P. (1999). Understanding by design. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

McTighe, J., & Wiggins, G. (2012). Understanding by design framework [White paper]. www.ascd.org/ ASCD/pdf/siteASCD/publications/UbD_WhitePaper0312.pdf Morgan, D. N., & Rasinski, T. V. (2012). The power and potential of primary sources. The Reading Teacher, 65(8), 584–594. https://doi.org/10.1002/TRTR.01086 Muhammad, G. (2020). Cultivating genius: An equity framework for culturally and historically responsive literacy. Scholastic.

National Council for the Social Studies. (1994). Expectations of excellence: Curriculum standards for social studies.

National Council for the Social Studies. (2013). The college, career, and civic life (C3) framework for social studies state standards: Guidance for enhancing the rigor of K-12 civics, economics, geography, and history.

Nokes, J. D. (2012). Building students’ historical literacies: Learning to read and reason with historical texts & evidence. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203137321 Paris, D. (2012). Culturally sustaining pedagogy: A needed change in stance, terminology, and practice.

Educational Researcher, 41(3), 93–97. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X12441244 Picower, B. (2012). Using their words: Six elements of social justice curriculum design for the elementary classroom. International Journal of Multicultural Education, 14(1), 1–17. http://dx.doi. org/10.18251/ijme.v14i1.484 Saye, J. W. (2017). Disciplined inquiry in social studies classrooms. In M. M. Manfra, & C. M. Bolick (Eds.), The Wiley handbook of social studies research (pp. 336–359). John Wiley & Sons. https://doi. org/10.1002/9781118768747.ch15 Solórzano, D. G., & Yosso, T. J. (2002). Critical race methodology: Counter-storytelling as an analytical framework for education research. Qualitative Inquiry, 8(1), 23–44. https://doi. org/10.1177/107780040200800103 Stripling, B. (2009). Teaching inquiry with primary sources. Teaching with Primary Sources Quarterly, 2(3), 2–4.

Suiter, S. (2011, July 12). Selecting primary sources, Part I: Knowing your students. Teaching with the Library. https://blogs.loc.gov/teachers/2011/07/selecting-primary-sources-part-i-knowing-yourstudents/ Swan, K., Grant, S. G., & Lee, J. (2020). Inquiry as a way of thinking through the Covid-19 pandemic.

Social Education, 84(3), 159–160.

Swan, K., Lee, J., & Grant, S. G. (2018). Inquiry design model: Building inquiries in social studies. National Council for the Social Studies and C3 Teachers.

Veccia, S. H. (2004). Uncovering our history: Teaching with primary sources. American Library Association.

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2012). The understanding by design guide to advanced concepts in creating and reviewing units. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

42 An Inquiry Approach to Planning With Primary Sources

Chapter 3

What Makes a Family?

See, Think, Wonder Ilene R. Berson, University of South Florida Michael J. Berson, University of South Florida

43 What Makes a Family? See, Think, Wonder

Figure 1. Home of Mrs. Ella Watson

Note

Parks, G. (1942). Washington, D.C. Dinner time at the home of Mrs. Ella Watson, a government charwoman.

[Photograph]. Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/item/2017765103/

44 Teaching with Primary Sources to Prepare Students for College, Career, and Civic Life, Volume 1

What Makes a Family?

C3 Disciplinary Focus History

C3 Inquiry Focus Gathering information from sources, using evidence, and taking informed action

Content Topic What it means to belong to a family; Compare and contrast family traditions and customs

C3 Focus Indicators D1.1.K–2: Explain why the compelling question is important to the student.

D1.2.K–2: Identify disciplinary ideas associated with a compelling question.

D2.His.2.K–2: Compare life in the past to life today.

D2.His.4.K–2: Compare perspectives of people in the past to those of people in the present.

D2.His.12.K–2: Generate questions about a particular historical source as it relates to a particular historical event or development.

D3.4.3–5: Use evidence to develop claims in response to compelling questions.

D4.3.K–2: Present a summary of an argument using print, oral, and digital technologies.

D4.6.K–2: Identify and explain a range of local, regional, and global problems, and some ways in which people are trying to address these problems.

Grade Level K–2

Resources Resources cited in this chapter; Library of Congress website; Family and community resources

Time Required Variable

The theme of families is a common topic to help build classroom community and foster children’s awareness of how diverse families enrich our world (Learning for Justice, n.d.).

The study of families builds bridges between children’s home experiences and school and provides a topic of inquiry that is relevant and meaningful for children’s learning (SoutoManning, 2013). Moreover, when children use the tools and processes for doing history and for thinking historically to explore how families have both remained the same and changed over time, young learners develop an awareness of efforts to create a more just and inclusive society.

The American family today has become increasingly diverse (Pew Research Center, 2015), and there is no typical family structure. According to the United States Census, from 1950–2020, the proportion of children under the age of 18 living with two parents has dropped from 93% to 70%, and over half of all public-school students are from a minoritized racial/ethnic group (de Brey et al., 2019; U.S. Census Bureau, 2020). Family types include nuclear, single-parent, cross-generational, adoptive/foster, never-married partners, blended, multiracial, and same-sex parents (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2020). Family composition, household size, and living arrangements have changed over time, but Census

45 What Makes a Family? See, Think, Wonder

data (2020) indicate that most children live in a nuclear family, which is comprised of two parents. The number of single parent families has increased; however, millions of children live with one or both parents in their grandparents’ home, creating a cross-generational family.

The variety of family structures means that children come from distinct home contexts and have unique experiences. Teachers need to know how to create a curriculum that is responsive to children whose demographics often are different from their own by embracing and honoring all families (Kondor et al., 2019; Naidoo, 2017).

In this chapter, we explore how to use primary sources to support inquiry into family diversity and promote the historical thinking of young learners. Authentic inquiry connects to children’s curiosity about the world around them. Although inquiry builds upon children’s wonderings, teacher intentionality and scaffolding support inquiry-based pedagogy (Berson & Berson, 2014). Teachers may engage children in a participatory process of historical interpretation and also create classroom experiences that facilitate critical pedagogical practice. When preschool and primary grade teachers provide young learners with experiences working with primary sources, students in the early years may begin to participate in an active, constructive process of making meaning of authentic historical resources, using evidence to substantiate their ideas and concept development. Young children are already familiar with gaining meaning about the real world through pictures, and historical images provide a conduit for young children to use their real world experiences and prior knowledge to make inferences about time and place (Berson & Berson, 2014; Levstik & Barton, 2015). Through primary source inquiries, elementary students may begin their social studies exploration by making connections between their own lives and the lives of others in both the past and the present.

The National Council for the Social Studies College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework (NCSS, 2013) emphasizes the need for disciplinary literacy skills. Analyzing diverse sources, asking questions about the evidence, weighing the credibility of information, and using evidence-based interpretation to support a claim are practices embedded in the disciplinary literacy approaches of social scientists (Monte-Sano et al., 2014).

The intentional focus on primary source analysis necessitates careful planning to develop children’s skills in identifying and interpreting this multimodal information. Instruction is designed to build conceptual development while also modeling the tools and skills that real historians and social scientists use to explore significant questions in their disciplines.

Children gather knowledge by observing visual cues, reflecting on their findings, imagining possibilities, asking questions, and formulating answers (Berson & Berson, 2014; Levstik & Barton, 2015). As a result of these processes, students begin co-constructing knowledge with their teacher and peers.

See, Think, and Wonder Many of the processes effective in comprehending written text also facilitate meaningmaking with images. Teacher modeling is an especially important step in young children’s

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discovery of information in primary sources (Fuhler et al., 2006). Making meaning from primary sources is a challenging task for young learners (Berson et al., 2017), and they may need help focusing on key details with a structured process of careful observation and inferring (Berson & Berson, 2014; Levstik & Barton, 2015). The “See, Think, Wonder” thinking routine is a Visible Thinking instructional approach (Project Zero, 2016) that promotes inquiry by leading children through the steps of critical thinking. This primary source analysis strategy is ideal for elementary age students to scaffold their development as self-directed learners and can be embedded into whole group or small group instruction.

The “See, Think, Wonder” method encourages students to make careful observations and thoughtful interpretations by answering three simple questions: 1) What do I see? 2) What do I think about that? 3) What does that make me wonder? Although we present “See, Think, Wonder” as a sequence, authentic inquiry rarely occurs in a linear process (Berson & Berson, 2014; Berson et al., 2017). Children may start at any stage in a learning experience and may revisit stages as new questions arise or reveal a need to return to careful looking to seek out more information. When students are challenged to examine a primary source using the “See, Think, Wonder” method, the activity prompts students to elicit what they already know, stimulates their curiosity, and sets the stage for inquiry.

In the observation stage of the “See, Think, Wonder” method, children draw from their funds of knowledge to make connections to the primary source or infer new insights based on their close observation of the details. Teachers may use close-looking strategies, such as cropping an image and zooming in to carefully explore details, to slow down the observation process and direct children’s attention to the unfolding details of a primary source. Several resources provide guidance on strategies to differentiate and scaffold primary source analysis for learners across the early childhood and elementary grades. For example, Anne Savage adapted the Library of Congress Teacher’s Guide for Analyzing Primary Sources for use with students in K–2 (see Figure 2), which provides thoughtful questions to spark young children’s curiosity and encourages them to stretch their thinking as they engage in whole group or small group conversations facilitated by the teacher. This guide forms a cornerstone for instructional practices in the primary grades and offers a variety of questions to support children’s learning and promote deeper understanding.

Typically, the process starts by introducing a frame for the primary source inquiry that activates children’s prior knowledge and clarifies the objective of the learning experience.

As we guide students through the “See, Think, Wonder” process, the first prompt, i.e., “What do you see?” or “What do you notice first?”, encourages children to look closely at the primary source with intentionality. Most young students rely on literal descriptions through observation, explicitly describing the image depicted (Berson & Berson, 2014; Levstik & Barton, 2015). Labeling the items in an image without further elaboration is the most basic strategy, but students may need direction to focus on the people, observing their clothing and expressions, and then describing objects such as buildings, equipment, and animals.

Children should be reminded to share their observations using the response prompt, “I see…”

47 What Makes a Family? See, Think, Wonder

to emphasize the focus on observation. There is a wealth of possible responses, and teachers should use anecdotal notes to document all of the children’s comments so that students may use these observations to help support the inferences they make as they further analyze and make meaning of the observed information.

Basic observations are often accompanied by inferential descriptions that draw upon prior knowledge or other information sources. Students may begin to speculate about the lifestyles of the people depicted or make assumptions about why certain objects were included in the photo. The process of reflecting on the observed evidence often raises questions or wonderings that can promote further inquiry and also provides insight into the connections that each child is making with the source (Berson & Berson, 2014).

To further assist with scaffolding the “See, Think, Wonder” process, a teacher may rely on the Crop It strategy, using this paper cropping tool (Bondie, 2018). Crop It provides a learning experience that guides young learners in developing their visual literacy. After posing a question, the teacher invites children to closely look at the photographic evidence and “zoom in” on key elements in the historical image (i.e., “crop” to an answer). Crop It also has facilitating questions that assist students in identifying, encoding, and summarizing important information during the thinking stage of the primary source inquiry (Bondie, 2018). In combination with the Library of Congress teacher’s guides, teachers may structure different types of questions appropriate for each child in the class. This process expands children’s competencies for historical inquiry and extends their thinking about connections between the past and present. This is important to scaffold students’ development of formative historical thinking skills. By analyzing resources of past events, children not only develop historical knowledge but also begin to relate distant historical events to their immediate experiences in the present and guide their perspectives and decision-making in the future (Skjæveland, 2017).

48 Teaching with Primary Sources to Prepare Students for College, Career, and Civic Life, Volume 1

Figure 2. Adaptation of Library of Congress Teacher’s Guide: Analyzing Photographs and Prints ob

e

ct

es

refl

Analyzing VISUAL IMAGES in the Primary Grades

qu

I SEE ...

se rv e

t i on

teacher’s guide

Guide students with the sample questions as they respond to the primary source. Students may go back and forth between the columns; there is no correct order.

I WONDER ...

I THINK ...

Encourage students to generate and test hypotheses about the source.

Invite students to ask questions that lead to more observation and speculation.

What do you see?

What else do you notice?

Find something small and interesting.

Do you see any words?

What do you think is happening in this picture?

What do you think the people are doing?

What do you wonder about?

What questions do you have?

What do you see that you've never seen before?/ don't understand?

How do you think that person feels?

Sentence starters: I wonder who...? ...what...? ...when...? ...where...?

What is missing from this picture?

...why...? ...how...?

Clarifying prompts:

Clarifying prompts:

Please point to that.

Describe that.

What makes you say that?

What makes you think that?

Clarifying prompts: What makes you wonder about that?

Ask students to identify and note details.

Sample Questions:

When do you think this picture was made?

What place do you think this picture shows?

Point to what you see that makes you think that.

further investigation

Help students begin to make connections between the primary source and what they are studying.

Sample Questions: What is important about this picture? What does it have to do with what we are reading/studying? What do you still wonder about?

A few follow-up activity ideas:

Beginning Ask students to circle details they think are important on a printed or digitized copy of the primary source.

Advanced Ask students to compare and contrast this primary source with something similar in their lives today.

For more tips on using primary sources, go to http://www.loc.gov.teachers

Intermediate Ask students to imagine they are "in" the picture.

What do they hear? ...smell? ...taste? | LOC.gov/teachers

Note.

This guide for students in K–2 is an adaptation developed by Anne Savage from the Library of Congress Teacher’s Guide for Analyzing Primary Sources.

It is important to note that very young children typically assess primary sources as credible representations of information or events (Dutt-Doner et al., 2007), so it is critical to instruct primary grade students to question, evaluate, and challenge information sources.

This examination approach to primary source inquiry actively engages young students in the work of historians (Ensminger & Fry, 2012). Rather than focusing on learning strategies that emphasize the management and recall of historical data, students employ the tools of historians and explore this archival evidence, using other sources to collaborate, enrich and extend their thinking about events and people (Nokes, 2012). It is important to get students to share and document their thinking during each stage of the routine. This allows the students to build on each other’s ideas and deepen understanding, and it will lead to richer discussions.

As children get practice responding to many different types of questions, they develop familiarity with the inquiry routine and can become increasingly self-directed with the process. Teachers also may support students’ critical thinking by introducing multiple sources of information to accompany the primary source. By exploring diverse perspectives and learning to synthesize information, students may develop their inquiry skills. Additionally, as children develop their reading and writing skills, they may use other analysis tools in small

49 What Makes a Family? See, Think, Wonder

groups or independently to record their ideas, such as the resources in Figures 3 and 4.

Figure 3. Teacher’s Guide: Analyzing Photographs & Prints Teacher’s Guide

O ION

C

E

ST

REFL

E

Analyzing Photographs & Prints

BSERVE

Guide students with the sample questions as they respond to the primary source. Encourage them to go back and forth between the columns; there is no correct order.

T

QU

OBSERVE

REFLECT

QUESTION

Have students identify and note details.

Encourage students to generate and test hypotheses about the image.

Have students ask questions to lead to more observations and reflections.

Describe what you see. · What do you notice first?

Why do you think this image was made? · What’s

What do you wonder about...

· What people and objects are shown? · How

happening in the image? · When do you think it

who? · what? · when? · where? · why? · how?

are they arranged? · What is the physical setting?

was made? · Who do you think was the audience for

· What, if any, words do you see? · What other

this image? · What tools were used to create this?

details can you see?

· What can you learn from examining this image? ·

Sample Questions:

What’s missing from this image? · If someone made this today, what would be different? · What would be the same?

F U R T h E R I N V E S T I g AT I O N

Help students to identify questions appropriate for further investigation, and to develop a research strategy for finding answers.

Sample Question: What more do you want to know, and how can you find out?

A few follow-up activity ideas:

Advanced Have students expand or alter textbook or other printed explanations of history based on images they study.

Beginning Write a caption for the image.

Intermediate Select an image. Predict what will happen one minute after the scene shown in the image. One hour after? Explain the reasoning behind your predictions.

For more tips on using primary sources, go to http://www.loc.gov/teachers

LOC.gov/teachers

Note.

Teacher’s Guide for Analyzing Photographs & Prints from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/programs/teachers/getting-started-with-primary-sources/guides/

Figure 4. S.T.A.R. Primary Source Analysis Worksheet

Note.

Crissy Wheeler, 5th Grade Teacher, Cabell County Schools, Huntington, WV, developed this tool as a formative assessment of students’ understanding of primary sources as evidenced in their written responses to the prompts. It is posted at the Eastern Region resource hub for the Teaching with Library of Congress initiative and was disseminated on the Eastern Region page as part of a project in Cabell County Public Schools in West Virginia (see www.waynesburg.edu/community/tps-eastern-region/ projects-state/west-virginia).

50 Teaching with Primary Sources to Prepare Students for College, Career, and Civic Life, Volume 1

Our approach to instruction applies a critical literacy lens that uses primary sources as counter narratives. These approaches overlap with the dimensions of critical literacy identified by Lewison and colleagues (2002). They describe four interrelated dimensions to critical literacy. Lewison et al. suggest that the first dimension of critical literacy involves seeing the “everyday” through “new lenses” and “problematizing common knowledge” (p.

383). Secondly, critical literacy disrupts standardized or scripted approaches and instead pursues diverse ways of practicing reading by interrogating multiple viewpoints. The third dimension of critical literacy requires readers to go beyond the personal to the sociopolitical, and question how language is tied to power relationships in society that privilege some and marginalize others. Ultimately during the fourth dimension, learning translates into actions focused on social justice in which students seek alternative ways to transform existing inequities and oppressive practices. The use of multiple resources in instruction is a common entry to critical literacy, and when teachers are intentional in their selection of materials and the design of the curriculum, instruction may disrupt the dominant discourse and engage young learners in asking complex questions about power and privilege as well as taking action to challenge commonplace examples of inequities (Kuby, 2013; Rogers & Mosley, 2006; Vasquez, 2014).

Structuring an Inquiry Question Based on Sources In the remainder of the chapter, we model the inquiry process to teach about family diversity using primary sources with a kindergarten class. We want to design instruction so that our classrooms become incubators of inquiry where children engage in systematic investigations.

In the elementary classroom, one way that we can make learning experiences meaningful for young students is to focus on concepts that have captured children’s attention. These become seeds for generating an inquiry focus and inform how we approach Dimension 1 of the C3 Framework, which focuses on questioning.

Getting Started In a kindergarten classroom, we get started on inquiry by first gathering information from the children about what they know and what they want to learn. As we observe children engaged in conversation, we hear discussions take place in classroom centers and on the playground and we listen to children’s questions and comments during story time and morning meeting.

In these moments, children often share their observations and questions about race, gender, and family structure differences. These conversations offer valuable opportunities to identify topics that are meaningful for the children.

Given children’s curiosity about differences in their families, we use an anticipatory web

51 What Makes a Family? See, Think, Wonder

(Helm & Katz, 2016) to gather information on what children already know about families and invite children to share their comments (see Figure 5). During instruction, five-yearold Harrison observes, “Some families are adults and kids, but some have only two people.

Some have a girl and a boy, some have two girls, and some have two boys. It doesn’t matter if two boys or two girls get married. Everybody’s different. If you’re all the same, it’s boring.”

Harrison’s remark reveals his familiarity with some diverse family structures, and his belief is that these differences make the classroom community a richer place. However, many of the other children in the class have little knowledge of the experiences of different kinds of families. It seems strange to them that other people might not define family the same as they do. The children also have limited information on their own family history and how connections in their family have changed over time.

Figure 5. Anticipatory Web: What Do We Know About Families

Note

This anticipatory web documents kindergarteners’ responses to the prompt: What is a family?

Photograph by Ilene Berson

52 Teaching with Primary Sources to Prepare Students for College, Career, and Civic Life, Volume 1

We notice that the children in this classroom have a concept of family based on their own experiences, but we want to add new information and skills to children’s existing knowledge.

Based on the Inquiry Arc of the National Council for the Social Studies C3 Framework (2013), we design the instruction around a compelling question that connects to children’s understanding of themselves and society. By drawing on disciplinary skills and concepts, we can guide children toward deeper investigations, and with this instructional goal in mind, we craft a compelling question to design a student-friendly inquiry that is not only provocative and engaging for young learners, but also reflects “an enduring issue, concern, or debate in social studies” (Grant, 2013, p. 325).

The Compelling Question The compelling question—What Makes a Family?—frames the exploration in this lesson in several ways. Let’s consider why this question is compelling. First, it helps students gain knowledge about what it means to belong to a family. There are multiple perspectives about what it means to be a family, and definitions of family have been guided and informed by social, political, historical, and cultural contexts (Tschida & Buchanan, 2017). Children may lack familiarity with the multitude of meanings of family, and this inquiry activity may disrupt stereotypes about who is included within the concept of family. Next, investigating the compelling question develops children’s dispositions and process skills for in-depth exploration of historical resources. Exploring these differences is beneficial for children’s development of their individual identities while also fostering their curiosity, appreciation, and respect for others as they collaboratively construct knowledge with others through dialogue and challenge their own thinking as well as their peers.

While the compelling question provides a frame for the inquiry, we create supporting questions to scaffold the academic content and skills that make up the lesson (Grant et al., 2017). This form of planning represents an inquiry-based approach that is guided by our observations of children in the classroom, intentionally connects to children’s funds of knowledge, and follows their interests. To foster connections to self, students’ prior experiences and learning need to be activated with relevant content that relates to their current lives. The children’s responses to the anticipatory web helped us craft supporting questions that connected to their wonderings, including “How are families the same and different?” and “What does a family do together?”

As we engage in inquiry to answer the supporting questions above, we also scaffold the children in addressing the compelling question, “What makes a family?” Each stage of the inquiry process makes use of authentic resources in the investigation of this meaningful topic.

Teaching Multiple Disciplines Dimension 2 of the C3 Framework focuses on identifying the disciplinary specific concepts and tools that will guide the inquiry activity and help children develop deeper understanding.

Specific disciplines represent and critique information in unique ways (Berson et al., 2017;

53 What Makes a Family? See, Think, Wonder

Shanahan & Shanahan, 2012). Even within the field of social studies, there are differences among the disciplines (e.g., history, civics, economics, and geography), and each discipline has distinct approaches to how information is created, shared, and evaluated (NCSS, 2013). Since we are working with kindergarten students, this lesson example provides an opportunity to build foundational skills in historical inquiry. In our example lesson, we have identified the relevant pathways of Dimension 2 defined by the C3 Framework for our inquiry on families.

By the end of 2nd grade, students should be able to “compare life in the past to life today” (D2.

His.2.K-2); “compare perspectives of people in the past to those of people in the present” (D2.His.4.K-2); and “generate questions about a particular historical source as it relates to a particular historical event or development” (D2.His.12.K-2).

It is important to note that young children in the primary grades do not need in-depth, chronological understanding to engage in historical thinking. Researchers have found that kindergartners can use visual clues in historical images to arrange them in temporal order (Barton & Levstik, 1996). We can teach young children terms such as “long ago,” “recent past,” and “present” to navigate shifts in time without introducing specific numerical dates and time periods. However, this learning experience also may be informative for elementary social studies teachers in other grades as they build and strengthen their own students’ foundational skills in historical thinking. The visual thinking strategies we use with kindergarteners are beneficial for accommodating the individualized needs of learners, and the focus on visual resources is helpful for building vocabulary and background content knowledge of English language learners (Tran, 2010). Family membership highlights commonalities and unique identities that have emerged over time as historical contexts have changed. So, in answering the compelling question, we want to facilitate children’s capacity to think like historians (Wineburg, 2001), using the tools, evidence, and strategies that historians rely on to make meaning of the past and inform their understanding of the present.

The learning experience also provides an opportunity to introduce disciplinary specific terms, such as “primary sources,” “history,” and “artifacts,” among others. For most young children, this will be their first introduction to this vocabulary, but through gradual exposure and the use of child-friendly definitions, the children may develop familiarity with these foundational concepts. Pre-teaching the vocabulary before the primary source inquiry is especially important to support students whose home language is not English (Giroir et al., 2015; Salinas et al., 2006; Tran, 2010). We often introduce vocabulary in the form of a graphic organizer with visual illustrations of key terms, and as children explore primary sources, these words are used in the context of the inquiry to promote understanding.

An important step in engaging children in disciplinary inquiry is to make sure that we have selected resources that are accessible to them, and for young learners this means that we need to consider the developmental appropriateness of the primary sources and text-based resources that we use in instruction. Our selection process of finding relevant primary sources builds on children’s curiosity and questions, and we seek out historical images that will engage children in observing more detail, generating vivid descriptions, and using the

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evidence to weave together stories about families. Fortunately, digital primary sources are available free of charge online from the Library of Congress and many local, state, national, and international historical archives, offering economical and plentiful sources for interesting content that can introduce the study of history while simultaneously fostering multiliteracies of young learners. To help facilitate the identification of primary sources that may be used to explore cultural and historical concepts, Library of Congress staff curate the treasure trove of resources into blogs on a variety of topics, and several of these posts provide us with a selection of sources for our inquiry on families, including: • Profiling Portraits: Family Groups in Pictures • Using Primary Sources to Explore Different Ways Families Come Together • Home Sweet Home: Life in Nineteenth-Century Ohio To help us decide what image to use for the start of the lesson, we look for compelling sources that focus on familiar representational and ideational structures, including events, objects, and participants involved, but we also are intentional about introducing items that include something unfamiliar or surprising to elicit wonder and engage children in the inquiry process. Not all images are well suited for young learners, and earlier research has identified qualities of artifacts that are developmentally appropriate for early childhood and elementary grades (Berson & Berson, 2014). Students must make personal connections to primary documents before they can develop any historical understanding (Morgan & Rasinki, 2012). Moreover, the primary source should entice the interests of young learners with content that is historically accurate. Therefore, we look for an image that features children as the subjects of the primary source. This familiar imagery offers content that is accessible to young users so that they may begin their inquiry by drawing from their existing knowledge, but as the primary source is revealed, students discover ambiguity or puzzling content that activates their curiosity and challenges their thinking. A scaffolded learning experience engages young learners in an inquiry process that builds their conceptual knowledge as well as increasingly complex historical thinking skills.

With compelling primary sources, young children may also observe relationships among people and emotionally connect with individuals depicted in historical images (Berson & Berson, 2014). Comparing their own lives to children long ago, observing changes in their communities, and exploring primary sources that feature familiar objects, images, and sounds (e.g., toys, household items), young learners may begin understanding the representation of distinct time periods and cultural traditions. Through the analysis of primary sources, young children may investigate temporal and historical changes over time (Barton & Levstik, 1996) while confronting misconceptions. In the kindergarten classroom, we want the sources we select to broaden students’ understanding of what it means to be a family and engage the children in a lively discussion on the topic. To expand upon children’s conceptual background of families and connect to historical inquiry, we have chosen a primary source that will be

55 What Makes a Family? See, Think, Wonder

used as part of whole class instruction to support students as they collectively analyze the image with the teacher interjecting as needed.

We introduce the primary source to the children. “This picture reminds me of some of your drawings. I have a picture here from a really long, long, long time ago. My picture is from before you were born. It was taken before your parents were even born. It was so long ago that it may even have been taken before your grandparents were born. Let’s see if my picture can help us figure out who these people are.”

We begin by showing the photograph of Ella Watson with her three grandchildren and her adopted daughter (see Figure 1) on the large screen and also provide each child a copy of the image along with a magnifying glass to carefully analyze the photo. Students are asked, “What do you see?” Each response is documented on butcher paper, a flip chart, or interactive whiteboard. If a child responds with an interpretation of what they see rather than an observation, we record their response under the think column of Figure 2 and then remind them to tell us what they observe using the phrase, “I see…” For example, if a child makes a statement like, “They look happy,” we respond with a question to elicit a specific observation such as “What do you see that makes you think they look happy?” or model with statements like “I see that they are smiling.”

In the next step, we guide the children to interpret their observations, prompting, “You have looked carefully and made a lot of observations. Who do you think these people are?

What do you think their relationship is to one another?” We again encourage the children to use their observations to support their thinking, asking “What do you see to make you think that?” Other questions might include • “What do you think was happening when the photo was taken?”

• “What do you think happened just before the photo was taken?”

• “What do you think happened just after the photo was taken?”

The children then are encouraged to pursue further inquiry through “I wonder” questions.

Broader, open-ended questions encourage the children to seek additional information beyond their interpretations that might not be directly answerable from the image. We ask the children, “What questions do you have about the photograph? What are you wondering?”

One child inquired, “I wonder who took the photo.” As a follow up, we query, “How could we try to answer this question? Where could we go to find an answer?” Responses from the children include, “Look it up in a book” and “Search on the computer.”

The children’s suggestions to use additional books and digital tools are both great ideas to engage the students in exploring more resources. When possible, we try to pair a primary source with picture books to support knowledge acquisition and early literacy skill development. For example, we may introduce the children’s book Gordon Parks: How the Photographer Captured Black and White America (Weatherford & Christoph, 2015). Gordon Parks was a self-taught photographer who documented social injustice and later became the

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first Black Hollywood director. He photographed Ella Watson at work, in her home, within the community, and at church. Parks’ most famous photograph called American Gothic captured Ella Watson at work holding a large mop in one hand and a broom in the other, standing before a huge American flag hanging on the wall.

Using additional images of government worker Ella Watson and her family, we split the class into small groups and give each group one photograph from the series.

• Washington, D.C. Mrs. Ella Watson, a government charwoman dressing her grandchildren • Washington, D.C. Dinner time at the home of Mrs. Ella Watson, a government charwoman • Washington, D.C. Mrs. Ella Watson, a government charwoman, reading the Bible to her household • Washington, D.C. Grandchildren of Mrs. Ella Watson, a government charwoman Each group uses the “See, Think, Wonder” process to analyze their photo and discuss what story their particular image tells. When the class comes back together, they share the photographs and their analysis. How does seeing all of the photographs together reinforce or change the story each group developed? We discuss what new stories the children can now tell and what other wonderings they have.

Instructional Strategies The Dimension 2 disciplinary skills of engaging in historical thinking and analysis through the See, Think, and Wonder process merge with Dimension 3 as students use their gathered evidence to “develop claims in response to compelling questions” (D3.4.3-5). Although the C3 Framework suggests that developing claims and using evidence should be introduced in grade 3, we assert that primary age children can also develop foundational skills with scaffolding. As the children interpret primary sources, they are encouraged to justify their responses with evidence they have observed.

Supporting Question: How Are Families the Same and Different?

To help children feel valued in their school context, it is important to plan an inclusive approach that honors differences in family structures (Tschida & Buchanan, 2017; Tschida et al., 2017). Educators’ instructional decision-making plays a powerful role in shaping how children view themselves in relation to the messages communicated in the classroom (Berson & Berson, 2019). For the topic of families, an important part of our process of identifying primary resources for engaging elementary students in inquiry-based learning is locating representations of families that showcase diverse families and alternative family structures so that all children find themselves reflected in the curriculum while also having

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an opportunity to learn about others through their educational experiences. Displaying photographs of families that celebrate differences helps feature the varied portrayals of what a family looks like and allows children in a classroom who are not part of the dominant narrative to feel recognized (Naidoo, 2017; Tschida & Buchanan, 2017; Van Horn & Hawkman, 2018). Children often observe these differences (Souto-Manning, 2013), which provides valuable opportunities for conversations to support inclusive ideas about gender roles, sociocultural identity, and family structure differences.

We bring into our instruction inclusive text sets to supplement primary sources with a broader range of family experiences that often are marginalized, such as children who have experienced loss or trauma due to incarceration, deportation, divorce, or death (Tschida & Buchanan, 2017; Tschida et al., 2017). We are intentional in our selection of texts that depict counter-narratives to highlight the many distinct ways that families are formed and spark rich discussions about the social and historical forces that have influenced who belongs to or is included in a family. Children’s literature complements the primary sources we select to provide multiple representations of what a family looks like. Together, these instructional materials provide diverse sources for students to evaluate the experiences of people within socio-historical contexts that highlight the complex issues of family membership.

One of the decisions when planning instruction is whether the picture books or primary sources should be introduced first, or perhaps we might opt to sandwich a book between diverse primary sources to provide historical background or content knowledge. Books offer an excellent entry point into an inquiry, and our decision to start with children’s literature was guided by the learning focus on comparing and contrasting family structures.

Kindergarteners often need support in noticing subtle differences and developing the verbal skills to articulate similarities and differences (Berson et al., 2017). The texts provide practice comparing and contrasting in an explicit way and visually representing the process with Venn diagrams.

Building on the students’ skills comparing and contrasting resources, we further the primary source inquiry with a gallery walk, which involves the display of images around the room set up as stations where small teams of students collaborate. Each photograph includes a different family from the sources we located earlier in our planning process. Like any classroom activity, we clarify expectations for the children before beginning and model what active engagement looks like and sounds like during a gallery walk. Typically, we pre-organize the children into groups of 3–4 students and establish a specific rotation (i.e., clockwise).

One of the most important outcomes is that students are up and out of their chairs actively applying concepts and skills they have been learning to cooperatively engage in the inquiry process. We use different color post-it notes for each team as well as a matching color marker pen. This allows every group to see what contributions have been made. The children work together to apply the concepts and historical inquiry skills that they have been developing in class. During the gallery walk, the teacher moves from group to group, asking probing questions and providing encouragement. Once students have become familiar with gallery

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walks, a fun adaptation is the gallery run, a more fast paced version that might be structured with a timed 30-second look at each historic photograph to find a similarity or a difference with a family featured in one of the children’s books about families read in class.

Supporting Question: What Does a Family Do Together?

Primary sources provide valuable insight into family life and offer clues about day-to-day events that reveal details of family activities, the events families celebrate, and the occasions that are notable for families to document. There are many ways to learn about family histories. One approach includes an examination of artifacts, such as diaries, photo albums, home movies, and greeting cards.

To help students’ concept development, we explain to students what traditions are.

Traditions are important in many families and can continue for many generations. For example, our family has many traditions around Thanksgiving. Our extended family of uncles, aunts, cousins, and grandparents get together the night before to eat pizza, and then we celebrate the birthdays of six family members born in the month of November with a huge chocolate cake on Thanksgiving Day. We have students think of traditions in their own families and share with their peers. If they cannot think of any traditions that their family has, the children may describe a tradition that they would like to have or start in their family.

To introduce children to the exploration of family traditions with primary sources, we use the KidCitizen digital interactive Rosa Parks: A Proud Daughter. Recognizing the potential of digital games to teach children to use primary sources for discovery and problem-solving, the Library of Congress funded the development of apps for a variety of grade levels. KidCitizen is a digital interactive platform designed for children in grades K–5. The episodes provide authentic, age-appropriate interaction with primary source materials, based on researchinformed practices and evidence-based pedagogy, engaging children in exploring civics and government concepts through historical sources, and connecting what they find with their daily lives. Digital games can help facilitate the identification of primary sources that may be used to explore cultural and historical concepts with developmentally appropriate strategies (Berson et al., 2017). The interactive capabilities of digital resources provide unique opportunities to facilitate students’ movement from the arbitrary “seeing” to the deliberate “looking” (Ali-Khan, 2011, p. 315). These observations may lead to questions for further investigation and introduction of strategies to seek answers. The integration of games into the teaching of social studies has optimized the use of multiple sources to promote students’ historical inquiry and problem solving skills (Kim et al., 2009). Game-based learning not only contributes to a learning environment that is interesting and engaging for students but also fosters collaboration among learners while meeting educational goals (Hwang et al., 2015).

In the Rosa Parks KidCitizen episode, children analyze a greeting card to learn about Rosa Parks and her family. The greeting card offers a familiar resource for exploring family traditions. Every greeting card has a purpose and a message that carries information and expresses feelings for a special occasion from one person to another. The front of the card

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has an image and some simple writing. The inside of the card has a poem, and the back of the card features Rosa Parks’ handwritten note to her mother. Children observe the details of the card and analyze clues to figure out what family tradition was being celebrated. Working with an in-game mentor character Ella, children use parts of the card as evidence to support their ideas as they generate hypotheses about the card’s recipient, sender, and the feelings the sender wanted to express. Children explore the handwritten note on the card and practice deciphering the message by looking for familiar letters or words.

Family life is often a topic of discussion in journal entries and letters sent to relatives. Using photos, documents, and music from the Library of Congress classroom materials, students can investigate rituals and customs of different families. For example, using resources from the Rosa Parks’ collection, children may explore how different types of greeting cards are used to communicate feelings, information, and events. After selecting a variety of greeting cards from the collection, children can group the different types of greeting cards by theme or occasion and explore how writing styles and techniques, such as rhyming or jokes, depend on the type and occasion of the message sent.

Although we have explored applications in the kindergarten classroom, we also could adapt this instruction for the intermediate grades, exposing students to other types of primary sources that offer more complexity or that need additional contextual support. For example, exploring resources on families who have addressed significant life events throughout time (i.e., births, marriage, death, holiday celebrations) showcases how families provide care and support during periods of need as well as in their everyday moments of interaction. Primary sources bring the real world into the classroom, creating relevant and meaningful learning experiences.

Family celebrations and rituals also are captured in the form of songs. Students may listen to lyrics from wedding and funeral music, such as: • California Gold: Folk Music from the Thirties: Taksim and Wedding Dance • Hispano Music & Culture of the Northern Rio Grande: Los Bienaventurados (The Fortunate Ones) • Southern Mosaic: Two White Horses Standin’ in Line By examining songs as historical artifacts, children may use the Analyzing Sound Recordings tool to explore the role of song in family life and further develop their inquiry skills with related activities, such as interviews with older relatives or neighbors to explore the occasions when they sang and the titles or lyrics that they remember from their family experiences.

Oral history interviews provide a rich source of information about family histories. The American Folklife Center has several collections that document lives and memories of family events. The interviews also add another type of analysis that involves listening to the voices of people from long ago and can complement other sources by providing unique details on

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an event captured in a photograph. Rather than “See, Think, and Wonder,” we can engage in a process of listening, reflecting, and questioning what we hear.

Voices Remembering Slavery: Freed People Tell Their Stories is a collection of recorded interviews collected between 1932 and 1975 in nine Southern states. In the interview of Bob Ledbetter from Louisiana, he discusses the importance of family ties for those enslaved people fortunate enough to have them. Also, the interview with Harriet Smith includes a discussion of her extended family and how they were separated. Engaging children in thinking about families separated by enslavement (or modern-day immigration policies) opens opportunities for experiences that promote justice-oriented citizenship (FerrerasStone & Demoiny, 2019). Throughout time, families have been displaced and separated, and the challenges facing families in the past and present help children recognize patterns that connect these experiences, including the role of people in power to control families staying together or being torn apart.

Additionally, a study of family could include an inquiry into the landmark Supreme Court decision that overturned laws banning interracial marriage and explore the relevance of the case to our lives today (Van Horn & Hawkman, 2018). On June 12, 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court rendered a decision in Loving v. Virginia which stated that prohibition of marriage between people of different races was unconstitutional. This ended all race-based legal restrictions on marriage in the United States. The anniversary is remembered every year as Loving Day (June 12). Children’s books that can introduce historical background on the case. For example, for younger students, A Case for Loving: The Fight for Interracial Marriage

by Selina Alko (2015) tells the story of Mildred Loving and Richard Perry Loving. With scaffolded support, intermediate age students may also appreciate Loving vs. Virginia: A Documentary Novel of the Landmark Civil Rights Case (2017) written by Patricia Hruby Powell and illustrated by Shadra Strickland. The docu-novel includes news clippings, maps, and historical photographs. During a Library of Congress Young Readers Center Event, Patricia Hruby Powell and Shadra Strickland discussed their book, and the recording includes a brief video featuring the Lovings talking about the landmark decision that cleared the way for interracial marriage in the United States. There are several additional resources to help plan an inquiry for students about government rules that define who can be considered a family, including the following: • Social Education, the official journal of NCSS, published an article in the May/June 2017 issue on “The Lessons from Loving v. Virginia still Resonate 50 Years Later” and a 2018 issue of Social Studies and the Young Learner, the NCSS journal for elementary educators, includes an article on using trade books to teach elementary students about marriage equality, titled “First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage (Equality).”

• DocsTeach from the National Archives links to the Supreme Court decision, along with some background information. Oyez also includes an audio of the oral argument on April 10, 1967.

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• The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has a page “Looking Back at the Landmark Case, Loving v. Virginia.”

• The Bill of Rights Institute has a lesson on Loving v. Virginia.

• The National Constitution Center’s lesson “Supreme Court: Practice with Precedents 2010” familiarizes students with the Supreme Court process for reviewing cases using Loving v. Virginia.

• Learning for Justice, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, provides a teacher’s guide on the Loving story with questions for discussion, vocabulary, and ties to standards.

• Time Magazine published an article in 2016 titled “What You Didn’t Know about Loving v. Virginia.”

Final Assessment: Communicating Conclusions and Taking Informed Action A key outcome for social studies education is preparing children to assume active roles as citizens who contribute to civic life (Levinson & Levine, 2013). A lesson is not complete unless participatory experiences are included that provide children with opportunities to use their acquired knowledge and skills to take informed action with application in their own lives. Achieving these outcomes requires the investment of instructional time for implementation of the inquiry, but the benefits are significant. High quality, inquiry-based learning with a focus on engaged action contributes to interdisciplinary academic success across content domains (Knapp & Hopkins, 2018) and helps overcome civic empowerment gaps common among children from lower socio-economic and marginalized communities (Levinson & Levine, 2013). The C3 Framework emphasizes the importance of this goal of nurturing “knowledgeable, thinking, and active citizens,” asserting that “now more than ever, students need the intellectual power to recognize societal problems; ask good questions and develop robust investigations into them; consider possible solutions and consequences; separate evidence-based claims from parochial opinions; and communicate and act upon what they learn” (NCSS, 2013, p. 6). Ensuring that instruction includes this focus reflects our commitment to equity and rigor for all learners.

To ensure that children can practice and demonstrate the disciplinary skill sets they have acquired throughout the lesson, we design a task that connects to authentic real-world contexts. Taking action can focus on a number of spheres of influence, including school, home, and community. Our kindergarten learning experience includes an oral history project to connect to the life histories of the children’s families. We tap into the funds of knowledge of their families to foster home-school connections while providing children with experiences applying their historical thinking skills to connect the past with the present.

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The Library of Congress American Folklife Center (2015) offers guidance for planning an oral history project.

There are many ways to document and preserve families’ histories. One approach concentrates on the examination of public records, such as census records, church records, wills, and deeds. Another approach focuses on the examination of various materials that are in the possession of family members, such as diaries, photograph albums, home movies, business records and artifacts.

A third approach is concerned with recording oral history interviews with family members about aspects of their lives and memories of other relatives and important events in the family’s history.

Interviewing projects allow children to take action by interviewing family members and constructing a story to highlight the uniqueness of their family experience while underscoring the unifying features of love and care. In the kindergarten classroom, this process begins by explaining to students what a family history is. This discussion introduces or reinforces disciplinary specific concepts and clarifies that history includes events that happened long, long ago as well as events that took place last week. Children learn that history is comprised of stories using information from various sources. The stories may include photographs and letters, as well as the details from interviews with people in their family who share their experiences and knowledge. Each child has a family history, and they can turn and share with a peer a story from their recent or past family history.

To help expand upon each child’s story of family, the children use the Library of Congress Intergenerational Interview protocol (see Figure 6) to investigate their family traditions and gain an understanding of the perspectives and experiences of their own family members. A letter home to families describes the project and provides the form in Figure 6.

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Figure 6. Intergenerational Interview Protocol 1.

Name of the person you interviewed:

2.

Relationship to you:

3.

When and where was the person born?

4.

What is the person’s birth order in the family? (only, oldest, youngest?)

5.

If the person has siblings, how many does he/she have? Gender of siblings?

6.

What is the person’s culture?

7.

How long has the person’s family lived in the United States?

8.

Name jobs held by family members.

9.

Name languages spoken by the person’s family.

10. What celebrations did the person participate in as a child?

11. What celebrations does the person participate in as an adult?

12. Do you believe it is important to celebrate rituals? Why or why not?

13. Ask the person to name a news event that is memorable to him or her.

Why is it memorable?

14. Ask the person to name an important family member. Why did he or she choose that person?

15. What is the person’s definition of a family?

Note.

The questions are adapted from the UCLA Library Center for Oral History Research. (2021). Family history sample outline and questions. https://oralhistory.library.ucla.edu/pages/family_history

Once children have gathered this information, they can organize the historical evidence on significant events, people, and places in their lives that have contributed to their family’s identity and share this information with others (Cornett et al., 2019). The interview details may be accompanied by photographs, documents, and artifacts that the children include in a family history box or bag. To represent their family history, children may create one of the following to be shared during a Family Stories Celebration in class: • Family timeline with 3–4 important events and their significance, using pictures and words • Family tree During the Family Stories Celebration, children can go for a gallery walk to see each classmate’s family history spotlighted. In doing so, the children have an opportunity to learn from each other and compare their diverse histories as well as discover their commonalities as they refine their own historical inquiry skills.

Through exploration, children can critically reflect on their own family history and construct their family story. By sharing with peers, the children not only think about the richness of differences but also develop a recognition that others have experiences that are distinct from their own. Both the primary source analysis and family history activities bridge complex historical and contemporary events to understand human experiences in the past

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and the present and can be used with children to uncover patterns across time with diverse sources of evidence. As children consider historical resources, they also can connect to contemporary events to promote justice-oriented citizenship, contemplating how families have come together and struggled to stay together over time.

Conclusion By engaging in primary source analysis, young children may be provided the opportunity to develop important social studies skills and knowledge. Historical photographs are accessible to all learners, and young children can construct meaning by looking at images and talking about them (Berson & Berson, 2014; Levstik & Barton, 2015). They learn to evaluate information, gather evidence, communicate conclusions, and take informed action.

Children thrive when they come to understand there are varying family structures and that the commonality of all families is that they are comprised of people who love and care about each other. However, families throughout time also have faced adversity, and young children are capable of using historical inquiry to explore these conflicts of the past and present to learn how to cope with these challenges. Even if a child’s family configuration changes through death, separation, or other life events, they can learn from their family story and use the tools of historical inquiry to seek understanding of these experiences. With knowledge of people’s actions and motivations in the past and present, children develop perspective-taking skills that they may employ to foster a more equitable and inclusive society. These skills are the exclusive result of educational experiences and do not emerge spontaneously. Therefore, elementary teachers have an essential role to play in introducing young learners to historical ways of thinking that can inform their values and actions in the present.

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Shanahan, T., & Shanahan, C. (2012). What is disciplinary literacy and why does it matter? Topics in Language Disorders, 32(1), 7–18.

Skjæveland, Y. (2017). Learning history in early childhood: Teaching methods and children’s understanding. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 18(1), 8–22.

Souto-Manning, M. (2013). Multicultural teaching in the early childhood classroom: Approaches, strategies, and tools, preschool–2nd grade. Teachers College Press.

Tran, T. (2010). Primary sources and English language learners. Teaching with Primary Sources Quarterly, 3(3). www.loc.gov/static/programs/teachers/about-this-program/teaching-with-primary-sourcespartner-program/documents/english-language.pdf Tschida, C. M., & Buchanan, L. B. (2017). What makes a family? Sharing multiple perspectives through an inclusive text set. Social Studies and the Young Learner, 30(2), 3–7.

Tschida, C. M., Buchanan, L. B., & Lapham, S. S. (2017). Activities for learning about diverse families using picture books. Social Studies and the Young Learner, 30(2), 1P–4P. U.S. Census Bureau. (2020). Historical living arrangements of children. https://www.census.gov/data/ tables/time-series/demo/families/children.html Van Horn, S. E., & Hawkman, A. M. (2018). First comes love, then comes marriage (equality): Welcoming diverse families in the elementary classroom. Social Studies and the Young Learner, 31(2), 24–32.

Vasquez, V. M. (2014). Negotiating critical literacies with young children. Routledge.

Weatherford, C. B., & Christoph, J. (2015). Gordon Parks: How the photographer captured Black and White America. Albert Whitman.

Wineburg, S. (2001). Historical thinking and other unnatural acts: Charting the future of teaching the past.

Temple University Press.

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Chapter 4

Geographic Thinking With Primary Sources: How Does the Geography of Where We Live Influence How We Live?

Ilene R. Berson, University of South Florida Michael J. Berson, University of South Florida

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Figure 1. Greenbelt Schoolchildren Studying Map

Note.

Rothstein, A. (1939). Greenbelt schoolchildren studying map [Photograph]. Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/item/2017777354/

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How Does the Geography of Where We Live Influence How We Live?

C3 Disciplinary Focus History & Geography

C3 Inquiry Focus Gathering information from sources, using evidence, and taking informed action

Content Topic Spatial thinking with primary sources

C3 Focus Indicators D1.1.K–2: Explain why the compelling question is important to the student.

D1.2.K–2: Identify disciplinary ideas associated with a compelling question.

D2.Geo.2.K–2: Use maps, graphs, photographs, and other representations to describe places and the relationships and interactions that shape them.

D2.Geo.3.K–2: Use maps, globes, and other simple geographic models to identify cultural and environmental characteristics of places.

D2.Geo.7.K–2: Explain why and how people, goods, and ideas move from place to place.

D2.His.11.K–2: Identify the maker, date, and place of origin for a historical source from information within the source itself.

D3.1.K–2: Gather relevant information from one or two sources while using the origin and structure to guide the selection.

D4.3.K–2: Present a summary of an argument using print, oral, and digital technologies.

D4.6.K–2: Identify and explain a range of local, regional, and global problems, and some ways in which people are trying to address these problems.

Suggested Grade Levels K–2

Required Time Variable

Understanding our place in the world is both exciting and challenging for young learners. In the past, elementary school teachers have relied on maps and globes to help teach abstract concepts about space and place. Today, teachers have a vast array of digital tools and resources to help children learn about our communities and world and approach the study of geography from a more critical perspective. For example, in an article and video on Vox, Johnny Harris (2016) demonstrates how map representations are inaccurate and misleading by cutting open a globe in an attempt to turn it into a flat map.

According to Christina Riska (2014) from National Geographic, “spatial thinking is arguably one of the most important ways of thinking for a child to develop as he or she grows” (para.

2). Spatial thinking is what allows us to solve problems by manipulating, constructing, and navigating the paths of objects (Newcombe & Shipley, 2015). The National Research Council (2006) asserts that “in terms of its power and pervasiveness, spatial thinking is on par with … mathematical or verbal thinking” (p. 25); however, researchers in geography education have debated about how, and at what level of instruction, to introduce students to these spatialthinking skills.

The experiences of children are influenced by spatial as well as temporal constructs.

During the early years, experience talking about spatial concepts, such as spatial features,

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relations, and orientations, is useful for children’s acquisition of spatial ideas. In addition to hearing spatial language, engaging in spatial activities also facilitates spatial learning and performance on spatial tasks in young children (Newcombe, 2013). Gersmehl and Gersmehl’s (2007) summary of research on spatial thinking by young children demonstrates that children are well-equipped to perform and practice a variety of age-appropriate spatial-thinking tasks as early as two or three years of age. An implication of the authors’ work is that not only are young children able to practice these skills but that educators should also intentionally engage children in activities that support this learning.

Spatial thinking is what allows us to mentally “picture the locations of objects, their shapes, their relations to each other and the paths they take as they move” (Newcombe, 2013, p.

28). In daily life, we use spatial reasoning to read maps, find our way home from the store, interpret diagrams and charts, and understand how objects relate to each other. Maps are inherent in younger children’s lives, implicitly and formally. When children construct a miniature city in the block corner, they have essentially created a three-dimensional map. Their experiences in their immediate and local places from their earliest years enable children to actively construct their personal geographies, drawing on their everyday observations, journeys, explorations, and activities. However, these experiences are context specific. For example, a child growing up on a farm provides a different landscape to play, work, and grow as opposed to a child growing up in a large urban area. As children explore their local places, their early spatial awareness enables their mental mapping of known places, but these skills can be scaffolded to extend their awareness and knowledge of places from the immediate and local to national and global, using a variety of maps.

Another critical tool for building children’s spatial reasoning skills is map reading. Making a map of children’s surroundings and incorporating landmarks around the room help them to apply their understanding from a two-dimensional map onto an area in the real world (Geist, 2016). Maps support spatial thinking by helping children visualize where objects, places, cities, and countries are in relation to one another. In other words, maps help children make sense of their place in the world. The understanding that space exists independent of our experience of it comes about because of exposure to maps.

To use, understand, or create maps, children employ spatial orientation and location. Even preschool children have demonstrated initial mapping abilities and can develop their spatial orientation and visualization abilities through active engagement with maps, models, and computer representations (Cohrssen et al., 2017).

In addition, maps affect how we think about spatial information; maps may lead people to think about space in more abstract and relational ways than they would otherwise. For these reasons, maps can be construed as tools for thought in the domain of spatial cognition. Maps provide a cognitive tool to help children extend their reasoning about space in a new way.

Over time, children can internalize the tool and think about space in map-like ways, even if they are not looking at a map at the time.

Research suggests that spaces and places influence perceptions and experiences of

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everyday life, critically exploring how our identities are socially constructed and shaped by our day-to-day environments. Therefore, maps should be taught as stories. To help students think more deeply, maps must be made problematic. Once we reveal maps to be manufactured items, they become open to discussion and debate (Segall, 2003).

When planning a primary source analysis focused on geographic thinking, we draw on an appreciation that geography can be imaginative and creative. Geography is not just focused on learning the names and locations of places. Geographers think about space and focus on themes of location, place, human/environment interaction, movement, and regions.

The National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS, 2013) C3 Framework emphasizes the interconnectedness of these themes, identifying the following four categories: • Geographic Representations: Spatial Views of the World • Human-Environment Interaction: Place, Regions, and Culture • Human Population: Spatial Patterns and Movements • Global Interconnections: Changing Spatial Patterns

Rationale for Classroom Practice Our daily lives provide us with many rich geographical experiences. We often think and act geographically without realizing it. As we navigate our way around our home, school, and neighborhood; when we use the weather forecast to decide what to wear; and when our family packs for a holiday vacation and plans what transportation is best to get there, we apply our geographic thinking. Drawing on these funds of knowledge and experiences, we can prompt children’s thinking with questions and design lessons that promote primary source inquiry with a geographic lens.

Each field has distinct disciplinary approaches to the study of primary sources that offer unique perspectives. Geographers have different ways of looking at the world, and primary sources offer important insights into places and the ways that people have used and organized space. A geographical perspective prompts questions that are aligned to each of the geographic themes, such as: • Location: Where is it located? Why is it there? What is located near there?

• Place: What is it like there? Is this place flat or hilly? What might the weather be like in this place? Is it hot or cold, wet or dry?

• Human/Environment Interaction: What materials do people use to build their homes? How do people use the land (i.e., farms, businesses, industries)? How have people changed or affected the environment? How does the weather influence clothing? What cultural traditions have emerged?

• Movement: How and why are places connected with one another? How do people move from one place to another? Why might the road have been built where it is?

• Region: How and why is one area similar to another?

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One of the ways we can learn about new places is by looking at maps, just like the group of students in Figure 1. A common way that children interact with maps today is through applications like Google Maps, but maps from long ago provide an important resource for facilitating children’s exploration of how map creators decide how maps should look and what information should be included. This process of inquiry helps students become critical consumers of maps as they investigate the spatial history of an area. Engaging in the inquiry process enables students to think critically about different spaces that they are studying.

The Library of Congress has a vast collection of maps in its holdings with over 38,000 digitized online, which can support an inquiry on what can be learned about spaces and places from maps. To help teachers refine their search, the Library’s Classroom Materials include sets of primary sources curated for each state. These resources can be used for a variety of activities that focus on developing spatial thinking abilities while drawing on local and regional connections. Library of Congress staff have also curated other map resources and teaching ideas into blogs: • Engaging Students With Primary Source Maps • Maps: More Than Just a Tool for Navigation • Free to Use and Reuse: Maps of Discovery and Exploration Many maps show what a place looks like from above. This is similar to what a bird in the sky might see and is called a bird’s-eye view. The panoramic map was a popular way to represent U.S. and Canadian cities and towns during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Known also as bird’s-eye views, perspective maps, and aero views, panoramic maps are nonphotographic representations of cities portrayed as if viewed from above at an oblique angle. Today to see places, spaces, and people on the ground from above, we can fly in a plane, take a trip in a hot air balloon, fly a drone, or ride an elevator to the top floor of a tall building.

The artists who drew the panoramic maps long ago did not have these options available to them. If they wanted to view the land below, they might climb a mountain or elevated area, but that was limited based on location. So, these maps are not drawn to scale, but rather, tell stories that reflect certain perspectives about places and spaces. The bird’s-eye views show street patterns, individual buildings, and major landscape features in perspective. The Library of Congress has over 1,500 panoramic maps, and five artists—Albert Ruger, Thaddeus Mortimer Fowler, Lucien R. Burleigh, Henry Wellge, and Oakley H. Bailey—drew more than half of the panoramic maps in the Library of Congress archives. The collection can be searched by state to identify resources most relevant for a class inquiry. By digitally accessing the bird’s-eye-view maps, students can engage in a map flyover and then zoom into specific areas to closely observe details, documenting evidence to support their ideas. From way up high, they can see different things than if they looked at the same place on the ground, and a comparison of what can be observed from above and on the ground can yield important insights about the features of a place. For example, using one of Ruger’s panoramic maps of

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Jefferson City, the capital of Missouri, the KidCitizen episode A Bird’s Eye View: Wondering with Maps engages children in wondering about Ruger’s representation of the area. The State capitol, railroad station, and major roads can be located on the map and also explored up-close in photographs. How does this change the perspective of the place? The teacher may use a think-aloud to reflect on what it is like to walk around the school communities and see the fronts and backs of buildings rather than the roofs. This modelling of how to describe a place using both maps and photographs can provide an initial introduction to corroboration.

Students also can focus on exploring how the place has changed over time by comparing the historical map to a Google map of the same location. Using a puzzle strategy, a teacher may break up both maps into pieces. The pieces are enlarged, printed out, and provided to small groups of students. Each group receives a matching portion of a small section of the historical and contemporary maps to focus their attention on a specific area and attend to the details. The whole class then comes together to put the pieces of each map together and view the whole map. Putting the puzzle together lets students practice their spatial thinking.

Guiding questions to prompt comparisons and see how communities have changed over time include the following: • Which buildings, streets, parks, or other features have changed or stayed the same?

What roads have been added?

• What words or geographic features have changed?

• Where do you think people lived, and why?

Other geographic analyses can focus on issues of belonging and identity within neighborhoods. For example, if we revisit the community of Jefferson City, Missouri, the Illustrated Sketch Book and Directory of Jefferson City and Cole County provides details on the names, addresses, and occupations of residents in 1900. The socioeconomic and racial divides within a community can be explored based on how the place is organized. Compelling questions focused on critical geography may include the following: • How does the geography of where we live influence how we live? How do communities differ based on their location?

• Whose story is told through maps? What do maps reveal about dominant and marginalized voices in our society?

Teaching Multiple Disciplines The traditional teaching of geography in schools emphasizes recall of states, capitals, and countries with an emphasis on spaces and places as fixed physical categories. However, geography is a much more complex area of study that considers how a space becomes a specific place. The goal is to engage students in critical inquiry as they apply geographic concepts and tools.

Applying geographic thinking strategies, students can explore questions about location by

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comparing maps and other spatial representations, but in addition to maps, other primary sources can be explored from the point of view of geographers. The Alliances of Colorado, Arizona, Oregon, and Nevada have developed forms to guide geographic analysis of a variety of primary sources. Each tool includes numerous questions to facilitate inquiry, and the questions are organized under the columns of Observe, Reflect, and Question. Teachers are recommended to select a few questions from each column. The Observe column focuses on details that can be seen. The Reflect column relies on background knowledge to make educated guesses about what is observed. The Question column focuses on generating questions to prompt further investigation and inquiry. The Library of Congress has teacher’s guides for analyzing audiovisual materials, documents, images, and maps.

When applying geographic thinking to the analysis of primary sources, students can observe the geographic characteristics of a place. Their observations may include a focus on the following: • Weather, including temperature (deducible from clothing) • Activities depicted • Clothing • Natural surroundings (e.g., tree, clouds, water, etc.)

• Human-made surroundings (e.g., stores, schools, roads, buses, cars) Exploring details within a primary source can enhance close-looking skills that focus on geographic concepts; however, strategies that provide scaffolded support are important to help elementary learners refine their analysis. For example, examining the iconic photograph from 1900 of Mulberry Street in New York City (Figure 2) can be overwhelming for young students due to the large amount of detail presenting urban life in one of the country’s largest cities.

Teachers and students can use the built-in Zoom function on the photograph page to look for details. Another approach could be to engage students in a game of hide-and-seek on Mulberry Street. There are two variations: • One student in each pair should choose a hiding place and imagine hiding there. The student gives a series of sensory clues to help the other student “find” him. I feel warm pavement under my body. It’s dark, but I see some shadows. I see men’s shoes. Where am I? • One student identifies a particular person in the image, and then gives a series of sensory clues that will zero the partner in to identify the selected person: I feel the weight of a baby as big as me. I hear my friends goofing off. I put my face in a serious expression for the photographer. Who am I? (Lederle, 2013)

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By imagining themselves “jumping” into the image of a place, students also can participate in an analysis that activates all their senses, using prompts for sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell (see Figure 3). These activities guide students in practicing skills, including use of spatial vocabulary, attending to visual details, practicing listening, determining point of view, and making inferences.

Figure 2. Mulberry Street, New York City

Note.

Mulberry Street, New York City. (ca. 1900). [Photograph]. Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/item/2016794146/

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Figure 3. Put Yourself in the Picture Photo Analysis

PUT YOURSELF IN THE PICTURE PHOTO ANALYSIS Imagine yourself in the image provided and list three to five phrases describing what you see, hear, taste, touch and smell.

Sight What do you see? People? Words? Buildings? Animals? Interesting Items? Do these things give you clues about this time and place?

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Sound What do you hear? People? Animals? Nature? Sounds from inside or outside of buildings?

Sounds can indicate something good, bad or sad.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Taste What do you taste? Are things edible or is there “something in the air”?

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Smell What smells are around you? City or rural scents? People? Animals? Businesses? Do they make you think of something good or bad?

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Touch How and what do you feel? What is the environment like? Hot? Cold? Wet? Are there “things” that you can touch? What do they feel like?

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Note.

From Learning with Lincoln Institute, sponsored by Teaching with Primary Sources at Eastern Illinois University and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

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Subsequently examining Mulberry Street from different perspectives through a variety of primary source formats enhances students’ understanding of urban life. Consider the question “How do two different primary sources of Mulberry Street relate to one another?”

(See Italian bread peddlers, Mulberry Street, New York.) Elementary students can also compare the geographic features of different regions by analyzing the markets in other cities, such as Boston.

Diverse types of primary sources provide a view of New York City in motion, using primary source film to examine urban life and explore how people have changed the environment over time.

• Automobile parade (1900) • Move on (1903) • Sky scrapers of New York City, from the North River (1903)d • White Wings on Review (1911) Children’s literature with a focus on living in an urban environment also provides background knowledge on city life. For example, students can read The Rocket Book (1912) to discover a different perspective of apartment living in an urban setting at the turn of the century. Whether we are examining news stories, photographs, film, or children’s books, what ties all of these resources together is geography.

Instructional Strategies: A Classroom Example Let’s consider what these strategies look like when integrated into a classroom lesson. In a second-grade classroom, the teacher began the implementation of a lesson by activating the students’ background knowledge and spatial understanding with a box she placed in the middle of the morning meeting carpet (Figure 4). This box represented the box that Henry “Box” Brown shipped himself in—it was only a few inches smaller than the dimensions described in the 1850 print portraying the emergence of Brown from the box when he arrived at the office of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society (see Figure 5). The teacher added a sign to the front of the box that read “Make a Prediction.” She wanted students to become curious about the box and predict what they thought it was for. Most students made connections to other recent activities in the class. For example, they had been using robotics in math, and some students thought that the box contained coding tools. Several other children suggested that the box was for the collection of food to help support the people of Puerto Rico after severe weather hit the island. One child guessed that the box had something to do with Pennsylvania after she observed the name of the state written on the box. The next day in class, the children began exploring primary sources associated with the topic of inquiry.

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Figure 4. Box Representing the Box That Henry “Box” Brown Shipped Himself in

Note.

Photograph by Ilene Berson

The first primary source that the children explored was a drawing, The Resurrection of Henry Box Brown at Philadelphia (Figure 5). The whole image was projected onto the interactive whiteboard, and each child also had their own hard copy as well as a magnifying glass to aid in their close observation of the details of the print. They were given time to study the image carefully. They recorded their observations and then engaged in a whole class discussion, reflecting on the following prompts as the teacher recorded their responses: • Describe the people in the picture.

• What are they doing?

• What’s going on in this picture?

• What do you see that makes you say that?

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Figure 5. The Resurrection of Henry “Box” Brown

Note.

The resurrection of Henry Box Brown at Philadelphia, who escaped from Richmond Va. in a bx 3 feet long 2 1/2 ft. deep and 2 ft wide. (ca. 1850). [Lithograph]. Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/item/2004665363/

The children used a crop-it tool to highlight the details in the image that supported their ideas. The teacher prompted, “What else can you find?” After they observed the people and objects in the image, the teacher guided them to look at the text, inquiring, “What do the words say?” The students considered what they could learn from the image as well as what questions it raised. The teacher asked, “What additional information would you like to know about it?”

To help develop the students’ background knowledge, the class read Henry’s Freedom Box, a true story of Henry’s self-emancipation by mailing himself to freedom, as retold by Ellen Levine (2007). The picture book provided context for the geographically focused inquiry on regional differences in responding to slavery. The reading began by looking at the cover and predicting what “Henry’s Freedom Box” could have meant or represented. Students had all types of answers and shared many ideas. One boy said it may be a place for Henry to sit and let his mind go free. Throughout the reading, the class discussed who the story was about, what was happening, why it was happening, how it happened, where it happened, where Henry was going, and when this all occurred. During the story, they read what was written on the box (“This Side Up and Handle with Care”), and immediately students realized that it

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was the same wording on their box in the classroom. They discussed the size of the box and how scary it would have been to be in a box for 27 hours. On the last page of the book, there is a drawing of Henry coming out of the box, and a few students noticed right away that it was similar to the primary source print that they had initially observed. Once the story finished, the class listened to the author’s note, which provides more details about Henry’s experience and what he did after he was free. With this background information on Henry “Box” Brown, the class revisited the print and reflected on the emotions experienced by each person depicted in the image, using visual clues to support their ideas.

To further develop students’ understanding of the risks encountered by Henry as he self-emancipated, the teacher described the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which required that enslaved people be returned to their enslavers, even if they were in a free state. The Act also made the federal government responsible for finding, returning, and trying fugitives from slavery.

Exploring a map from long ago enabled students to reflect on spatial relationships in new and productive ways. For example, the students analyzed this 1861 map showing the distribution of the population of enslaved people in the United States to consider how space and place shaped Henry’s decision to mail himself to Pennsylvania. They used the map to explore how slavery differed from one state to another.

Figure 6. Distribution of the Population of Enslaved People in the Southern States in 1860

Note.

Hergesheimer, E. (1861). Map showing the distribution of the slave population of the Southern states of the United States. Compiled from the census of 1860 [Map]. Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/item/99447026/

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Together, the students read a reward poster (Figure 7) and responded to the following prompts: • Describe this document.

• What message is being sent?

• How does this poster make you feel?

• Does anything surprise you?

• Who do you think made this, and why?

• What does the creator of the poster hope that people who see the poster will do?

Figure 7. Reward Poster

Note

$100 Reward! Ranaway from [...] Ripley County, Mo., [...] 1860, a Negro Man [...].(1860). [Broadside].

Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/item/98504563/

This lesson bridged geography and history to create a compelling inquiry, and numerous other instructional strategies emerged from students’ wonderings generated during this geographic inquiry. The transportation and delivery of mail in the past was of particular interest, and a new inquiry emerged that focused on movement through transportation of mail. Primary sources continued to be an important part of this learning experience, and they came from a variety of resources, such as the railroad maps that students used to see how this transportation impacted the postal service as well as video and photographs for inquiries

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into how mail delivery was shaped by advances in transportation. A favorite extension activity was tracing the travels of Owney, a dog who was a mascot for the U.S. Postal Service.

Owney traveled around the United States by mail car and then visited other countries around the world. Using selected articles from Chronicling America, groups of students identified Owney’s location and date, and pinned it onto a map.

Communicating Conclusions and Taking Informed Action Within elementary classrooms, social studies is closely tied to developing connections with the community. Since borders and boundaries are entangled in the process of placemaking, concepts of community are subject to re-evaluation and re-definition to ensure greater inclusivity of the histories of all people on the land. Critical geography aligns with the goals of culturally sustaining pedagogies by focusing on inquiries that explore the power dynamics that inform how places are organized (Schmidt, 2011). Lessons that disrupt dominant narratives of place contest whose perspectives are excluded or privileged in the representation of a place. Even young children have the capacity to examine and address complex social and environmental issues they encounter at their local grocery store (Adams, 2015), community cemetery (Groce et al., 2013), and school boiler room (Jorgenson et al., 2018).

When considering spaces and places in the elementary social studies classroom, it is important to build in opportunities for students to explore how their lives are affected by where they live. These experiences demonstrate why geography is important in the lives of our students. As a form of taking action, groups of students may identify a feature of their community’s built environment (e.g., a building, street, playground) and research the history of the area and structure. The Library of Congress lesson plan, “Local History: Mapping My Spot,” includes activities for students to explore the past, present, and future of their community’s environment. Students might use rephotography to analyze and document change over time, finding an old image of a place and capturing a contemporary photograph of the same area (Berson & Berson, 2016). These two images are then compared and contrasted for temporal change. Students can also design their own maps for more in-depth exploration of an area. Using free online software and data found within a primary source, students can explore concepts and tools used in creating maps. Students and educators are eligible for free Carto or ArcGIS accounts and can use location data to visualize information in the form of a map. As an example, students can explore Story Maps from the Library of Congress that weave together photographs, newspapers, video, and audio into engaging, interactive multimedia maps. Freedom, which highlights the struggle for freedom and justice among Black Americans, and Behind Barbed Wire, which explores the stories and experiences of Japanese American families incarcerated during World War II, may be especially relevant for demonstrating how digital artifacts can be used as evidence. Subsequently, students

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may create their own story maps that promote reallocation of space and resources within the community. These learning experiences can lead to environmental change projects to influence land use policies and practices as well as conservation efforts, situating the students as caring and active citizens with the skillset to transfer geographic concepts to their own lives.

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References Adams, E. (2015). Civics in the grocery store: A field trip of awareness and agency. Social Studies and the Young Learner, 27(4), 16–18.

Berson, I. R., & Berson, M. J. (2016). A slippage of time: Using rephotography to promote communitybased historical inquiry. Social Education, 80(2), 113–117.

Cohrssen, C., de Quadros-Wander, B., Page, J., & Klarin, S. (2017). Between the big trees: A projectbased approach to investigating shape and spatial thinking in a kindergarten program. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 42(1), 94–104.

Geist, E. (2016). Let’s make a map: The developmental stages of children’s mapmaking. YC Young Children, 71(2), 50–55.

Gersmehl, P. J., & Gersmehl, C. A. (2007). Spatial thinking by young children: Neurologic evidence for early development and “educability.” Journal of Geography, 106(5), 181–191.

Groce, E., Wilson, R., & Poling, L. (2013). “Tomb it may concern”: Visit your local cemetery for a multidisciplinary (and economical) field trip. Social Studies and the Young Learner, 25(3), 13–17.

Harris, J. (2016, December 2). All maps are wrong. I cut open a globe to show why. Vox. www.vox.com/ world/2016/12/2/13817712/map-projection-mercator-globe Jorgenson, S., Howard, S., & Welch, B. T. (2018). A trip to the boiler room: An experiential approach to human geography in kindergarten. Social Studies and the Young Learner, 30(4), 4–9.

Lederle, C. (2013, September 20). Hide and seek on Mulberry Street with the Library of Congress. Teaching with the Library: Primary Sources & Ideas for Educators. https://blogs.loc.gov/ teachers/2013/09/hide-and-seek-on-mulberry-street-with-the-library-of-congress/ Levine, E. (2007). Henry’s freedom box: A true story from the Underground Railroad (K. Nelson, Illus.).

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National Council for the Social Studies. (2013). College, career, and civic life (C3) framework for social studies state standards: Guidance for enhancing the rigor of K–12 civics, economics, geography, and history.

National Research Council. (2006). Learning to think spatially. The National Academies Press.

Newcombe, N. S. (2013). Seeing relationships: Using spatial thinking to teach science, mathematics, and social studies. American Educator, 37(1), 26–31.

Newcombe, N. S., & Shipley, T. F. (2015). Thinking about spatial thinking: New typology, new assessments. In J. S. Gero (Ed.), Studying visual and spatial reasoning for design creativity (pp. 179–192).

Springer.

Riska, C. (2014, September 2). Map it! With young children. National Geographic Education Blog. https:// blog.education.nationalgeographic.org/2014/09/02/map-it-with-young-children/ Schmidt, S. (2011). Who lives on the other side of that boundary: A model of geographic thinking. Social Education, 75(5), 250–254.

Segall, A. (2003). Maps as stories about the world. Social Studies and the Young Learner, 16(1), 21–25.

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Chapter 5

Bayard Rustin: Does Your Labor or Label Matter More?

Corey R. Sell, Metropolitan State University of Denver

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Figure 1. Bayard Rustin

Note.

Wolfson, S. (1965). Bayard Rustin, half-length portrait, facing front, microphones in foreground [Photograph].

Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/item/97518846/

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Bayard Rustin: Does Your Labor or Label Matter More?

C3 Disciplinary Focus U.S. History & Civics

C3 Inquiry Focus Content Topic Evaluating Sources & Taking Bayard Rustin & Civil Rights Informed Action Movement

C3 Focus Indicators D1.1.3–5: Explain why compelling questions are important to others (e.g., peers, adults).

D2.His.16.3–5: Use evidence to develop a claim about the past.

D2.Civ.10.3–5: Identify the beliefs, experiences, perspectives, and values that underlie their own and others’ points of view about civic issues.

D3.3.3–5: Identify evidence that draws information from multiple sources in response to compelling questions.

D4.8.3–5: Use a range of deliberative and democratic procedures to make decisions about and act on civic problems in their classrooms and schools.

Suggested Grade Levels 3–6

Required Time Variable

In a locally owned bookstore, I recently came across Barry Wittenstein’s (2019) A Place to Land: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Speech That Inspired a Nation, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney.

Upon a quick review, one illustration caught my attention. It was of nine African American men seated around Martin Luther King Jr. in the lobby of the Willard Hotel on the eve of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. These nine men, as the book would later divulge, not only influenced the speech by Martin Luther King Jr. but also aspects of the march and the Civil Rights Movement. Scanning the illustration, I recognized only one of the nine men—just one!

At the back of the book, the authors provided a short synopsis of each individual’s role in the march or the Civil Rights Movement. My curiosity was piqued with the mention of one name in particular—Bayard Rustin. I discovered that Bayard Rustin not only organized the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, but he was influential in bringing Mahatma Gandhi’s teachings of nonviolence to the attention of Martin Luther King Jr. I also learned that Bayard Rustin was an out, gay man during this time. As I stepped out of this bookstore— having purchased the book—I wrestled with the notion that an out, gay, African American male organized one of the most successful protests in our country’s history, and yet, I had never heard of him. Upon further research, it appeared that his sexual orientation not only cost him access to participation and leadership positions within the Civil Rights Movement but also relegated him to the shadows of history (O’Brien & Mitchell, 2018).

After learning about Bayard Rustin, I saw an opening in the elementary curriculum—a “pedagogy of possibility” (Crocco, 2002)—to feature an individual within the LGBTQ community center stage within the teaching of the Civil Rights Movement. Therefore, I chose

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Bayard Rustin’s labor, as the organizer of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and label, as an out, gay, African American man, to be the featured element of this social studies inquiry. At the heart of this inquiry will be an examination of the interaction between his activism and identity, leading students to critically question which mattered more: his labor or his label (Library of Congress, 2013). Moreover, Bayard Rustin’s story will serve to enhance the elementary curriculum for the better by challenging both the dominant and heteronormative narrative of the Civil Rights Movement.

Reimagining How You Teach the Civil Rights Movement It is quite common for the Civil Rights Movement to be included across all grades within the elementary social studies curriculum (Swalwell et al., 2015)—making it certain you will teach aspects of it at some point in your career. Unfortunately, many people believe the movement started with the Brown v. Board of Education court case in 1954, close to the emergence of Martin Luther King Jr. on the scene in 1955, and ended with his assassination in 1968.

Therefore, Martin Luther King Jr. is often presented as the embodiment of the entire Civil Rights Movement (Alridge, 2006). Textbooks and other elementary curricular materials do not help this matter; they tend to focus on Martin Luther King Jr. and his speech during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, reifying the idea of him as a messiah-like figure who acted alone within the movement. Hawkman and Castro (2017) contend that educators must expand the geography, chronology, and the demography of the Civil Rights Movement within the elementary curriculum (i.e., the where, when, and who, respectively). Doing so would expand the narrative and evoke what Hall (2005) argues should be the reimagined name of the movement: The Long Civil Rights Movement.

Counternarratives Heeding these calls, I shifted focus of the who from Martin Luther King Jr. to Bayard Rustin, aiming to position students as inquirers of Bayard’s story and to disrupt the dominant narrative of the Civil Rights Movement. As dominant narratives are often inaccurate and incomplete portraits of the past—and often perpetuate racism, sexism, and homophobia (Navarro & Howard, 2017; Solórzano & Yosso, 2002)—they need to be unraveled and challenged. Enter counternarratives (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002), which serve to present a more comprehensive and inclusive account of the past “essential for understanding the complexities of history” (Salinas et al., 2012, p. 20) and essential in helping students whose histories have been silenced make personal connections to the curriculum (An, 2020).

Counternarratives provide students opportunity to “integrate valuable perspectives, voices, and stories that are often silenced in the telling of history,” and in this particular case, to

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contest homophobia present within the elementary curriculum, classroom, and society at large (Navarro & Howard, 2017, p. 219). Therefore, by selecting Bayard Rustin for this inquiry, I created a counternarrative that will provide a more complete picture of the past for students and unmute a silenced voice—as history tends to silence those individuals within marginalized groups of American society, especially lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ) individuals (Crocco, 2002; Mayo, 2016; Ryan, 2016; Thornton, 2003). Thus, raising the voice of Bayard Rustin will not only introduce students to a counternarrative of the Civil Rights Movement but will also challenge the heteronormativity within the elementary curriculum.

Heteronormativity Pennell (2020) defines heteronormativity as “the societal assumption that everyone is heterosexual and cisgender and that these identities are the default and therefore normal” (p. 2292). The lack of LGBTQ individuals, contributions, or historical events in the elementary history curriculum erases the LGBTQ community presence within narratives of the past (Thornton, 2003) and reifies a heteronormative view of America’s past that is solely cisgender and heterosexual (Jennings, 2006). To disrupt heternormativity, educators can provide opportunities for students to learn about differences in gender and sexuality (Blackburn & Pennell, 2018) and create more LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum that counters curriculum silencing—a phenomenon where LGBTQ individuals from the past have been erased, or if included, their gender identity and sexual orientation hidden (Ryan, 2016).

Moorhead (2018) argues that “LGBTQ+ people and issues are embedded in the American experience. Excluding LGBTQ+ people and issues from the curriculum disregards this reality and denies young people a view into themselves and into their world” (Moorhead, 2018, p.

22). The National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS, 2019) advocates this position and asserts that including LGBTQ histories will advance elementary social studies toward a curriculum that more fully represents the diverse stories from our past. Demonstrating this diversity within our past serves to provide “a more accurate reading of the world in which students live their lives today” (Maguth & Taylor, 2014, p. 24) and to support students in developing deeper understandings of the contemporary struggles of the LGBTQ community.

Both will serve students in being more reflective and critical democratic citizens in the future (Maguth & Taylor, 2014) who have a deeper understanding of the equitable and democratic nature of citizenship (Blackburn & Pennell, 2018; Crocco, 2002).

Hawkman and Castro (2017) argued that the narrative of the Civil Rights Movement should extend beyond heterosexual male figures and include people of color from the LGBTQ community. Therefore, when the situation presented itself—as described in my opening—I intentionally chose to foreground this inquiry with Bayard Rustin, who was a leader and activist in the Civil Rights Movement (i.e., his labor) and also an out, gay man (i.e., his label).

In doing so, I set out to create a social studies inquiry for elementary students that would

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disrupt the heteronormativity within the elementary social studies curriculum by giving visibility to Bayard Rustin and providing space for students to explore the impact of his identity on his activism and legacy.

Pedagogical Approaches to Teaching Elementary Social Studies As an educator, you will be faced with multiple curricular decisions including selecting sources, determining the questions, choosing instructional strategies for use with the sources, and assessing student learning when you design inquiry experiences for your students. These curricular decisions are not random. Whether you acknowledge it or not, your curricular decision-making process is heavily influenced by who you are and your belief system—especially the values you hold regarding social studies teaching and learning.

Therefore, you must learn to recognize and make public these values as well as the ideas and theories that influence them (i.e., pedagogical approaches). Acknowledging the pedagogical approaches behind your curricular decisions will ensure you teach from a place of intention and authenticity that will not only become apparent to you but also to your students. Two pedagogical approaches influenced my curricular decisions moving forward in designing this inquiry: (a) queer critical pedagogy and (b) disciplinary literacy.

Whereas critical pedagogy focuses on questioning and problematizing the status quo, queer critical pedagogy utilizes elements of this to “engage in theoretically queer projects— projects aimed at naming, interrupting, and destabilizing normative practices and beliefs” that relate to gender and sexuality (Hackford-Peer, 2019, p. 76). Meyer (2019) argues that queer critical pedagogy extends the ideas of critical pedagogy by calling on educators to question and reformulate their notions of teaching by reflecting on the following: (a) How they teach, reinforce, or expand normalized gendered practices in schools?, (b) How heteronormativity is repeated or questioned [in your curriculum]?, and (c) How they embrace or challenge other repetitions of normalcy [with regards to gender and sexuality] in their classroom? (p. 47) This pedagogical approach provides a means for teachers to interrupt and renarrate the limiting binaries of gender and sexuality (Sumara & Davis, 1999) with the use of counternarratives that disrupt and deconstruct these binaries (Valocchi, 2005).

Unfortunately, it has become “common sense” for students to view people as heterosexual and cisgender when it comes to studying the past (Buchanan et al., 2020; Ryan, 2016) because the identities of LGBTQ historical figures are either hidden or their stories excluded

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altogether. Queer critical pedagogy challenges this heteronormativity and aims to “broaden perception, complexify cognition, and to amplify the imagination of learners” (Sumara & Davis, 1999, p. 202).

Disciplinary literacy draws attention to the ways a discipline “creates, communicates, and evaluates knowledge, and how experts read and write” (Shanahan, 2015, p. 3). It encompasses thinking skills that focus on how experts in the field reason within the different disciplines. A variety of ways to conceptualize the thinking processes involved within history (i.e., historical thinking and literacy) and civics (i.e., civic mindedness) have been developed.

For this inquiry, I chose to focus on historical comprehension skills such as observing, inferring, and questioning as well as historical literacy skills such as corroborating, sourcing, and close reading—all of which will support students with interpreting sources and locating evidence to answer the inquiry questions posed. These skills are not beyond the capabilities of elementary students (Fillpot, 2012), though explicit strategy instruction—including the use of modeling and scaffolding—is helpful when teaching them to elementary students (Nokes, 2014; VanSledright, 2002). In addition, I included the disciplinary disposition of truthfulness into this inquiry (Malin et al., 2014). Building a sense of “telling the truth” with regards to the past will prompt students to engage in this disposition in ways that I hope will shape civic mindedness and engagement (Nokes, 2019).

Sources: A Very Good Place to Start There are many ways to plan an inquiry. The key is to start with what makes sense to you and then adjust your process at any point. For me, I realized I needed to know more about the content of my inquiry, Bayard Rustin, before I could plan it. Therefore, I approached the Library of Congress website as a teacher-researcher with the initial aim of learning more about Bayard through the discovery of primary and secondary sources.

I started my search using the Library of Congress main page search engine. I found a video lecture entitled “The Bayard Rustin Papers” (Library of Congress, 2013), in which a panel of historians and researchers from the Library of Congress spoke to the question of which mattered more, Bayard’s labor or label. I was intrigued by this question as I listened to the panel share their insights on Bayard’s work—beginning to realize his absence from history may be in part due to his identity as a gay man.

Next, I searched the blog posts for two divisions in the Library of Congress: (a) Manuscript Division and (b) Prints and Photographs Division. The blog posts can be a great starting point as they are written by staff members who have collected sources on a topic and provide the collections where the sources were found. I found one blog post on Bayard Rustin that provided some photographs as well as search terms to use when searching the Library of Congress collections. In addition, the blog post led me to other collections that I could search

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individually for sources, including the Civil Rights History Project, where I found a collection of interviews featuring civil rights activists discussing Bayard Rustin.

Oral History Search Tips: When searching interviews presented in an audio format, I suggest downloading the transcript, if possible, and conducting a PDF search for your terms. Doing this directly led me to relevant material within the interviews that could be used in my inquiry. It also saves you time because you will not need to listen to the entire audio clip for relevant material to use with students. I strongly suggest this search tip as it saved me lots of time.

While conducting my search, I found it helpful to catalogue everything I found into a Word document that included a screen shot, title, short description, and link to the source.

It was not important to discern what sources would be used in the inquiry at this point—I just located sources and gathered them into one document. Once I catalogued 25 sources, I knew it was time to begin selecting sources I would use—not because I had reached a certain number, but because the story I wanted to tell about Bayard was materializing. Through this inductive approach, I was afforded the opportunity to let the sources—and content I learned from them—drive the planning of my inquiry.

Framing the Inquiry Bayard Rustin’s work, as both a leader of the Civil Rights Movement and the organizer of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, was illuminated from the sources I catalogued.

Moreover, the sources elucidated his identity as an out, gay man and the effects this sexual orientation had on his work and his legacy. Therefore, I selected four sources that would describe his role in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, five sources that would detail his achievements in the Civil Rights Movement from the perspective of other civil rights activists, and three that would explore the intersection between Bayard’s work and sexual orientation (see Appendix A for references to all of these sources). Knowing the content, I framed each story with a question. These supporting questions acted as the “section headings” that would sequence the content of this inquiry and keep it on track (Swan et al., 2018).

1. What was Bayard’s role in the March?

2. How was Bayard’s role and work in the Civil Rights Movement described by civil rights activists of the time?

3. How did Bayard’s identity as a gay man affect his role and legacy as a civil rights activist?

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Building upon one another, these supporting questions would guide students to explore Bayard’s labor first and then introduce his label for students to grapple with how it influenced his work and his legacy. This was important to me because I wanted to position queer history as within the norm of the Civil Rights Movement instead of outside of it (Schmidt, 2010) and to broaden the narrative of the movement as opposed to simply adding an LGBTQ figure to the elementary curriculum.

Once I knew my content and framed it in a sequence of three supporting questions, I was ready to determine my compelling question. A compelling question represents the inquiry content in a way that resonates with students and creates opportunities for students to “see the relevance of social studies in their daily lives” (Swan et al., 2018, p. 31). Through my cataloguing of sources and learning about Bayard Rustin, the compelling question materialized. In fact, it presented itself early on in my search through the video lecture where panelists discussed the intersection of Bayard’s labor or label. Returning to this source, I chose to adapt their panel question for the compelling question in this inquiry: Does your labor or label matter more?

This evaluative compelling question (Swan et al., 2018)—written to capture elementary students’ attention—will encourage students to reflect on the decision-making process involved in determining historical knowledge, which is often used as a means to silence groups and individuals. This will open a space for students to actively examine the contrasting interpretations of a historical narrative taught in schools and the forgotten or misinterpreted narratives that are left out. In doing so, students will take an active role in determining how they should navigate between the two in their roles as students and citizens (Salinas et al., 2012)—bolstering action at the end of this inquiry.

Designing the Inquiry In a recent position statement issued by NCSS (2019) on contextualizing the teaching of LGBTQ histories in the social studies curriculum, leaders asserted that this work should be done through “inquiry-based, nonjudgmental critical analysis of primary sources” (para. 9).

With this approach, students become active inquirers of the past who engage with primary and secondary sources in purposeful and authentic ways. The result is usually an account or claim that best answers the inquiry question. Inquiry is truly an investigative process of “doing” rather than “absorbing” historical narratives (Parker, 2015) that mimics the work of experts. Though challenging for elementary students because they are often not accustomed to learning social studies by “doing” (Cornbleth, 2015), it can be achieved with appropriate scaffolding and practice.

The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework (NCSS, 2013) provides a robust design to ensure that elementary students have appropriate access to the inquiry process. Defined

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as the Inquiry Arc, the C3 Framework outlines four dimensions of the inquiry process for students: 1. Developing Questions and Planning Inquiries 2. Applying Disciplinary Concepts and Tools 3. Evaluating Sources and Using Evidence 4. Communicating Conclusions and Taking Informed Action When planning this inquiry, I addressed each dimension using the Inquiry Design Model (IDM) blueprint (Swan et al., 2018), which provided a needed structure and order to my planning process. Other planning tools exist, but I have found this specific tool useful for preservice teachers and novice teachers who are developing inquiries for the first time.

Within the IDM blueprint, the compelling question is placed at the top followed by a section labeled Staging the Question. Here is where you consider how to introduce the compelling question to students and build any needed background knowledge. This section might look quite different depending upon how you approach the design of your inquiry question. For example, I chose to provide students with all the inquiry questions instead of having them help develop the questions. Choosing to provide the inquiry questions creates a more structured inquiry (Maxim, 2014) for elementary students and provides more space for me to highlight and develop students’ skills within the other three dimensions of the Inquiry Arc. I would like to note that I would not approach all inquiries this way because students do need practice in developing questions and designing inquiries of their choosing—all important skills within Dimension 1 of the C3 Framework.

The columns in the middle of the IDM blueprint provide space to develop individual lesson plans, which can last one class period or span several days. These columns focus attention on framing your lesson(s) with a supporting question that relates back to your compelling question in some form. These columns also include space to identify the sources you will provide students and the tasks they will complete to comprehend the sources. Dimension 2 is the focus here because, when developing the tasks, you are providing opportunities for students to apply specific disciplinary concepts and tools.

Dimension 3 asks students to evaluate sources and use evidence, which occurs when students are ready to reflect on their work across all the formative tasks and answer the compelling question. This work is referred to as the Summative Performance Task, due to the summative nature of the work students are asked to do. It is also a perfect place for summative assessment to occur within the inquiry, which I will address in further detail below. The final section, Taking Informed Action, is often the most neglected of the Inquiry Arc. This element provides opportunities for students to enact Dimension 4.

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Table 1. Inquiry Design Model (IDM) Blueprint Bayard Rustin: Does Your Labor or Label Matter More?

Staging the Question

Zoom-In (Appendix A, Sources 1–2) Chalk Talk

Supporting Question 1

Supporting Question 2

Supporting Question 3

What was Bayard’s role in the march?

How was Bayard’s role and work in the movement described by other civil rights activists of the time?

How did Bayard’s label affect his role and legacy as a civil rights activist?

Formative Performance Task

Formative Performance Task

Formative Performance Task

Observe-Reflect-Question Protocol (in 3 rounds) (Appendix B)

Interview Close Read Protocol (Appendix C)

Sourcing and Comprehending and Corroborating, Oh My! Protocol (Appendix D)

Sources

Sources

Sources

See Appendix A Sources 1–2

See Appendix A Sources 3–6

See Appendix A Sources 7–11

1. Students construct an explanation of who Bayard was and what he accomplished as an activist in the Civil Rights Movement.

Summative Performance Task

2. Using a Reflective Discussion Circle Protocol, students develop an informed opinion on why Bayard is missing from history on the Civil Rights Movement.

Understand: Students research to understand the variety of voices forgotten or silenced in the Civil Rights Movement.

Taking Informed Action

Assess: Students determine one figure to learn about and create a short presentation for their peers.

Act: Students advocate for the inclusion of the forgotten figures by contacting either district curriculum writers, state leaders, or textbook publishers.

Note.

This is the IDM Blueprint I created to organize the inquiry for students.

For this inquiry, I have completed the IDM blueprint (see Table 1) and will address each dimension of the Inquiry Arc in detail within the next sections of this chapter. In each section, I aim to develop the inquiry so that it could be taught to upper elementary students (i.e., grades 3–6) but provide tips on modifying the work, when appropriate, for students in lower grades (i.e., K–2). You will find that I include the instructional tasks/strategies developed, the Library of Congress sources used, and when appropriate, materials to use with elementary students such as graphic organizers. I have also provided additional sources and curricular

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materials that would be helpful for you to rework this inquiry and make it your own. Look for my tips on differentiating this work for students based on their level of readiness throughout the various dimensions of the Inquiry Arc—demonstrating that inquiry should be accessible to all learners!

LGBTQ-Inclusive Curriculum Before describing the work of this inquiry, I would like to address the notion of controversy that you may ascribe to this inquiry because it centers the narrative of an out, gay man. Controversial topics are those “elements of the curriculum that could be seen as inappropriate or objectionable by parents, administrators, or the larger public” (McAvoy & Ho, 2020, p. 28). Therefore, teaching about Bayard Rustin, which includes his sexual orientation, is not inherently controversial. It becomes controversial when viewed through the lens of public opinion—and only by some.

I argue against referring to this inquiry as controversial (Ryan & Hermann-Wilmarth, 2018). Conrad (2020) states that when marginalized groups are written into the curriculum and viewed “primarily as objects of political controversy, such representations function to question their dignity” and calls into question possibilities of belonging (p. 213). I would say the controversial label “others” LGBTQ individuals and positions their identities as outside the norm, which does nothing to disrupt heteronormativity. In addition, if viewed as controversial, teacher educators and elementary teachers are more likely to avoid LGBTQinclusive curriculum, which will “keep access to knowledge about LGBTQ experiences and inequities locked up” (Conrad, 2020, p. 235).

I do recognize that you might be apprehensive that parents or even administrators within your school may push back on this inquiry. Therefore, it is important to address some ways that you can approach this inquiry within an elementary classroom.

Creating a Safe and Inclusive Space It is vital to create a safe and inclusive classroom environment before addressing LGBTQ topics or history. Creating a safe space involves students feeling comfortable to share their ideas and opinions and listen to the ideas and opinions of others, which can be modeled from the start of the school year through your interactions with students. In addition, students should feel valued not only by you but also by their classmates. Developing a climate of value can help establish bonds of trust among the students as well as with you. When establishing a safe space, it is important to also address conflicts or disrespectful behavior as a class community when it occurs. Doing so provides space for students to reflect and be re-directed to the inclusive norms of the classroom community. This work may be even more important during this inquiry as students may not have been taught about LGBTQ topics before and may bring in prejudices from their communities that should be addressed.

Beyond a safe space, students should understand the importance of diversity and

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inclusivity within their lives. Valuing multiple perspectives promotes critical thinking and deeper conceptualizations of what it means to be a respectful citizen in our society (Varga & Byrd, 2019). Therefore, framing LGBTQ history as part of an inclusive teaching strategy shifts emphasis toward a larger goal of teaching inclusivity in contrast to simply teaching LGBTQ history. Hermann-Wilmarth and Ryan (2019) found that elementary teachers understood integrating LGBTQ content to be “directed toward larger goals of social justice even while satisfying more instrumental content standards” (p. 93).

Addressing Parents Ryan and Hermann-Wilmarth’s (2018) work with teachers posits this quotation from a veteran in the elementary classroom: “I like the language that teachers ‘teach inclusively.’

First of all, it helps frame it for parents in a way that is more palatable for anybody who might have an issue” (p. 107). Therefore, you should consider approaching this inquiry from an inclusive standpoint as many schools and districts have policies to support this. In addition, your inquiry work should focus on academic content and skills, which you can make the case for teaching—shifting the focus away from the LGBTQ topic and toward your district or state curricular goals. This also reframes LGBTQ topics as part of instead of additions to the curriculum (Hermann-Wilmarth & Ryan, 2019).

State Law and District Policies You should also be aware of your district and state policies concerning the teaching of LGBTQ topics. As of this publication, seven states have passed legislation requiring LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum: (a) California in 2011, (b) New Jersey in 2019, (c) Colorado in 2019, (d) Illinois (e) Oregon, (f) Nevada, and (g) Connecticut (The Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, 2022). It is important to know and consider your state’s laws and district policies concerning LGBTQ inclusion when teaching LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum. To discover the LGBTQ curricular laws in your state, check out the Movement Advancement Project (MAP) website.

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Dimension 1 of the C3 Inquiry Arc To start the inquiry and pique students’ curiosity, I suggest using a Zoom-In instructional strategy with two photographs (see Appendix A, Sources 1 and 2). This strategy will allow you to present pieces of each photograph in sequential order—slowly revealing the entire image. The purpose is to continually ask students what they may see, think, or question about the photograph as you continue to reveal more of it. Check out the Teaching with Primary Sources Western Region blog posting for tips on creating a Zoom-In activity.

The first photograph (see Appendix A, Source 1) is of Bayard Rustin alongside Martin Luther King Jr. Students likely will not recognize Bayard Rustin but will most likely recognize Martin Luther King Jr. Therefore, consider starting with Bayard’s image and then move to the whole image of him and Martin Luther King Jr. Ask students why they may not know of Bayard or who they think he is.

The second photograph (see Figure 2) is an image of the National Mall during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Once students identify the event in this photograph and the people in the first photograph, ask students what they remember learning from previous grades about either the Civil Rights Movement, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, or Martin Luther King Jr. To achieve this, you could use a Chalk Talk where students silently write on a white board everything that comes to mind. (This can also be done in groups with poster paper.) At the end of the Chalk Talk, you might ask students to theme or find patterns in the historical content they included. You can close this lesson by drawing students’ attention back to the first photograph and explaining how Bayard actually organized the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and spoke that day after Martin Luther King Jr. gave his now-famous speech. Ask students why they think they have not heard of Bayard Rustin and probe students to think further about who we might choose to remember and who we might choose to forget when it comes to writing history books and student textbooks.

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Figure 2. Aerial View of the March on Washington

Note

O’Halloran, T. J. (1963). Aerial view of marchers, from the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Monument, at the March on Washington [Photograph]. Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/item/2013649717/

At this point, you should introduce the compelling question: Does your labor or label matter more? Define both terms with students. I would suggest stating that one’s labor refers to the work one does and one’s label refers to a person’s identity and may include gender, race, ethnicity, ability, sexual orientation, etc. Ask students to imagine how aspects of an individual’s identity might influence how we remember them and their work. To probe their thinking further on this topic, conduct a Famous Figures Brain Dump. Have students name as many women figures from history who they can think of and write them on the board.

Then repeat this process for men. Compare the lists and ask students to think about the differences—assuming the list of men is much greater. The same could be done with sexual orientation. Ask students to list out as many gay men or lesbian women figures from the past and as many heterosexual men and women from the past they might know. In this case, students might not know of any, and you can use this for reflection by posing the following

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question: “Why do you not know about any gay men or lesbian women from the past?” If students try to make an argument that gay men or lesbian women did not do anything worth remembering, then introduce Alan Turing. He was an out, gay man in Britain who introduced the Turing Machine in 1936. Share that his Turing Machine is considered the forerunner of the modern computer. Then ask students, using this example, if his labor (which was his work in computer science) or his label (as a gay man) mattered more in remembering him.

Explain to students that they will be examining the labor and label of Bayard Rustin to determine if one matters more than the other when it comes to remembering the past and making it into the history books. This would also be a good time to stress the relevance of the compelling question so that students know by the end of this inquiry that they have agency in who they learn about, which can extend beyond the choices others have made for them within their school’s history curriculum or books.

Dimension 2 of the C3 Inquiry Arc Dimension 2 asks students to apply disciplinary concepts and skills to the sources in pursuit of answering the supporting questions, which act as “stepping stones” toward answering the compelling question. Given the history and civics nature of my inquiry, I chose concepts and skills across both disciplines. Ultimately, the concepts and skills chosen will support students’ comprehension of the sources and, in turn, learning the content necessary for answering the inquiry questions. To teach these concepts and skills, I chose a variety of instructional strategies in conjunction with the sources: Observe-Reflect-Question Protocol (see Appendix B), Interview Close Read Protocol (see Appendix C), and Sourcing and Comprehending and Corroborating, Oh My! Protocol (see Appendix D). These strategies will be described below.

Supporting Question One & Tasks The first supporting question asks students, “What was Bayard’s role in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom?” I suggest guiding students through a series of primary source analyses that I like to refer to as “rounds of inquiry,” which draw upon a familiar gaming and sport term that many students will recognize (i.e., rounds). Each round presents a different type of source for students to comprehend: (a) round one includes two photographs (see Figures 3 and 4), (b) round two includes an organizing manual of the march (i.e., a pamphlet) (see Figure 5), and (c) round three includes an oral history (i.e., an interview with someone who worked with Bayard on the march) (see Appendix A, Source 6). To scaffold the analysis work in each round, I suggest using the Observe-Reflect-Question Protocol developed by the Library of Congress. In this protocol, students make observations, draw conclusions (or infer), and ask questions—all three in support of their comprehension of the source.

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Figure 3. Bayard Rustin and Cleveland Robinson

Note.

Bayard Rustin (left) and Cleveland Robinson (right) advertising for the March on Washington for Jobs & Freedom in early August 1963. They are in New York City where the headquarters for organizing the march were set up. Fernandez, O. (1963). In front of 170 W 130 St., March on Washington, Bayard Rustin, Deputy Director, Cleveland Robinson, Chairman of Administrative Committee [Photograph].

Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/item/2003671269/

103 Bayard Rustin: Does Your Labor or Label Matter More?

Figure 4. Bayard Rustin at News Briefing on the Civil Rights March

Note.

Leffler, W. K. (1963). Bayard Rustin at news briefing on the Civil Rights March on Washington in the Statler Hotel, half-length portrait, seated at table [Photograph]. Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/item/2003688133/

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Figure 5. Final Plans for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

Note.

Final plans for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. (1963). Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/item/2014645600/

I have designed a graphic organizer that captures each round of inquiry using the protocol that can be used with students (see Appendix B). Hidden within the design of this graphic organizer are strong elements of differentiation for elementary students. First, by completing the source analysis in separate rounds, students gradually construct an answer to the supporting question and are encouraged to corroborate their thinking across sources in a sequential fashion, which will support all students in this historical thinking skill. Second, providing rounds with different sources allows multiple entry points for students to answer the supporting question. For example, some students may focus on two rounds and others on all three. You may also choose to work with students who need explicit comprehension instruction on just one round. Though they do not corroborate their thinking with the other sources, they will still be able to answer the supporting question in a means accessible

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to them. Third, I have suggested questions in each section of the protocol to scaffold the comprehension skills of observing, inferring, and questioning in relation to the different types of sources under investigation. For students who need support with observing, for instance, you may choose to provide these questions for them to use or develop your own. Fourth, the design of the graphic organizer could be used to create an anchor chart where you complete the work in a whole group setting while simultaneously recording their thinking. Then students would have a visual to rely on when they repeat this process using other sources.

Using the graphic organizer in this way would allow you to model historical comprehension (i.e., observing, inferring, questioning) and historical thinking (i.e., corroboration) with upper elementary students in preparation for them to do this in groups or individually. In addition, it can be used to develop these skills in lower elementary students when done in a whole group setting.

Supporting Question Two & Tasks To answer supporting question two, students will analyze a variety of oral histories (see Appendix A, Sources 7–11). First, I suggest discussing with students the concept of an interview and transcript as well as purposes for conducting an interview. Here, you may share with students that interviews with civil rights activists were collected by the Library of Congress as a means to preserve this historical movement so others may learn about it from those who were a part of it.

I have developed an Interview Close Read Protocol (see Appendix C) that could be used to help students analyze the oral histories. I would suggest using a Think Aloud procedure to model the process of close reading first. This entails pulling up a PDF of an interview transcript and then conducting a search for the name “Bayard.” This will highlight several passages in each interview transcript. Pick the first one to read, and before reading, remind yourself that you are looking to answer the following supporting question: “How was Bayard’s role and work in the Civil Rights Movement described by Civil Rights activists of the time?” Then proceed to read each passage and think out loud regarding what information can help you answer that question.

After completing the Think Aloud, I recommend grouping students in pairs or triads and having them mimic your process using the five sources provided. The following protocol could be used to support students in locating specific information from the text that answers the supporting question. You may also choose to use the audio recording of the interviews and provide students with the time stamps to listen for Bayard’s name, which can be found in the interview transcripts. The audio recordings would be a powerful way to differentiate the source analysis work for students who may need additional support. You could provide the audio as a means to ensure all students have access to the text, no matter their reading level.

You could use the audio to engage students’ listening comprehension skills, which is often ignored. This would be a strong strategy to use with younger grades if you were to engage the class in a whole group listening activity. You could model for students not only what to listen

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for but how to listen to an interview. The voices of people from the past would be highlighted in more powerful ways than if you were to only read the transcript or their words. No matter the choice you make, there are options with oral histories because you have both an audio and written transcript component, so I strongly recommend using them when available.

Supporting Question Three & Tasks The last supporting question asks students to distill meaning from three sources in order to grapple with how Bayard’s label influenced his labor and legacy. Source 12 (see Appendix A) is an audio recording of an interview with Bayard Rustin where students can hear him describe his own experiences. Source 13 is a secondary source blog post of how his work was influenced by his sexual orientation, and the third source, Source 14, is a video of former President Barack Obama awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Bayard Rustin posthumously, presenting the award to Bayard’s life partner, Walter Naegle. Students will capture textual evidence from all three sources that allow them to answer the supporting question. To support this source analysis work, I suggest guiding students through a series of questions that moves them from sourcing, comprehending, and finally to corroborating using the Sourcing, Comprehending, Corroborating, Oh My! Protocol (see Appendix D).

This scaffold will support students historical thinking and literacy development and provide differentiated support for students who need extra support in analyzing sources.

Dimension 3 of the C3 Inquiry Arc By now, students have completed three tasks that have guided their thinking through Bayard’s activism in the Civil Rights Movement, his role in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and the influence of his sexual orientation on his work and legacy. Pulling from their work across all three tasks, students are ready to gather evidence from multiple sources to answer the compelling question, which moves students from Dimension 2 to Dimension 3 of the Inquiry Arc. The claim that students make to answer the compelling question can be viewed as a summative assessment, because it captures student thinking across all three tasks in the inquiry. You can evaluate students’ claim on the following criteria: (a) the quantity and quality of the content knowledge presented on Bayard, (b) the ability to gather appropriate evidence from multiple sources to support their thinking, and (c) the reasoning provided as to whether his labor or label mattered more in his work and legacy. To ensure all students have access to this product, you might consider providing options for students to create either a written paper, or a visual presentation, or produce an audio/video recording using one of your favorite teaching applications such as Flipgrid. Differentiating the type of product will ensure that all students have access to the summative assessment in robust and appropriate ways based on their readiness or even interests.

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Dimension 4 of the C3 Inquiry Arc Now that students have made a claim on whether one’s labor or label matters more in being remembered using Bayard Rustin’s work and legacy as an example, you should provide space for them to communicate their thinking to others. I would suggest using a small-group protocol such as Reflective Discussion Circles (McGriff & Clemons, 2019). In this protocol, students write down their thinking and then listen to the thinking of three other classmates, which they write down as well. Then the students reflect upon what everyone has said and determine how listening to their classmates affected their original thinking. This protocol supports students in listening actively and respectfully to their classmates as well as thinking critically about their own claims (McGriff & Clemons, 2019). By making their claims public, students will be provided with opportunities to revise their thinking and co-construct a more robust claim with the support of peers.

Taking Informed Action Next, I suggest leading a class discussion on Bayard’s absence from the history curriculum.

I would begin by having students examine their social studies textbooks for any mention of Bayard Rustin, which is likely missing. Pose the following question: “Who else might be missing because of their label?” Students might surmise that women of color might be missing, other LGBTQ individuals, or even individuals not well liked or who held little power.

Next, engage students in thinking through who writes our history and who decides what we learn about in textbooks. Define the issue in explicit terms here for students as they will have likely gotten to it by now: History is an interpretive and political act where some stories are told and others forgotten.

This discussion with students will promote a critical look at the discipline of history and should spark a curiosity in students to question who else might be missing from history or more specifically the Civil Rights Movement. From this place of curiosity, the students are primed to move to the final stage of the inquiry—taking informed action. Swan et al. (2018) describe this stage as a place for “students to practice citizenship by applying the results of the academic inquiry to a real-world problem” (p. 129). Building upon their curiosity, ask students how they could learn about missing figures who promote a more inclusive story of the Civil Rights Movement. You could do this in a variety of ways that include a more open research process where students search several provided websites like the Library of Congress and uncover figures on their own. Or you might provide students a more structured process giving them a list of names to explore. You might even provide students with a particular reading on a chosen figure from the Civil Rights Movement that you want them to learn about. The key here is to think about your students and differentiate the process for students to be successful. Some may flourish with little structure here while others may need more scaffolding of the research process—and providing access to this research process

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matters more than thinking all students need to follow one particular approach. To support your learning of some of the forgotten figures, consider the following resources from the Library of Congress as a start: • Women in the Civil Rights Movement (blog post) • This Day in History: James Baldwin (blog post) • Teaching the Civil Rights Movement from the Bottom-Up 50 Years After the Voting Rights Act (presentation recording) • The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for Freedom (online exhibition) • Civil Rights History Project (oral history collection) After students conduct their research on one forgotten figure of their choice, you will want to decide a means for students to communicate their knowledge to the class. This might come in the form of a presentation, poster, or even video recording. Either way, allowing students to share their work is critical to helping broaden everyone’s understanding of the Civil Rights Movement. It will also provide space for their classmates to ask questions allowing the students to return to the research, find out answers, and fill in any gaps that might have been missing from their research.

Lastly, it is critical that students take action based on what they learned. As Alice Pitt (1995) points out, “Learning is something more than a series of encounters with knowledge; learning entails, rather, the messier and less predictable process of becoming implicated in knowledge” (p. 298). Suggestions for taking action include students producing short two- or three-minute “Did You Know?” video/audio segments for the school’s morning announcements where they could share the accomplishments of the forgotten figures.

These announcements would allow students to act within their school setting and support an inclusive environment. However, I would encourage you to allow students to take action outside their local context, which might have more appeal to students. Perhaps lead a vote on communicating to district leaders, state leaders, or textbook publishers. Based off the outcome, help students determine their goal for communicating. Let them take some responsibility for what they want to share and the format they want to use to share this information (e.g., email or letters). If writing to district leaders, they could create a booklet of all their forgotten figures and ask the district to share it with teachers. Or, if they write to a textbook publisher, they might want to inform them of the variety of forgotten figures and urge them to include some, if not all, of their stories in their newer editions. No matter the audience, students will be empowered to advocate for those that history forgot or silenced and, in turn, for a more honest and truthful depiction of history that all students are worthy of being told. A history where all students can find themselves. A history that inspires a more just society for all.

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Conclusion Bayard Rustin organized one of the most successful forms of protest in our country’s history and helped teach nonviolence theory and tactics to Martin Luther King Jr., a close friend. Yet, Rustin has been cast into the historical shadows and silenced within the elementary curriculum because of his sexual orientation as an out, gay man. Through the work of this inquiry, I have aimed to challenge both the dominant and heteronormative narrative of the Civil Rights Movement taught within the elementary curriculum using two pedagogical approaches (i.e., queer critical pedagogy and disciplinary literacy) and a variety of instructional strategies (i.e., Zoom-In, Observe-Reflect-Question Protocol, Interview Close Read Protocol, and Reflection Discussion Circle Protocol). By the end of the inquiry, I hope students will question what else the history texts have silenced—taking a critical stance toward the production of historical knowledge—and create counternarratives to share with others. In many ways, the work involved in this inquiry will complicate students’ notion of history and “remembering”. It will ask them to examine how “contrasting interpretations of history play a role in their everyday lives as thinking and acting citizens” (Salinas et al., 2012, p. 19). Therefore, achieving the ultimate goal of social studies education and inquiry work— becoming active and informed citizens in our diverse society (NCSS, 2017).

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Additional Resources 1. A video of an interview with Bayard Rustin. At 11:58, he discusses his role in the Civil Rights Movement and states that A. Philip Randolph gave him the right to see that the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was carried out to completion. At 19:46, Bayard discusses wrapping up the march and his role at the end of the day. At 48:34, Bayard discusses how he came to be put in charge of the march. He claims: “I do not consider myself a leader. I consider myself a spokesman for a given point of view. And I believe that it’s very important to work, which I am doing.” http://repository.wustl.edu/concern/videos/vm40xt471 2. A letter written by Martin Luther King Jr. to an organization that Bayard Rustin worked for asking them to release Bayard for a one-year leave of absence. Martin Luther King Jr. makes the case that his ideas are helpful and needed for the Civil Rights Movement. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/ king-papers/documents/edward-p-gottlieb 3. Martin Luther King Jr. writing to Bayard and asking for his help in reviewing a draft chapter for a book and the topic was nonviolence. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/ bayard-rustin-4 4. Martin Luther King Jr. writing to Adam Clayton Powell Jr. demanding he stop spreading lies about him and Bayard. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/adam-clayton-powelljr-1 5. Congressional Senate Record on August 13, 1963, where Strom Thurmond tries to out Bayard. www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CRECB-1963-pt11/pdf/GPO-CRECB-1963-pt11-7-2.pdf 6. New York Times article published August 16, 1963, that was a rebuttal to Strom Thurmond’s Senate attack. www.nytimes.com/1963/08/16/archives/negro-rally-aide-rebuts-senator-denies-thurmondscharge-of.html 7. Children’s Books a. Wittenstein, B. (2019). A Place to Land: Martin Luther King Jr. and the speech that inspired a nation (Pinkney, J., Illus). Neal Porter Books. b. Houtman, J., Naegle, W., & Long, M. G. (2019). Troublemaker for justice: The story of Bayard Rustin, the man behind the march on Washington. City Lights Books. c. Bronski, M. (2019). A queer history of the United States for young people (Richie Chevat, Adapted). Beacon Press. d. Weatherford, C. B., & Sanders, R. (2022). A song for the unsung: Bayard Rustin, the man behind the 1963 March on Washington (B. McCay, Illus). Henry Holt & Co. e. Long, M. G. (2023). Unstoppable: How Bayard Rustin organized the 1963 March on Washington (B. Jackson, Illus.). little bee books.

8. Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin (2003) is an 84-minute documentary directed by Nancy Kates and Bennett Singer that details the life of Bayard Rustin. Youth in Motion developed a curriculum guide to accompany the documentary, which can be found at https://www.rustin.org/ wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Curriculum-Guide-Brother-Outsider.pdf

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References Alridge, D. P. (2006). The limits of master narratives in history textbooks: An analysis of representations of Martin Luther King, Jr. Teachers College Record, 108(4), 662–686. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.14679620.2006.00664.x An, S. (2020). First graders’ inquiry into multicolored stories of school (de)segregation. Social Studies & the Young Learner, 32(3), 3–9. www.socialstudies.org/social-studies-and-young-learner/32/3/firstgraders-inquiry-multicolored-stories-school Blackburn, M. V., & Pennell, S. M. (2018). Teaching students to question assumptions about gender and sexuality. Phi Delta Kappan, 100(2), 27–31. https://doi.org/10.1177/0031721718803566 Bronski, M. (2019). A queer history of the United States for young people (R. Chevat, Adapted). Beacon Press.

Buchanan, L. B., Tschida, C., Bellows, E., & Shear, S. B. (2020). Positioning children’s literature to confront the persistent avoidance of LGBTQ topics among elementary preservice teachers. The Journal of Social Studies Research, 44(1), 169–184. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jssr.2019.01.006 Conrad, J. (2020). Navigating identity as a controversial issue: One teacher’s disclosure for critical empathic reasoning. Theory & Research in Social Education, 48(2), 211–243. https://doi.org/10.1080/0 0933104.2019.1679687 Cornbleth, C. (2015). What constrains meaningful social studies teaching? In W. Parker (Ed.), Social Studies Today: Research and Practice (pp. 266-274). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/97813157268 85-35 Crocco, M. S. (2002). Homophobic hallways: Is anyone listening? Theory & Research in Social Education, 30(2), 217–232. https://doi.org/10.1080/00933104.2002.10473192 Fillpot, E. (2012). Historical thinking in the third grade. The Social Studies, 103(5), 206–216. https://doi. org/10.1080/00377996.2011.622318 The Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network. (2022, April). Inclusive Curriculuar Standards Policies [Map]. https://maps.glsen.org/inclusive-curricular-standards-policies/ Hackford-Peer, K. (2019). “That wasn’t very free thinker”: Queer critical pedagogy in the early grades.

In C. Mayo & N. M. Rodriguez (Eds.), Queer pedagogies: Theory, praxis, politics (pp. 75–92). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27066-7_6 Hall, J. D. (2005). The long Civil Rights Movement and the political uses of the past. Journal of American History, 91(4), 1233–1263. https://doi.org/10.2307/3660172 Hawkman, A. M., & Castro, A. J. (2017). The long Civil Rights Movement: Expanding black history in the social studies classroom. Social Education, 81(1), 28–32. www.socialstudies.org/socialeducation/81/1/long-civil-rights-movement-expanding-black-history-social-studies-classroom Hermann-Wilmarth, J. M., & Ryan, C. L. (2019). Navigating parental resistance: Learning from responses of LGBTQ-inclusive elementary school teachers. Theory Into Practice, 58(1), 89–98. https://doi.org/10.

1080/00405841.2018.1536914 Houtman, J., Naegle, W., & Long, M. G. (2019). Troublemaker for justice: The story of Bayard Rustin, the man behind the march on Washington. City Lights Books

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Jennings, K. (2006). “Out” in the classroom: Addressing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) issues in the social studies curriculum. In E. W. Ross (Ed.), The social studies curriculum: Purposes, problems, and possibilities (3rd ed., pp. 255–264). SUNY Press.

Kates, N., & Singer, B. (Directors). (2003). Brother outsider: The life of Bayard Rustin [Film]. Question Why Films. www.rustin.org/ Library of Congress (2013). The Bayard Rustin Papers. [Video] www.loc.gov/item/webcast-6026/ Maguth, B. M., & Taylor, N. (2014). Bringing LGBTQ topics into the social studies classroom. The Social Studies, 105(1), 23–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/00377996.2013.788471 Malin, H., Ballard, P. J., Attai, M. L., Colby, A., & Damon, W. (2014). Youth civic development & education: A conference consensus report. Center on Adolescence, Stanford University. https://coa.stanford.edu/ sites/default/files/civic_education_report.pdf Maxim, G. W. (2014). Dynamic social studies for constructivist classrooms: Inspiring tomorrow’s social scientists (10th ed.). Pearson.

Mayo, J. B., Jr. (2016). Research on LGBT issues and queer theory in the social studies [Editorial]. The Journal of Social Studies Research, 40(3), 169–171. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jssr.2016.06.001 McAvoy, P., & Ho, L. (2020). Professional judgment and deciding what to teach as controversial. Annals of Social Studies Education Research for Teachers, 1(1), 27–31. https://doi.org/10.29173/assert1 McGriff, M., & Clemons, S. (2019). Reflective discussion circles: A method for promoting civic engagement. Social Studies & the Young Learner, 31(4), 3–8. https://www.socialstudies.org/socialstudies-and-young-learner/31/4/reflective-discussion-circles-method-promoting-civic Meyer, E. J. (2019). Ending bullying and harassment: The case for a queer pedagogy. In C. Mayo & N. M. Rodriguez (Eds.), Queer pedagogies: Theory, praxis, politics (pp. 41–58). Springer.

Moorhead, L. (2018). LGBTQ+ visibility in the K–12 curriculum. Phi Delta Kappan, 100(2), 22–26. https:// doi.org/10.1177/0031721718803565 National Council of the Social Studies. (2013). The college, career, and civic life (C3) framework for social studies state standards: Guidance for enhancing the rigor of K–12 civics, economics, geography, and history. www.socialstudies.org/standards/c3 National Council for the Social Studies. (2017). Powerful, purposeful pedagogy in elementary school social studies. www.socialstudies.org/position-statements/powerful-purposeful-pedagogy-elementaryschool-social-studies National Council for the Social Studies. (2019). Contextualizing LGBT+ history within the social studies curriculum. https://www.socialstudies.org/position-statements/contextualizing-lgbt-history-withinsocial-studies-curriculum Navarro, O., & Howard, T. C. (2017). A critical race theory analysis of social studies research, theory, and practice. In M. M. Manfra, and C. M. Bolick (Eds.), The Wiley handbook of social studies research (pp.

209–226). John Wiley & Sons. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118768747.ch9 Nokes, J. D. (2014). Elementary students’ roles and epistemic stances during document-based history lessons. Theory & Research in Social Education, 42(3), 375–413. https://doi.org/10.1080/00933104.20 14.937546 Nokes, J. D. (2019). Teaching history, learning citizenship: Tools for civic engagement. Teachers College Press.

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O’Brien, J., & Mitchell, P. (2018). Outcasts … outliers … oppressed: Civic advocates in U.S. history worth investigating. The Social Studies, 109(5), 276–283. https://doi.org/10.1080/00377996.2018.1539699 Parker, W. C. (2015). Social studies in elementary education (12th ed.). Pearson.

Pennell, S. M. (2020). Queer theory/pedagogy and social justice education. In R. Papa (Ed.), Handbook on promoting social justice in education (pp. 2291–2308). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-03014625-2_103 Pitt, A. (1995). Subjects in tension. Engaged resistance in the feminist classroom [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. University of Toronto.

Ryan, C. L. (2016). Kissing brides and loving hot vampires: Children’s construction and perpetuation of heteronormativity in elementary school classrooms. Sex Education, 16(1), 77–90. https://doi.org/10.1 080/14681811.2015.1052874 Ryan, C. L., & Hermann-Wilmarth, J. M. (2018). Reading the rainbow: LGBTQ-inclusive literacy instruction in an elementary classroom. Teachers College Press.

Salinas, C., Blevins, B., & Sullivan, C. C. (2012). Critical historical thinking: When official narratives collide with other narratives. Multicultural Perspectives, 14(1), 18–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/152109 60.2012.646640 Schmidt, S. J. (2010). Queering social studies: The role of social studies in normalizing citizens and sexuality in the common good. Theory & Research in Social Education, 38(3), 314–335. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/00933104.2010.10473429 Shanahan, C. (2015). Disciplinary literacy strategies in content area classes. International Literacy Association.

Solórzano, D. G., & Yosso, T. J. (2002). Critical race methodology: Counter-storytelling as an analytical framework for education research. Qualitative Inquiry, 8(1), 23–44. https://doi. org/10.1177/107780040200800103 Sumara, D., & Davis, B. (1999). Interrupting heteronormativity: Toward a queer curriculum theory.

Curriculum Inquiry, 29(2), 191–208. https://doi.org/10.1111/0362-6784.00121 Swalwell, K., Pellegrino, A. M., & View, J. L. (2015). Reachers’ curricular choices when teaching histories of oppressed people: Capturing the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. The Journal of Social Studies Research, 39(2), 79–94. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jssr.2014.11.003 Swan, K., Lee, J., & Grant, S. G., (2018). Inquiry design model: Building inquiries in social studies. National Council for the Social Studies & C3 Teachers.

Thornton, S. J. (2003). Silence on gays and lesbians in social studies curriculum. Social Education, 67(4), 226–230. www.socialstudies.org/social-education/67/4/silence-gays-and-lesbians-social-studiescurriculum Valocchi, S. (2005). Not yet queer enough: The lessons of queer theory for the sociology of gender and sexuality. Gender and Society, 19(6), 750–770. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243205280294 VanSledright, B. (2002). Confronting history’s interpretive paradox while teaching fifth graders to investigate the past. American Education Research Journal, 39(4), 1089–1115. https://doi. org/10.3102/000283120390041089

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Varga, B. A., & Byrd M. (2019). Imagining rainbows: A case study of LGBTQ implementation into elementary school curriculum. In L. Willox & C. Brant (Eds.), It’s being done in social studies: Race, class, gender and sexuality in the pre/K–12 curriculum (pp. 39–54). Information Age Publishing.

Wittenstein, B. (2019). A place to land: Martin Luther King Jr. and the speech that inspired a nation (J. Pinkney, Illus). Neal Porter Books.

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Appendix A Primary Sources Used in This Inquiry Source

Resource

Reference and Description

1

Photograph of Bayard Rustin and Martin Luther King Jr.

Marcus, E. (2019, January 10). Bayard Rustin. Making Gay History Podcast. https://makinggayhistory.com/podcast/ bayard-rustin/

2

Aerial view of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963

O’Halloran, T. J. (1963, August 28). Aerial view of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963 [Photograph]. Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/ item/2013649717/

3

Bayard Rustin in front of a sign advertising the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

Fernandez, O. (1963). In front of 170 W 130 St., March on Washington, Bayard Rustin, Deputy Director, Cleveland Robinson, Chairman of Administrative Committee [Photograph].

Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/2003671269/

4

Bayard Rustin speaking to the news media one day before the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

Leffler, W. K. (1963). Bayard Rustin at news briefing on the Civil Rights March on Washington in the Statler Hotel, half-length portrait, seated at table [Photograph]. Library of Congress www.loc.gov/item/2003688133/ Final plans for the march on Washington for jobs and freedom.

(1963). Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/item/2014645600/

5

6

Final Plans for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

Rachelle Horowitz Interview

This document lists Bayard Rustin as the Deputy Director of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on the cover and on p. 13. There is also a map that can be used with students on p. 41 that will provide a visual of the scope of the march.

Horowitz, R. (2003). Interview with Megan Rosenfeld for the Voices of Civil Rights Project Collection. In Allen, E. (2013, August 21). Inside the March on Washington: Bayard Rustin’s “Army.” Timeless: Stories from the Library of Congress. https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2013/08/inside-themarch-on-washington-bayard-rustins-army/ Rachelle Horowitz was the transportation coordinator for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and worked closely with Bayard Rustin on this event.

7

Clarence Jones Interview and Transcript

Jones, C. (2013). Clarence B. Jones oral history interview conducted by David P. Cline in Palo Alto, California, 2013 April 15. Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/item/2015669183/ Clarence Jones discusses Bayard Rustin’s leadership in the Civil Rights Movement (p. 52 of the transcript).

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8

9

10

11

Reverend Joseph E. Lowery Interview and Transcript

Dr. Cleveland Sellers Interview and Transcript

Dr. Ekwueme Michael Thelwell Interview and Transcript

Dorie Ann Ladner and Dr. Joyce Ann Ladner Interview and Transcript

Lowery, J. E. (2011). Joseph Echols Lowery oral history interview conducted by Joseph Mosnier in Atlanta, Georgia, 2011 June 06. Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/ item/2015669122/ Reverend Joseph E. Lowery discusses Bayard Rustin’s involvement in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).

Sellers, C. (2013). Cleveland Sellers oral history interview conducted by John Dittmer in Denmark, South Carolina. Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/item/2015669180/ Dr. Cleveland Sellers discusses Bayard Rustin’s involvement with the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and referred to him as the organizer (pp. 17–18 of the transcript).

Thelwell, M. (2013). Ekwueme Michael Thelwell oral history interview conducted by Emilye Crosby in Pelham, Massachusetts.

Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/item/2015669203/ Dr. Ekweume Michael Thelwell discusses Bayard Rustin’s sexual orientation as a gay man and his work on nonviolence (p. 21 and p. 35 of the transcript).

Ladner, D., & Ladner, J. A. (2011). Dorie Ann Ladner and Joyce Ladner oral history interview conducted by Joseph Mosnier in Washington, D.C. Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/ item/2015669153/ Dorie Ann Ladner and Dr. Joyce Ann Ladner (sisters) were assistants to Bayard Rustin in his position as Deputy Director of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (pp. 4–5 of the transcript). They discuss Bayard Rustin’s work, sexual orientation as a gay man, and his work on nonviolence (p. 21 and p. 35).

Marcus, E. (2019, January 10). Bayard Rustin. Making Gay History Podcast. https://makinggayhistory.com/podcast/ bayard-rustin/

12

Interview with Bayard Rustin

In this excerpted interview clip, Bayard Rustin discusses his identify as a gay man and how this affected his work— specifically being asked to step away from the movement (around 6:53 in the podcast audio).

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13

Henry Louis Gates Jr. Blog Post

Gates, H. L., Jr. (2013). Who Designed the March on Washington? The African Americans: Many rivers to cross.

PBS. www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-tocross/history/100-amazing-facts/who-designed-the-marchon-washington/ Henry Louis Gates Jr. describes, among other things, how Bayard was a liability and a threat was made to out him to MLK so that he would cancel a march scheduled for the Democratic National Convention held in Los Angeles in 1960.

Obama, B. (2013, August 3). Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony. In Brother Outsider (Season 15, Episode 11). POV. PBS. www.pbs.org/video/pov-brother-outsider-presidentialmedal-freedom-ceremony/

14

President Obama awards Bayard Rustin the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously

President Obama recognized Bayard Rustin for his work on the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom by awarding him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013. He called Rustin the chief organizer of the March and claimed that for decades Rustin was denied his right to history because he was openly gay. President Obama presented the award to Rustin’s lifetime partner, Walter Naegle. This was the first time that the award was presented to the surviving same-sex partner of a recipient.

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Appendix B Observe-Reflect-Question Protocol in Three Rounds of Inquiry Round 1: Photograph Analysis (Sources 3 and 4) Observe

• What do you see?

• What details do you see that relate to Bayard Rustin?

Reflect

• When was this image made?

• What do you think is happening in this image?

Question

• What are you still wondering about in regards to Bayard and his role in the march?

Round 2: Document Analysis (Source 5)

Observe

• What do you notice first?

• What details do you see that relate to Bayard?

Reflect

• Who do you think created this document?

• Why was this document made?

• What do the details that relate to Bayard make you think about his role in the march?

Question

• What are you still wondering about in regards to Bayard and his role in the march?

Round 3: Oral History Analysis (Source 6)

Observe

• What do you hear that relates to Bayard’s role?

• Does this seem to be an interview or a conversation?

Reflect

• What can you tell about the person telling the story? What is their point of view?

• What is the significance of this oral history?

• What information provided here corroborates with what you have gathered from the other sources?

Question

• What are you still wondering about with regards to Bayard and his role in the march?

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Appendix C Interview Close Read Protocol Sourcing Who is being interviewed?

Source 7

How was Bayard’s role and work in the movement described by civil rights activists of the time?

Textual evidence from 1st passage: Textual evidence from 2nd passage:

When are they being interviewed?

Textual evidence from 3rd passage:

Who is being interviewed?

Textual evidence from 1st passage:

Source 8

Textual evidence from 2nd passage: When are they being interviewed?

Textual evidence from 3rd passage:

Who is being interviewed?

Textual evidence from 1st passage:

Source 9

Textual evidence from 2nd passage: When are they being interviewed?

Textual evidence from 3rd passage:

Who is being interviewed?

Textual evidence from 1st passage:

Source 10

Textual evidence from 2nd passage: When are they being interviewed?

Textual evidence from 3rd passage:

Who is being interviewed?

Textual evidence from 1st passage:

Source 11

Textual evidence from 2nd passage: When are they being interviewed?

Textual evidence from 3rd passage:

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Appendix D Sourcing, Comprehending, and Corroborating, Oh My! How did Bayard’s label affect his role and legacy as a civil rights activist?

Historical Thinking/ Literacy Skill

Source __________

Source __________

Sourcing: Who is the author of this source?

How might they be biased?

How reliable is this source?

Comprehending: What did you learn about Bayard from this source?

What information from this source will help you answer the supporting question?

Corroborating: How does information from this source support information from 1 or 2 other sources?

What connections can you make between the sources?

Further Thinking: What other information would you like to see to better affirm your interpretation on how Bayard’s identity affected his role?

121 Bayard Rustin: Does Your Labor or Label Matter More?

Source __________

Chapter 6

How Are We Connected to Those in the Past?

Tina M. Ellsworth, Northwest Missouri State University

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Figure 1. Precautions Taken in Seattle During the [1918] Influenza Epidemic

Note.

Precautions taken in Seattle, Wash., during the Spanish Influenza Epidemic would not permit anyone to ride on the street cars without wearing a mask. 260,000 of these were made by the Seattle Chapter of the Red Cross, which consisted of 120 workers, in three days. (ca. 1918–1919). [Photograph]. Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/item/2017668638/

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How Are We Connected to Those in the Past?

C3 Disciplinary Focus History

C3 Inquiry Focus Evaluating primary sources, communicating conclusions, and taking informed action

Content Topic Historical significance, historical empathy

C3 Focus Indicators D2.His.2.9–12: Analyze change and continuity in historical eras.

D2.His.11.9–12: Critique the usefulness of historical sources for a specific historical inquiry based on their maker, date, place of origin, intended audience, and purpose.

D2.His.12.9–12: Use questions generated about multiple historical sources to pursue further inquiry and investigate additional sources.

D2.His.13.9–12: Critique the appropriateness of the historical sources used in a secondary interpretation.

D2.His.16.9–12: Integrate evidence from multiple relevant historical sources and interpretations into a reasoned argument about the past.

Suggested Grade Levels 9–12 (could be adapted for other grade levels)

Time Required Variable

It was early in 2020 when the word “unprecedented” rang through the televisions, computer screens, and news articles, describing the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2 (National Institutes of Health, 2020), which was ultimately named COVID-19. The virus led to the COVID-19 pandemic that has ravaged the world and the United States. History teachers, like myself, paused at the use of “unprecedented” to describe the virus and wondered if the people using it were familiar with the Influenza of 1918.1 Certainly, to know of the Influenza of 1918 is to acknowledge that the concept of a highly contagious virus, and ultimately a global pandemic, was not at all “unprecedented.” In addition to what seemed to be a perplexing question, I immediately began a deeper, personal investigation into the 1918 Influenza outbreak as new questions entered my mind. I became inherently motivated to conduct my own investigations to get my questions answered.

After teaching United States history for years, I was generally familiar with the 1918 Influenza. I knew that many Americans died and was aware that there was an outbreak in my state that was especially troublesome (Kansas State Historical Society, 2020), but I was unable to recall other important aspects of the outbreak. I began asking questions of the past based on what I was currently experiencing. How did the government respond to the 1

In many history textbooks, the 1918 Influenza is referred to as the Spanish Influenza. We now know the name is inaccurate as it did not originate in Spain. Given the potential for this kind of name to increase feelings of xenophobia, it will be referred to as the 1918 Influenza in this chapter.

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problem? Did it vary between federal, state, and local governing bodies? What was the role of the media during the outbreak? Were schools closed? How did the public respond? Did they protest? Did they wear masks? Were people scared? What were scientists saying about mitigation efforts? How did the illness affect different social, economic, racial, and ethnic groups? What can our society learn from the lessons of those who lived 100 years earlier?

For no other reason than my experience with a pandemic, I felt connected to people in 1918 more than ever, and I wanted to know their stories. I had far more questions than I had answers. However, this kind of curiosity can be what catapults us into inquiry (Dimension 1). Ultimately, I was spurred by my current experience with COVID-19 to ask, “How are we connected to those in the past?” and more specifically, “What can we learn about the life and experiences of people living in the U.S. during the 1918 Influenza?”

Historical Significance and Current Events Historical significance is “at the heart of all history—and history education.”

(Barton, 2005, p. 9) Studies show current events often drive teachers’ decisions about what content to teach (Girard et al., 2020). At countless times throughout a teacher’s career, they will grapple with the fluidity of current events and the decision of whether or not to address them in the classroom. Teachers’ decision-making must be informed by current events, knowledge of the curriculum, knowledge of the past, and a knowledge of their learners to guide their curricular decisions (Shulman, 1986). Peck (2010) argues that teachers engage in “present-future” significance when they decide which current event to teach, and in turn which content from the past is required for understanding it. Historical significance is often characterized as something or someone in history that is “important” because it changes the trajectory of the future for a large number of people (Seixas & Morton, 2013). To help teachers determine what event might be “historically significant,” Levesque (2008) provides five criteria to consider: 1. Importance: How important was it to people who lived at the time?

2. Profundity: How deeply were people affected by the event?

3. Quantity: How many people were affected by the event: positively, negatively, not affected?

4. Durability: How long do people have to endure an event for it to be considered significant?

5. Relevance: How relevant is the issue to current interests?

Often times, historical significance is not determined until several years have passed beyond the event, when people can better see the impact the event had on humanity. Seixas (2017) argues that “the problem with historical significance arises from the question, ‘what is worth knowing about the past?’ and the related question, ‘how does it become worth knowing?’” He argues that answering these questions becomes incredibly difficult because

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“what is historically significant is so only in relation to the questions and problems raised by various groups in the present, in contemporary life, which is, itself, changing over time” (p.

66). And while someone in 2020 could examine the past and argue that 1) the Influenza of 1918 was incredibly important to people at the time, 2) it affected people’s daily lives, 3) it impacted the country, and the world, and 4) people withstood multiple waves of the illness, Seixas’ argument suggests that the 1918 Influenza only became historically significant because people alive in 2020 saw a contemporary tie to it (relevance). Likewise, it is possible that over time, the Influenza of 1918 and COVID-19 will no longer be historically significant to contemporaries in the future.

Historical Empathy What is empathy? Historical empathy involves understanding how people from the past “thought, felt, made decisions, acted, and faced consequences within a specific historical and social context” (Endacott & Brooks, 2013, p. 46). In order to engage students in historical empathy, they must also be able to “find an affective connection between the experiences faced by historical figures and similar experiences in their own lives” (Endacott & Brooks, 2013, p. 46). One way to approach this pedagogically is to select historical topics for investigation that resonate with students because students have an inherent interest in these topics. Given students’ first-hand experience with a global pandemic in 2020, the 1918 Influenza is a powerful topic to engage students in historical empathy.

History educators largely agree that a major outcome of history education is to teach historical empathy (Endacott & Brooks, 2013; Kohlmeier, 2006; Levstik, 2008; Rantala et al., 2016). Often times, empathy is enacted when students engage with people from the past through primary sources (Kohlmeier, 2006). Other times, it can be initiated by an investigator’s quest for connection with others, particularly those in the past, which can promote the investigation in the first place. When I began my deep dive into the 1918 Influenza, I was largely motivated by wanting to hear the stories of the people in the past to find how similar and different their experience was with that pandemic compared to mine in 2020. My lived experience with the COVID-19 pandemic has directly shaped some of the questions I sought to have answered. I felt connected to people without even knowing anything about them.

The close relationship between historical significance and historical empathy (Barton & Levstik, 2004; Levesque, 2008; Seixas & Morton, 2013) makes for a great pairing for a historical investigation of the 1918 Influenza. The 2020 pandemic better positions students to re-examine the 1918 Influenza because of the contemporary connection. Historical empathy includes the “process of students’ cognitive and affective engagement with historical figures to better understand and contextualize their lived experiences, decisions, or actions” (Endacott & Brooks, 2013, p. 41). Ultimately, empathy situates us for taking informed action (Dimension 4) by allowing students to “see how historical figures, often very normal people like themselves, were agents of positive change” (Endacott & Brooks, 2013, p. 53).

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Primary Sources and Differentiation A powerful way to humanize the past is through the inclusion of primary sources (Endacott & Brooks, 2013; Kohlmeier, 2006). Other chapters of this text discuss the characteristics and complexities of primary sources. Wineburg and Martin (2009) argue that “sources … are to history what the laboratory is to science” (p. 212). Not only can students learn content from sources and ways to think critically about the past with them, but they can also be positioned to develop greater empathy because sources can illuminate the humanity of those who lived at the time.

Although primary sources have incredible power to promote critical thinking and empathy, and position students to be active members in their democracy (Kohlmeier, 2006; Barton & Levstik, 2003), some teachers are reluctant to use them (Girard et al., 2020). Some teachers claim that they do not know how or where to find the sources, and once they do find primary sources, teachers often do not know how to use them (Barton & Levstik, 2003; Ellsworth, 2017). Sometimes, teachers do find sources they like, but opt to not use them because textbased sources are too difficult to read, let alone analyze (Wineburg & Martin, 2009).

This chapter demonstrates how to find sources on the Library of Congress’s website and provides adaptation techniques for those sources to increase accessibility. Pedagogies include rich, non-text primary sources as well as traditional, text-based sources. Text sets for this historical investigation about 1918 Influenza will include several photographs, an oral interview and its transcript, short texts, and broadsides. While Wineburg and Martin (2009) encourage teachers to physically adapt documents to make them more accessible where needed, I will show how to build source sets so that little adaptation is needed because of the types of sources chosen.

Historical Investigation High-quality social studies programs concertedly work to prepare students for civic life.

They do this by teaching students how to ask critical questions of the past and the present.

Generating questions of societal importance is ideal for situating students to take informed action. Without meaningful questions and deep examinations, students may miss the “why” we learn social studies in the first place. The C3 framework proposes a framework to guide states and teachers on how to engage students in purposeful social studies through historical investigations.

For this investigation, I will demonstrate how a current event topic can be used to create a comparative investigation with a historical event that cultivates historical empathy with students. The framework of Endacott and Brooks (2013) for promoting historical empathy complements the C3 Framework in many ways. First, it recommends providing students with necessary background knowledge of the historical context during 1918–1919 that students need to approach the investigation. It encourages teachers to prepare questions (Dimension 1) for students that will scaffold their inquiry and will intentionally touch on

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the affective domain. Teachers will then purposefully provide sources that amplify voices of those who lived at the time. Endacott and Brooks (2013) strongly suggest that students be given the opportunity to intimately engage with the sources to connect with the affective domain (Dimension 2 and 3). Then, students will construct evidence-based responses to the questions and communicate those conclusions before thinking about how to take informed action (Dimensions 3 and 4).

Searching the Library of Congress Searching the Library of Congress’ website can be tricky, so I want to spend a moment explaining how I found the resources. Teachers may approach the Library either with a specific question in mind, a specific topic, or just with an open mind to see what might be available. I visited the website intending to find sources to help answer the question: “What can we learn about the life and experiences of people living in the U.S. during the 1918 Influenza?”

I began researching by visiting the homepage for the Library’s blogs, which can be a treasure trove for teachers, making it a fantastic starting point. There are several types of blogs on this website, and they are listed in alphabetical order. If you scroll down the page to “T,” you will find “Teaching with the Library” blog. In the search box at the top of the “Teaching with the Library” blog page, I typed “influenza of 1918” and examined several blog entries.

One that caught my eye was titled “Pandemic and Civic Virtue” (Figure 2). This page has background on the influenza and embeds several primary sources and links to other primary sources.

Figure 2. One Library of Congress Blog Result

Note.

This is one of the results after typing “influenza of 1918” into the search box.

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After spending some time with the teaching with primary sources blog, I went back to the “Timeless” blog page from the Library of Congress, used the same search term, and found “The Great Influenza.” As I read the blog, I noticed several sources linked inside of it. I spent time looking at the pictures, the interviews, and other artifacts highlighted there. Then, I browsed several sources embedded in the blog but noticed a theme with links connecting me to the Library’s Chronicling America website, which houses historic newspapers from across the country in digital form.

After spending time looking through newspaper stories, I decided to do one more broad search. I knew the Library of Congress staff had created research guides to help users find resources on a single subject, so I began this last search on its Research Guides page using the same search phrase, “influenza of 1918.” Then, I clicked on the first hit entitled “Influenza epidemic of 1918” and noticed, on the top left-hand side of the page, a link providing search strategies and selected articles (Figure 3). I followed those suggestions and had wonderful success!

Figure 3. Link to “Suggestions for Searching the Site”

History teachers can easily get lost in these rich collections. To keep you focused, keep your question that you want answered in front of you. Prepare some keywords or phrases you can use to search the collection. Once you find a source or two, you may identify other keywords used in the artifacts recently uncovered. For example, while I planned on using “Influenza of 1918” as my keyword, I quickly discovered that several of the search tags at the Library

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of Congress use “Spanish Influenza” with the same degree of frequency. But, as I read a few sources, I realized that “epidemic of grip” and “la grippe” were terms often used to describe the same event, so those become new keywords for me also.

The Lesson Background To activate early workings of empathy, in a whole class discussion, ask students questions that have them consider the potential similarities and differences between themselves and people who lived during the 1918 Influenza. Some questions may include: • Have you ever had to drop what you were doing to help someone in need? What did you do? Why did you do that? How did helping that person make you feel?

• Have you ever sacrificed something in order to help protect others? What did you do?

Why did you do it?

• Have you ever gone to great lengths to protect your own health? If so, how? If not, why not?

Segue the conversation into a discussion of the 1918 Influenza by tying students’ answers to the reality of 1918. Ask students in what ways they think life was similar and different between what they experienced with the pandemic they experienced and what life was like for those during the 1918 pandemic. Tell students that they will investigate evidence from 1918 to help them answer the compelling question: “How are we connected to those in the past?” (Dimension 1).

Historical Context Teachers will begin by providing students with some historical context of the United States in 1918–1919 and situating the 1918 Influenza in it. Teachers should discuss the United States’ involvement in World War I (mobilization, propaganda, war bonds, victory gardens, war-ravaged Europe, movement of people across the Atlantic, doctors and nurses being called to war), the height of the women’s suffrage movement, and the economic impact of war on workforce. Teachers can provide as much or as little information as they deem necessary to help students more accurately interpret, understand, and draw conclusions from the artifacts they will examine. Given the interdisciplinary nature of this topic, teachers could teach the 1918 Influenza (a) in a history class in a WWI unit; (b) in a geography class when talking about the interconnectedness of people, places, and ideas; or (c) in an economics class when learning about catalysts that adversely impact a nation’s GDP, unemployment, and availability of goods and services.

Teachers should have students examine a timeline of major events (Center for Disease Control, 2020) in the United States between 1914 and 1920 to help students contextualize the start of the outbreak. While this background information could be taught through direct

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instruction, it bears repeating that primary sources can be used to teach background content as well. Teachers should conclude the historical context section by talking about how the initial outbreak of the flu in the United States happened in Kansas, and by telling students that without a vaccine, citizens at the time were dependent on one another to mitigate the virus to address this major public health concern, much like people did in the United States in 2020.

After establishing context, teachers should draw students’ attention to the similarities and differences between life for those in 1918 (before the flu hit) and life in the United States before COVID-19. To emphasize the historical significance of the 1918 Influenza and promote greater historical empathy, lead students through a discussion of these questions: • Why do you think we are going to take time to learn about the United States citizens’ experiences and responses to the 1918 Influenza?

• How would you describe the situation these people faced?

• Have you ever been in a similar situation?

• Why is it important to think about what you had in common with citizens in the United States in 1918?

Introduction to the People The purpose of these introduction activities is to “ready students to grapple with historical perspectives that will likely differ from their own” (Endacott & Brooks, 2013, p. 48). Tell students that your goal is to help them understand “the thoughts and feelings of a historical person or persons and that this undertaking will hopefully help them better understand the world they live in today” (Endacott & Brooks, 2013, p. 48). To begin this examination, show students the photograph with major elements of the photograph hidden (see Figure 4). Ask students to examine the photograph and answer the questions: “Where (was this taken)? When (was it taken)? What (event was being photographed)?” With every answer, ask students what clues they are using in the photograph to draw that conclusion.

Then, repeat this process for the other pictures in the series until the full photograph is exposed (Figures 4–8). Be sure to hide the caption from students in order to force them to closely examine the photograph.

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Figure 4. First Photograph in a Series for Analysis

Note.

Fifth Grade in a Plainfield, N.J., school, knitting on Junior Red Cross work. (ca. 1917–1918). [Photograph].

Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/item/2017671857/

Figure 5. Second Photograph in a Series for Analysis

Note.

Fifth Grade in a Plainfield, N.J., school, knitting on Junior Red Cross work. (ca. 1917–1918). [Photograph].

Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/item/2017671857/

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Figure 6. Third Photograph in a Series for Analysis

Note.

Fifth Grade in a Plainfield, N.J., school, knitting on Junior Red Cross work. (ca. 1917–1918). [Photograph].

Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/item/2017671857/

Figure 7. Fourth Photograph in a Series for Analysis

Note.

Fifth Grade in a Plainfield, N.J., school, knitting on Junior Red Cross work. (ca. 1917–1918). [Photograph].

Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/item/2017671857/

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Figure 8. Last Photograph in a Series for Analysis

Note.

Fifth Grade in a Plainfield, N.J., school, knitting on Junior Red Cross work. (ca. 1917–1918). [Photograph].

Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/item/2017671857/

Once students have seen the final photograph, ask them to solidify their guesses citing evidence from the photograph. Then, provide students with the following sourcing information: “Title: Fifth Grade in a Plainfield, N.J., school, knitting on Junior Red Cross work [1917–1918].” Ask students what new questions they have as a result of this examination.

Give students a chance to share those questions. Students may ask “What were they making?” “Were these students impacted by the Influenza of 1918?” or “Why aren’t they wearing masks?”

Then, show students a picture of Alice L. Mikel Duffield, a World War I veteran featured in the Library of Congress Veteran’s History Project (Figure 9). Ask students to predict why Alice is a part of the investigation. Ask students: What role do you think Alice played in 1918?

What evidence is there to make you think that? What might we learn about the influenza by learning about Alice?

Tell students that Alice L. Mikel Duffield was born in 1896 and served as an Army nurse during World War I at Camp Pike, Arkansas, when the 1918 Influenza broke out. Next, tell students that they will listen to an oral interview with Alice from 2002. (The Library

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of Congress interviewed Alice as a part of its Veteran’s History Project. The interviewer captured Alice’s experience as a nurse during the outbreak of the 1918 Influenza by asking Alice to tell her story about what happened during her time working with the Red Cross.)

Provide students with a copy of the transcript of the interview (see Appendix ) so they can follow along with the audio. Tell students that, while they listen, they will underline evidence in that transcript that provides details about what her experience as a nurse was like. Play the oral interview from the Alice L. Duffield Collection webpage, which contains a list of audio recordings. Scroll to the third audio recording and fast forward to the 28:55 mark. Once the third recording ends, pick up with the beginning of the fourth recording.2 Figure 9. Alice Mikel Duffield in Nurse’s Uniform With a Long Sweater [1924]

Note.

2

Handwriting on the back of the photograph says “Alice Mikel (later Duffield). Dawson Springs, Kentucky, 1924.” Photo of Alice Mikel Duffield in nurse’s uniform with long sweater. (1924). [Photograph]. Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/resource/afc2001001.01747.ph0001001/?sp=6

Teachers should let students know that there is some language in the interview that is reflective of the time but would not be considered appropriate by today’s standards. For example, Alice refers to Black employees as “colored.”

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In order to develop historical empathy, Endacott and Brooks (2013) recommend asking students specific questions about what people in the past might have been thinking or feeling.

Using Figure 10, have students answer the questions about the interview with Alice in small groups before sharing out their feelings to the whole class. Students do not need to record the same response as their peers, but it would be valuable for them to hear the thinking of their peers as they process what they have heard.

Figure 10. Graphic Organizer Artifact

Oral interview with Alice Start tape 3 at 27:47 seconds.

Transcript provided in the Appendix.

Alice’s obituary

Who made this source and when? Why was the source created? Is it reliable?

How do you know?

What does this source tell you about what Alice may have thought about her situation?

What does this source tell you about how Alice felt about her situation?

How can you relate this feeling to something similar you have faced in your own life?

Do you think we can really understand how Alice felt in this situation? Why or why not?

What was Alice’s experience like during the 1918 Influenza?

Lastly, show students Alice’s obituary from April 22, 2002 (Figure 11). In small groups, have the students read the obituary together while listening closely for evidence to help them answer the questions on the graphic organizer. Given that the obituary is long, and not all of it is relevant to learning more about Alice’s experience as it related to her service in World War I, I suggest following Wineburg and Martin’s (2009) suggestions for adapting the source to make it more meaningful and accessible. I have also included the full-length obituary for reference in Figure 12.

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Figure 11. Excerpt From Alice L. Mikel Duffield’s Obituary She was one of the first nurses trained at Sparks Hospital in Fort Smith and was commissioned as a captain in the United States Army after graduation. She was a nurse at the base hospital in Camp Pike, Ark., now Camp Robinson. She served with the Army Nurse Corps during World War I. In an interview a few years ago, she said it was the best time she ever had.

Mrs. Duffield was married three times and said she met all her husbands in hospitals.

At the time, women couldn’t be married and be in the Army Nurse Corps, so after three years she was immediately discharged from the hospital when she got married.…

They were divorced a few years later and she returned to nursing.

During the next 15 years, she worked at veterans hospitals…. Most of her patients had received mustard gas burns to their lungs and developed tuberculosis as a result. That was the case with her second husband.

Note.

From Obituary. (2002, April 22). The Oak Ridger. Library of Congress, 4A. www.loc.gov/resource/afc2001001.01747.pm0001001/?r=0.006,-0.02,1.131,0.518,0

After students complete the graphic organizer, debrief the questions as a class. As you do, make sure students are citing evidence in their responses and are continually thinking about the historical context that was established at the beginning of class. In addition, tie their responses back to the opening questions—in particular the ones that asked when they have ever stopped to help someone or sacrificed something to help others. Doing so will position students to answer the compelling question: “How are we connected to those in the past?”

Tell students that next they will examine how the 1918 Influenza impacted the lives of other Americans living at the time.

Figure 12. Alice L. Mikel Duffield Obituary in The Oak Ridger, April 22, 2002

Note.

Obituary. (2002, April 22). The Oak Ridger. Library of Congress, 4A. www.loc.gov/resource/afc2001001.01747.pm0001001/?r=0.006,-0.02,1.131,0.518,0

137 Teaching with Primary Sources to Prepare Students for College, Career, and Civic Life, Volume 1

Group Investigation For this small group inquiry, students will be engaging with artifacts to help them understand how the 1918 Influenza affected the lives of other Americans. Allow students to choose which primary source set (see Figure 13) they want to investigate based on the set titles.

Instead of providing students with a specific question where they are seeking an answer, students will spend time examining each artifact and will generate questions they believe the document set can help answer.

Figure 13. Source Sets Set title

Contents

Hospitals

• Artifact 1: Walter Reed • Artifact 2: Gumbel house turned emergency hospital • Artifact 3: Red Cross opens influenza hospital (column 4) • Artifact 4: Beds isolated by curtains

Masks

• Artifact 5: Influenza and the mask • Artifact 6: Red Cross needs more masks (column 4) • Artifact 7: Precautions taken in Seattle

Women

• Artifact 8: Many women are nursing: More badly needed (column 4) • Artifact 9: Women at Red Cross holding beds at ambulance • Artifact 10: Demonstration of emergency ambulance

National Government

• Artifact 11: Swat the flu (column 3) • Artifact 12: US public health service • Artifact 13: Spanish Influenza—the Flu

Local government

• Artifact 14: As to the closing of schools (column 5) • Artifact 15: Portland in grip of new flu wave (column 2) • Artifact 16: Quarantine is lifted

Teachers should place each artifact in a shared document that all students in the group can access electronically simultaneously. Allow students to click on the link that will take them directly to the Library of Congress collections so they can have full access to all sourcing information. If electronic devices are not possible, teachers should print off the artifacts and be sure to include all sourcing information. There should be at least two copies of each artifact so students can access them with ease.

Provide one investigation set to a small group of no more than four students. Have students choose one artifact to analyze together, keeping in mind the historical context. Using the Teacher’s Guide for Analyzing Primary Sources (Figure 14), guide students through the Observe, Reflect, Question (ORQ) protocol using some of the discussion questions provided.

Have students repeat that process for the rest of the sources in their set. Given the iterative nature of these questions, students may find themselves going back and forth among the

138 How Are We Connected to Those in The Past?

ORQ questions as their discussion continues.

Figure 14. Observe, Reflect, Question Analysis Form From the Library of Congress

ST

E

C

T

QU

OBSERVE

E

Analyzing Primary Sources

REFL

Teacher’s Guide

BSERVE

ION

O

Guide students with the sample questions as they respond to the primary source. Encourage them to go back and forth between the columns; there is no correct order.

REFLECT

Have students identify and note details.

QUESTION

Encourage students to generate and test hypotheses about the source.

Have students ask questions to lead to more observations and reflections.

What do you notice first? · Find something small

Where do you think this came from? · Why do you

What do you wonder about...

but interesting. · What do you notice that you

think somebody made this? · What do you think

who? · what? · when? · where? · why? · how?

didn’t expect? · What do you notice that you can’t

was happening when this was made? · Who do you

explain? · What do you notice now that you didn’t

think was the audience for this item? · What tool

earlier?

was used to create this? · Why do you think this

Sample Questions:

item is important? · If someone made this today, what would be different? · What can you learn from examining this?

F U R T h E R I N V E S T I g AT I O N

Note.

The Library of Congress has a set of teacher’s guides to aid students in analyzing a myriad of source types.

From www.loc.gov/programs/teachers/getting-started-with-primary-sources/guides/ Sample Question: What more do you want to know, and how can you find out?

Help students to identify questions appropriate for further investigation, and to develop a research strategy for finding answers.

OnceA students have examined all the artifactsAdvanced in their text set using the ORQForprotocol, more tips on using primary few follow-up Beginning activity ideas:

Have students compare two related primary source items.

Ask students to consider how a series of primary sources support

Have students expand or alter textbook explanations of history based on primary sources they study.

each subsequent primary source.

sources, go to

challenge information understanding on a particular topic. students should find similarities and differencesorHave among theandartifacts.

Students should share Intermediate http://www.loc.gov/teachers students refine or revise conclusions based on their study of

their reactions to the artifacts and share what evidence makes them feel that way. Then, students should be positioned to generate a list of 3–5 historical questions that could be LOC.gov/teachers

answered with the set of artifacts. Each question has to be answered in no fewer than two artifacts in each primary source set. This will help students think through how different artifacts can corroborate an idea or give them an opportunity to grapple with discrepant evidence. Students should cite evidence from their own selected artifacts set to demonstrate how their question(s) can be answered.

Then have students choose a second text set to examine. This time, have them use the previous group’s student-generated question for the text set. In small groups, students should attempt to answer the question and compare their responses to the first group’s responses. Debrief this activity by having students share out how the pandemic-related experiences of Americans in 1918 was similar to and different from the pandemic-related experiences during 2020.

Jump Into the Picture For the last activity, display each of the following photos (Figures 15–20) around the classroom for students to easily see. Tell students that, in a moment, they are going to imagine that they are in the picture. Students will choose one photo to “jump into” and then answer the questions that follow. Remind students to be mindful of the situation people faced at the time and teach them how to treat their examination of people from the past who

139 Teaching with Primary Sources to Prepare Students for College, Career, and Civic Life, Volume 1

experienced a traumatic event with respect and dignity.

Figure 15. First Photograph Option to “Jump Into”

Note.

American Red Cross nurse at the railroad station at St. Etienne, helping wounded soldiers on to the tram cars which are being used as ambulances. (1918). [Photograph]. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/2016645646/

Figure 16. Second Photograph Option to “Jump Into”

Note

Demonstration at the Red Cross Emergency Ambulance Station in Washington, D.C., during the influenza pandemic of 1918. (1918). [Photograph]. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/00652429/

140 How Are We Connected to Those in The Past?

Figure 17. Third Photograph Option to “Jump Into”

Note.

Rogers, E. A. (1918). 1918 flu epidemic: The Oakland Municipal Auditorium in use as a temporary hospital [Photograph]. Oakland Public Library, Oakland History Center. https://oac.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt3q2nc9rt/?brand=oac4

Figure 18. Fourth Photograph Option to “Jump Into”

Note.

Photograph from 1918 from Mütter Museum at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Reproduced by permission of the Mütter Museum.

141 Teaching with Primary Sources to Prepare Students for College, Career, and Civic Life, Volume 1

Figure 19. Fifth Photograph Option to “Jump Into”

Note.

Her sister had not seen Mrs. Brown for almost a week, and with Mr. Brown a soldier in France, she became so worried she telephoned Red Cross Home Service, which arrived just in time to rescue Mrs. Brown from the clutches of influenza. (1918, November 29). [Photograph]. Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/item/2017668532/

Figure 20. Sixth Photograph Option to “Jump Into”

Note.

Beds with patients in an emergency hospital in Camp Funston, Kansas, in the midst of the influenza epidemic (1918) from Otis Historical Archives at the National Museum of Health and Medicine, Silver Spring, Maryland. www.medicalmuseum.mil/index.cfm?p=media.news.article.2020.1918_influenza_a_ case_study

142 How Are We Connected to Those in The Past?

Give students an opportunity to browse the photos and choose one photograph they would like to think about more deeply. (Teachers can click on the photograph to see the sourcing information.) After students choose one photograph to jump into, they will fill out the corresponding graphic organizer (Figure 21). Once students have completed the organizer, have students share their responses with a classmate.

Figure 21. Jump Into the Picture Graphic Organizer Record the artifact’s title, author, and date in this box.

Describe the artifact Why did you choose it?

What is the context of the photograph?

Where in the photo are you jumping in?

What do you see from there?

What do you smell and hear?

What are you thinking?

What are you feeling?

What do you not see in the photo because of where you are positioned when you jumped in?

Note.

Students will use this organizer to answer questions about the photograph they want to learn more about.

Have students conduct their own investigation that would compare their present-day reality to what they have examined in their source set. Have students explain how stories of today mirror ones of the past.

Upon completion of the investigation, students should be afforded an opportunity to reflect on what they learned. Endacott and Brooks (2013) remind teachers that “reflection activities should prompt students to develop a stronger awareness of needs around them and a sense of agency to respond to these needs” (p. 54). Guide students through reflection by asking the following questions, including the compelling question that guided the investigation: • How are we connected to those in the past?

• How are the perspectives of people in the past similar or different from the perspectives we hold today? What are the factors that influence these differences?

• How has our view of the 1918 Influenza changed over time?

• Why is it important to study the lives of people who lived in the past? How can that

143 Teaching with Primary Sources to Prepare Students for College, Career, and Civic Life, Volume 1

change the way we see people today?

• How can your knowledge of the situation Alice and others faced inform or change your view of the world today? What is a public issue that warrants attention? What can you do to address a public policy issue?

Extended Learning For students who want to learn more about the 1918 Influenza outbreak, have them read this article from the New York Times, watch Webinar 1 from the World History Digital Education Foundation, read this information from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) (background, timeline, and stories from survivors), and examine the Influenza Encyclopedia from the University of Michigan, and the Mütter Museum.

Take Informed Action Remind students that the 1918 Influenza quickly became a major public policy issue in the United States. Americans around the country responded to the problem in a myriad of ways.

Some advocated for economic shut down and increased mitigating efforts, while others actively opposed these ideas. Likewise, in 2020, Americans faced a similar public policy issue with COVID-19, and there was significant disagreement on how the government at all levels, and individual Americans, should respond to it (The Hunt Institute, 2020; Markowitz, 2021; Pew Research Center, 2020). Even if students are not facing a global health pandemic, they can still apply these same skills to addressing a public policy concern based on a current event they are facing.

For this Influenza example and to promote empathy, ask students to examine how COVID-19 affected different racial groups in the students’ community. Have students investigate data from the CDC on the issue while focusing on individual stories and feelings about the challenge before them. Students should identify some potential solutions for the issues they identified. Their solutions must be grounded in evidence. Have students determine the reliability of the evidence as their opinion on the best solution begins to take shape. Students should be sure to include compelling first-hand accounts of how the issue is affecting fellow community members, as well as stories that discuss how varying solutions will personally impact them. Students could then take informed action in one of four ways (Figure 22) (Muetterties & Swan, 2019).

144 How Are We Connected to Those in The Past?

Figure 22. Taking Informed Action Ideas Taking informed action type

Example of taking informed action activity

Be informed

Create a public service announcement about a public policy issue facing your school

Be engaged

Invite administrators and students into the classroom to learn more about the issues and various positions that exist in the school

Be a leader

Organize students in the school to learn more about how to address the issue

Be a change

Schedule a meeting with the administration to share your concerns and provide possible solutions to solve the issue

Note.

Chart adapted from “Be the change: Guiding students to take informed action” by C. Muetterties and K. Swan, 2019, Social Education, 83 (4), 232–237.

Conclusion Making the study of history meaningful is natural when we find historically significant topics in history that are relevant and meaningful to our students today. The inherent interest serves as an intrinsic motivator to learn more. It promotes natural curiosities and guides students through an investigation of historical evidence as they seek to uncover truths of the past. When teachers couple that interest with pedagogies that promote historical empathy, students are better equipped for agency and action (National Council for the Social Studies, 2013; Endacott & Brooks, 2013). By situating students to engage in the stories of people of the past and humanizing their experiences while highlighting the students’ own civic activism, students can develop a “stronger sense of needs around them, and a sense of agency to respond to those needs” (Endacott & Brooks, 2013, p. 45). Incorporating empathy is critical for building students who are prepared for college, career, and civic life.

145 Teaching with Primary Sources to Prepare Students for College, Career, and Civic Life, Volume 1

References Barton, K. C. (2005). “Best not to forget them”: Secondary students’ judgments of historical significance in Northern Ireland. Theory & Research in Social Education, 33 (1), 9–44.

Barton, K. C., & Levstik, L. S. (2003). Why don’t more history teachers engage students in interpretation?

Social Education, 67(6), 358–358.

Barton, K. C., & Levstik, L. S. (2004). Teaching history for the common good. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Center for Disease Control. (2018, March 20). 1918 pandemic influenza historic timeline. www.cdc.gov/ flu/pandemic-resources/1918-commemoration/pandemic-timeline-1918.htm Ellsworth, T. M. (2017). Beginning teachers’ enactment of pedagogical content knowledge through content decision-making (No. 3844) [Doctoral dissertation, University of Kansas]. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.

Endacott, J., & Brooks, S. (2013). An updated theoretical and practical model for promoting historical empathy. Social Studies Research and Practice, 8(1), 41–58.

Girard, B., Harris, L. M., Mayger, L. K., Kessner, T. M., & Reid, S. (2020). “There’s no way we can teach all of this”: Factors that influence secondary history teachers’ content choices. Theory & Research in Social Education, 49(2) 1–35.

Harris, R., & Foreman-Peck, L. (2004). “Stepping into other peoples’ shoes”: Teaching and assessing empathy in the secondary history curriculum. International Journal of Historical Learning, Teaching and Research, 4(2), 98–111.

Hunt Institute. (December 19, 2020). COVID-19 K–12 state reopening plans. https://hunt-institute.org/ covid-19-resources/k-12-reopening-plans-by-state/ Kansas State Historical Society. (2020). Flu epidemic of 1918. www.kshs.org/kansapedia/flu-pandemicof-1918/17805 Kohlmeier, J. (2006). “Couldn’t she just leave?”: The relationship between consistently using class discussions and the development of historical empathy in a 9th grade world history course. Theory and Research in Social Education, 34(1), 34–57.

Levesque, S. (2008). Thinking historically: Educating students for the 21st century. University of Toronto Press.

Levstik, L. (2008). Building a sense of history in a first-grade classroom. In L. S. Levstik & K. C. Barton, Researching history education: theory, method, and context (pp. 30–60). Routledge.

Markowitz, A. (2020, January 7). State-by-state guide to face mask requirements. AARP. www.aarp.org/ health/healthy-living/info-2020/states-mask-mandates-coronavirus/ Muetterties, C., & Swan, K. (2019). Be the change: Guiding students to take informed action. Social Education, 83(4), 232–237.

National Council for the Social Studies. (2013). The college, career, and civic life (C3) Framework for social studies state standards: Guidance for enhancing the rigor of K–12 civics, economics, geography, and history.

National Institutes of Health. (2020). Immune cells for common cold may recognize SARS-CoV-2. www.nih. gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/immune-cells-common-cold-may-recognize-sars-cov-2

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Peck, C. L. (2010). “It’s not like [I’m] Chinese and Canadian. I am in between”: Ethnicity and students’ conceptions of historical significance. Theory and Research in Social Education, 38(4), 574–617.

Pew Research Center. (2020). Both Republicans and Democrats cite masks as a negative effect of COVID-19, but for very different reasons. www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/29/both-republicans-anddemocrats-cite-masks-as-a-negative-effect-of-covid-19-but-for-very-different-reasons/ Rantala, J., Manninen, M., & van den Berg, M. (2016). Stepping into other people’s shoes proves to be a difficult task for high school students: Assessing historical empathy through simulation exercise.

Journal of Curriculum Studies, 48(3), 323–345.

Seixas, P. (2017). Historical consciousness and historical thinking. In M. Carretero et al. (Eds.), Palgrave Handbook of Research in Historical Culture and Education (pp. 59–72). Palgrave Macmillan.

Seixas, P., & Morton, T. (2013). The big six historical thinking concepts. Nelson Education.

Wineburg, S., & Martin, D. (2009). Tampering with history: Adapting primary sources for struggling readers. Social Education, 73(5), 212–216.

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Appendix Transcript of Oral Interview Alice Duffield’s oral interview with Linda Barnickel on March 4, 2002, in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Duffield was a nurse during World War I. The interview is housed on three mp3 files. Below is a transcript of those interviews.

[Start tape 3 at 28:55 seconds.]

Linda Barnickel: At Camp Pike, you were there during the flu epidemic. What can you tell me about that?

Alice L. Duffield: Well, I’ve got a book here...and I like it...about physicians of medicine by Amelia Martin. Her husband was a doctor. They took a lot of research to do that. And she tells about the...And there were three doctors that died, about the time that we left, that the war started. One of them was a young doctor, and I can’t remember his... Well, he was married to...a girl, and she was pregnant, and he was downstairs, and I went down to cook our own supper...

Linda Barnickel: Did he die of the flu? Is that what killed him?

Alice L. Duffield: Well, the boys...these colored boys, they had flu. They died just like flies!

Linda Barnickel: Can you describe what that was like for them?

Alice L. Duffield: This doctor...

Linda Barnickel: Can you describe the condition of your patients who were suffering with the flu?

Alice L. Duffield: Well, we did the best we could with them.

Linda Barnickel: Um-hmm.

Alice L. Duffield: If they had had...We couldn’t possibly have had enough help with as many as were sick! It was just too many. So they passed a rule that we could have nurses’ assistants...

[Rest of sentence clipped off due to end of tape] ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ [Start at beginning of tape 4.]

Alice L. Duffield: And they’d shake down thermometers and things like that. They helped some and they were even taught how to give bed baths, and that was ‘cause there were a lot of patients and...

Linda Barnickel: Were you afraid during that time?

Alice L. Duffield: No! I wasn’t afraid.

148 How Are We Connected to Those in The Past?

Linda Barnickel: What measures were taken...well, let’s see, we already did that...

Alice L. Duffield: Down on my duty...

Linda Barnickel: Uh huh.

Alice L. Duffield: And...

Audrey Duffield Henry: Let me have her read this, and maybe she can remember some of it.

Linda Barnickel: OK. Audrey Duffield Henry: [writing] Did the hospital have a morgue?

Alice L. Duffield: No, the hospital didn’t have a morgue. The funeral home did. Putman’s Funeral Home and Edwards Funeral Home. Both of them. And they got all the patients. And that way, my poppa had a lot of influence. He said most of the miners would go to Putman’s.

Well, they were friends of Mr. Putman’s.

Linda Barnickel: Well how many deaths occurred because of the flu?

Alice L. Duffield: Oh, I don’t know. We didn’t pay any attention...we didn’t have time! It was published in the paper, every day, who died.

Linda Barnickel: Wow. Alice L. Duffield: And Linda Barnickel: Did any of the medical staff get ill because of it?

Alice L. Duffield: No. Audrey Duffield Henry: Oh but...

Alice L. Duffield: No. the doctors did.

Audrey Duffield Henry: Yeah.

Alice L. Duffield: This young doctor, and I can’t remember his name, now. He... His father was a doctor.

Linda Barnickel: You told [Audrey] about the orderly having a body fall on him? Can you tell me about that?

Alice L. Duffield: Oh, yes! Night duty. If a patient died, you couldn’t find room in the morgue for all the patients. We had...I had three white orderlies, and one black orderly. And the black orderly, he didn’t try to associate with us folks and I don’t know what they had for recreation, but white boys came to the Red Cross. There was free entertainment there, mostly local talent. And a lot of it was good! And I was on night duty, and those boys just died. And finally the black orderly and a white orderly took a patient to the morgue, and when they opened the door, the morgue was so full, that one of them fell on the floor and the black orderly came back and he said, “Just can’t take it any longer! Just can’t take it any longer!”

Linda Barnickel: Hmm. Because of the bodies?

149 Teaching with Primary Sources to Prepare Students for College, Career, and Civic Life, Volume 1

Alice L. Duffield: “Had to pick him up and tried to get him back in, but there wasn’t room for him!” Now they needed another morgue, was what they needed. And he sat there and they had some whiskey and was kept there for some reason or other, they’d give whiskey...not much of it, about two teaspoons full, lots of times for patients with pneumonia or anything.

And I don’t know why, but that’s what they used. And... There were three doctors that died.

I’ve got their names.

Linda Barnickel: How did they treat the flu?

Alice L. Duffield: Oh, they didn’t get much of any treatment. No. They might have got it, but that stuff was given to the older nurses. More experienced than we were.

Linda Barnickel: OK. Alice L. Duffield: So I don’t know what they did. [end 5:25]

150 How Are We Connected to Those in The Past?

Chapter 7

Using Library of Congress Resources in Purposeful Social Studies Assessment Jeffery D. Nokes, Brigham Young University

151 Using Library of Congress Resources in Purposeful Social Studies Assessment

Assessment plays a vital role in teaching—a much more substantial role than most students realize. Yet many assessments, especially traditional assessments, do little to promote learning (Reich, 2009; VanSledright, 2014). By the time you finish reading this chapter, you should have a clear picture why many traditional history assessments are not appropriate measures in classrooms that promote authentic student inquiry, reading and writing skill development, the disposition to engage civically, and conceptual content knowledge as outlined in the C3 Framework (National Council for the Social Studies [NCSS], 2013). The development of new instructional objectives, such as those promoted by the C3 Framework, creates a need for new types of assessments. This chapter includes examples available on the Library of Congress website to illustrate assessment methods that are suited to 21st-century instructional objectives in standards-based and mastery-based school settings1 (Ercikan & Seixas, 2015; VanSledright, 2014). I start this chapter with two vignettes contrasting a weak, traditional assessment item with a much stronger model. Studying this chapter should help you consider why teachers assess, a concept that, once understood, will make evident the reasons that some frequently used history assessments are inappropriate in 21st-century classrooms. You will next think about a related topic: what to assess. You will then consider when to assess, focusing on preassessments, formative assessments, and postassessments.

Finally, you will get some ideas on how to assess, with examples of assessments using resources from the Library of Congress that measure students’ mastery of objectives that align with the C3 Framework.

Two Vignettes A few years ago, I visited the classroom of a teacher candidate I supervised who happened to be giving a test on the day I was there. Out of curiosity, I asked to look at a copy of the exam, which I soon had at my desk. As I perused the multiple-choice questions, I was surprised to find several that assessed obscure historical trivia, such as that shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. History Test Question 1. Who was the unsuccessful Democratic candidate in the presidential election of 1848? a. _Lewis Cass b. _Martin Van Buren c. _Henry Clay d. _James K. Polk e. _None of the above Note.

1

A question from a history test intended to assess students’ recall of historical information.

This chapter applies primarily to school settings that follow a standards-based or mastery-based curriculum with predetermined learning objectives. In educational settings without predetermined objectives, such as some home schooling and some democratic educational settings where student interests guide all instruction, the concepts described in this chapter may or may not apply. An extensive discussion of how to assess in settings without predetermined objectives is beyond the scope of this chapter.

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I was curious about the thinking that went into the design of such test items. Was there something of which I was unaware that made the loser of the election of 1848 and other tidbits of historical information important for these 16- and 17-year-olds to know? Later, I asked the student teacher to explain her process in creating the test. “I didn’t write the test,” she explained. “My mentor teacher makes me use the tests that she wrote and always uses.

The election of 1848 was something we talked about in class.”

A year or so later, I was in the classroom of a former student who had taught history for only a few years. The day I visited his classroom, he started class with a “bell ringer” activity.

As soon as the bell rang to begin class, he displayed a photograph from the National Child Labor Committee Collection of the Library of Congress with accompanying information and prompt (see Figure 2). Included with the picture was the title of the photograph, its source, and a question, which students were asked to respond to in writing.

Figure 2. Bell Ringer Activity

Title (written by the photographer): Fank [sic] Denato, 6 years old; Tom Denato, 4 years old; Domino Denato, 12 years old. 902 Montrose St., Philadelphia, and Padrone. White’s Bog, Browns Mills, N.J. This is the fourth week of school, and the people expect to remain here two weeks more. Witness E.F. Brown.

Location: Browns Mills, New Jersey.

Photographer: Lewis Hine Date: September 1910 Source: National Child Labor Committee Collection of the Library of Congress Question: What does this photograph and the information included with it show about child labor and the Progressive Movement? How does the photograph serve as historical evidence of child labor and the Progressive Movement?

Note.

Photograph from Hine, L. (1910, September). Fank [sic] Denato, 6 years old; Tom Denato, 4 years old; Domino Denato, 12 years old. 902 Montrose St., Philadelphia, and Padrone. White’s Bog, Browns Mills, N.J. This is the fourth week of school and the people expect to remain here two weeks more [Photograph]. National Child Labor Committee Collection. Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/item/2018673881/

153 Using Library of Congress Resources in Purposeful Social Studies Assessment

When I later asked the teacher about this assessment, he explained that the class had been learning about the Progressive Era. He had also been teaching strategies for thinking critically about historical evidence and using evidence to make and justify interpretations. He said that he wanted to know whether students would simply write about the subject of the photograph—child farm laborers—or whether they would also write about the source of the photograph and use its title to infer the photographer’s purpose in taking it. Ideally, students would write about the Progressive Era, pointing out that Lewis Hine took this photograph for the purpose of showing the evils of child labor to promote reform. Students who had learned strategies such as sourcing, paying attention to and thinking critically about a document’s source (Wineburg, 1991), would point out that the title, written by the photographer, highlighted that the children were working rather than going to school. Hine also explicitly stated the ages of the children. Some students might notice that Hine included the name of a witness of the photograph—further evidence that this photograph was not just a snapshot of something Hine stumbled onto but that he was collecting evidence of the evils of child labor and had a witness to prove that this photograph was not staged. The fact that Hine omits from the title any mention of the conditions of the Black woman in the background further highlights his focus on child labor reform rather than racial equality. At the surface level, the photograph shows child labor in action, but below the surface, the photograph is evidence of the purposes and tactics of progressive reformers who wanted children to attend school instead of laboring on farms or in factories. (For a richer description of the skills associated with historical reading, see Nokes, 2022.)

The teacher explained that he hoped that some students would also write about the choices Hine made in creating this image. Some might point out that Hine positioned his camera to capture a headless overseer standing menacingly over the young children who worked. Instead, Hine could have taken a photograph that included the foreman’s head or face. An African American woman works beside the children, representing, perhaps, a subtle allusion to the former enslavement of individuals, suggesting that the conditions of the child laborers smacked of enslavement. The fact that most of the children are shown from the back may have been done to dehumanize them, just as child labor did. The teacher explained to me that the photograph was a wonderful resource for assessing students’ ability to analyze historical evidence and evaluate its source, helping him know how he could continue to support their development of content knowledge about the Progressive Era and historical reading and thinking skills. “Ultimately,” he concluded, “I want students to recognize how they might use photography to promote social justice reform, like Hine did and as is being done to reveal police brutality—something I will talk about later with them.” These two vignettes form a conceptual foundation for much of the remainder of this chapter.

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Why Should Social Studies Teachers Assess?

What was the purpose of the teacher candidate in the first example for asking students to name the losing presidential candidate in the 1848 election? I suspect that her primary intent was to identify which students could recall this information from a lecture. She probably expected that many students would miss the question, which would create a range of scores on the test and allow her to give a range of grades. Additionally, she may have thought that a pattern of such questioning on exams might motivate students to listen or study more carefully. She might have thought that such questions might prepare students for similar types of questions on high-stakes exams. It seems unlikely that she would use the results on that question to identify content that should be retaught because it assessed such a trivial fact, as history assessments often do (Reich, 2015; VanSledright, 2015).

Compare these motives with the purposes of the teacher who asked students to analyze the photograph and write about the Progressive Era. His intent was to find out whether students could apply concepts associated with Progressivism to the specific case of child labor shown in the photograph. Students’ responses would give him an idea about their ability to use source information to think critically about historical evidence. He would know whether they could make and justify inferences using evidence. Reading the students’ responses might show patterns in the errors they made or the skills they lacked. The results of the assessment would help him know whether students had mastered the objectives of the course associated with inquiry and reading and thinking skills. The assessment could inform his instruction in the future. He would identify the students who needed more support when working with evidence and those who did not. He would know whether students understood how reformers were involved in the Progressive Movement. The information about the students that was generated by this assessment would allow him to adapt his instruction to specific students’ unique needs.

Two general rationales exist for purposefully assessing students in inquiry-driven classrooms. Purposeful assessments (1) measure and monitor each student’s progress toward the learning of course objectives and (2) are used to enhance each student’s learning (Popham, 2017), particularly the development of skills that transfer to settings outside of the social studies classroom. To be effective, then, assessments must provide data on how every student is progressing toward the course objectives. Assessment scores should indicate whether students understand important social studies concepts, such as reform, and whether they can apply the thinking skills, such as sourcing, associated with disciplinary inquiry.

Teachers who know where students stand in terms of their conceptual understandings and skill development can then adjust instruction as needed, reduce or increase levels of scaffolding, provide corrective feedback, reteach generally misunderstood concepts or skills,

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differentiate instruction for individuals, introduce more abstract and challenging examples, or otherwise tailor instruction to meet students’ specific needs. In contrast, assessment items that simply measure students’ recall of historical facts, such as the loser of the election of 1848, are much less actionable, particularly when the item that students missed is not important enough to merit reteaching (VanSledright, 2014).

As teachers see assessment as a means of measuring students’ progress toward important learning goals and enhancing students’ learning (and their own teaching), they are less likely to use the traditional types of trivia-based questions that provide little useful data for adjusting instruction. Instead, teachers will use prompts and assessment instruments that measure students’ progress toward specific course objectives such as historical thinking skills and conceptual content knowledge.

What Should Social Studies Teachers Assess?

Closely related to the reasons why social studies teachers should assess is what they should assess. Simply put, teachers should assess students’ progress toward learning objectives (Boston, 2002; Popham, 2017). Teachers should measure students’ learning of the concepts they intend to teach. If their intention is for students to learn skills, they should assess students’ development of those skills. Through assessments, teachers should be able to state the level of mastery of every student on each learning objective. Purposeful assessments begin with the creation of clear, worthwhile, culturally relevant learning objectives (Montenegro & Jankowski, 2017). In the examples at the start of this chapter, the first teacher may have intended to have students learn the details of the outcome of the election of 1848, an objective of questionable value. More likely, the test item was not very closely connected to any instructional objective but was merely included on the test, like most other items, to see whether students recalled a historical fact. In contrast, the teacher in the second example had more worthwhile instructional objectives, objectives closely aligned with the Inquiry Design Model promoted by the C3 Framework and applied in the inquiries shared in the chapters of this book. He wanted students to apply their conceptual understanding of reform and the Progressive Movement to child farm labor. He wanted students to analyze the tactics used by successful reformers, a process that would better position them to take informed action. In addition, he wanted students to apply several historical thinking skills, such as sourcing, inferring, and contextualization, which involves imagining the social and physical context of a document’s creation (Wineburg, 1991).

Consider, as an example, the following objectives and evaluate how well the assessment (Figure 3) and the scoring guide (Figure 4) would provide data on students’ progress toward the stated objectives:

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• Skill objective: Students will use corroboration by comparing and contrasting the information found in two conflicting documents related to a historical question (Wineburg, 1991).

• Content objective: Students will describe the extraordinary acts of people who considered themselves ordinary as they took informed action during the civil rights movement.

In particular, the teacher wants students to see in themselves, ordinary teenagers, the potential to become an upstander and to take informed action to promote social justice.

Would the assessment instrument in Figure 3, scored using the guide in Figure 4, provide a teacher with data on each student’s mastery of the course objectives, that is, their ability to (a) use corroboration to compare and contrast the information found in two conflicting documents related to a historical question and (b) acknowledge the extraordinary acts of individuals who viewed themselves as ordinary even as they took informed action during the civil rights movement? Could a teacher adjust future lessons based on the data collected from this assessment in order to continue to support students in their learning of both objectives?

The answers to these questions depend on students’ responses. However, I suspect that students’ answers would give the teacher a good sense of each student’s progress toward learning objectives, which is what the teacher should assess.

Figure 3. Assessment Designed to Measure Students’ Corroboration and Learning of Content Objectives Assessment Instrument Use the following two documents to gather evidence to answer this question: Would Rosa Parks (whose name before she was married was Rosa McCauley) describe herself as an ordinary person or an extraordinary person when she was a young girl? Was her behavior ordinary or extraordinary? What evidence from these two primary sources supports your interpretation? Explain any evidence that contradicts your interpretation.

Document 1: Letter written on April 3, 1929 to Rosa McCauley (Parks) by a classmate who had moved to Pennsylvania. From the Library of Congress exhibition, Rosa Parks: In Her Own Words, www.loc.gov/exhibitions/rosa-parks-in-her-own-words/about-this-exhibition/early-life-and-activism/letter-from-a-classmate/

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Transcription (starting with first full paragraph on page 6 [on the right]): What all did you get for Easter? I know you looked to jam up [to dress in stylish clothes].

I only got a spring coat. Do you ever see Sweetheart? I guess you know who I am speaking of, Mrs. Harris on Elmwood St. To tell you the truth darling, I have not wrote to him since I sent you those letters I received from him. I haven’t had time on the account of my lessons. I am not in school today that is why I am writing to you now. I know when I go back tomorrow I won’t have the time to write. I am going to write to him and when I do I will be sure to let you know. I just bet anything the boys in your classes can’t get their lessons for looking at you. I know the majority of them likes you, they can’t help it.

(How ‘bout it?) You say you are only in love with books, but you can’t fool me. You mean with books and boys too. I read in the paper where there had been a flood there. It isn’t so very cold here.

Document 2: Rosa Parks’ memory of an experience she had as a young girl sometime around 1923, when she was 10 years old. Written by her between 1956 and 1958. From the Library of Congress exhibition, Rosa Parks: In Her Own Words, www.loc.gov/exhibitions/rosa-parks-in-her-own-words/about-this-exhibition/early-life-and-activism/childhood-encounter/

Transcription: I would rather be lynched than live to be mistreated and can’t say “I don’t like it.” When I was a very little girl, not more than 10 years old, I angrily cried these words to my grandmother in answer to a severe scolding she gave me. I happened to quite casually mention that a white boy had met me in the road some days before and had said he would hit me. He made a threatening gesture with his fist at the same time he spoke. I picked up a small piece of brick and drew back to strike him if he should hit me. I was angry, though he seemed to be half teasing and half bullying me. He went his way without further comment.

Note.

Document 1 is Galatas to Rosa McCauley. (1929, April 3). [Letter]. Rosa Parks Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. Document 2 is Parks, R. (ca. 1956–1958). Rosa Parks recalls childhood encounter with a white boy who threatened to hit her. Rosa Parks Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

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Figure 4. Scoring Guide Corroboration Scoring Guide Score

Example

0

Does not use evidence from either document to support an answer

In my opinion, Rosa Parks saw herself as an ordinary person when she was a young girl.

1

Uses evidence from only one of the documents to support an answer

Her story about standing up for herself when being bullied shows that she was an extraordinary girl.

Uses similar evidence from both documents to support an answer

The letter from her friend shows that she was an unusually dedicated student and the story from her childhood showed that she would boldly defend herself. Both describe an extraordinary girl.

Acknowledges both similarities and differences in the evidence that comes from the documents

The documents give mixed evidence of Rosa Parks’ nature. They both show a girl who faced everyday concerns such as liking boys (in the letter) and facing down bullies (in her story). She also faced extraordinary concerns, such as worrying about being lynched as a ten-year-old girl. However, the letter from her friend gives a hint that she might have been an unusually dedicated student.

2

3

Note.

Description

Scoring guide used to evaluate students’ use of corroboration on the assessment shown in Figure 3.

When Should Social Studies Teachers Assess?

Another important distinction exists between the two examples given at the start of this chapter besides the format of the questions. In the first example, the question about the election of 1848 was asked on an exam at the end of a unit, when the time for instruction on the election of 1848 had passed and it was time to move on to other topics of study. In contrast, in the second example, the students analyzed the photograph of child labor with the teacher intending to continue instruction on both the Progressive Era and the skills for analyzing historical evidence based upon the data he gathered from the bell ringer. The first question is an example of a postassessment, given after instruction has been completed. In contrast, the second example is a formative assessment, given while instruction is ongoing.

The timing of assessments is closely related to their purpose. In this section, I consider purposeful preassessment, formative assessment, and postassessment before showing how they can be used together to monitor students’ progress.

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Preassessment One of the most important influences on learning is what a student already knows (Bransford et al., 2000). Teachers who are dedicated to their students’ learning of worthwhile learning objectives use preassessments before teaching a unit or a lesson to find out what students already know. Preassessments, also known in different contexts as preliminary assessments or screenings, provide teachers with information about students’ background knowledge, which can guide teachers’ planning and teaching. Preassessments help teachers identify misconceptions in students’ understandings, find gaps in their knowledge base, and build on what students already know. Preassessments help teachers design appropriate scaffolding for students by identifying tasks that students can and cannot accomplish without help.

Additionally, teachers can use preassessments to identify which students may need substantial support and which need little support to reach the instructional objectives and to engage in inquiry, allowing teachers to differentiate instruction for individual students’ needs.

For instance, prior to teaching a unit on 19th-century cultural conflict in the western United States, the teacher might give the preassessment shown in Figure 5 and Figure 6.

The purpose of this preassessment is to measure students’ ability to (a) use artwork as evidence of historical attitudes, including racially motivated colonialism, (b) identify the role of technology in the encroachment of the United States into the West, and (c) contrast the perspectives and reactions of diverse social groups to the United States’ Westward Expansion, some of the instructional objectives of the unit. See two sample student responses in Figure 7 and consider how you might plan instruction to meet the needs of each student. In the assessment, instructions are provided in English (Figure 5) and Spanish (Figure 6) in order to accurately assess students’ knowledge and skills regardless of Spanish-bilingual students’ proficiency in English.

The students’ responses collected through this preassessment, particularly the lack of sensitivity to or awareness of the devastating impact of colonization on Indigenous peoples, would help a teacher plan lessons that would support students who showed differing knowledge and skill levels. For example, Student A seems entirely unaware of the perspective of the Indigenous peoples who resisted the encroachment of the United States. Further, Student A ignores the source information in all four sentences, relies on background knowledge rather than the painting, and does not use any evidence from the painting to support conclusions, even when prompted to do so. In contrast, Student B shows some awareness of the perspectives of Indigenous peoples. In addition, Student B engages in more sophisticated historical thinking by recognizing the perspective of the artist and by acknowledging that the perspectives of Indigenous people were ignored.

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Figure 5. Preassessment Instrument (English) Look at the following painting and write one sentence to do each of the following (4 sentences total).

1. Summarize what the painting shows about European Americans’ attitudes about Westward Expansion.

2. Explain what the painting shows about how American Indians and Mexican Americans, previously living in the West, might have viewed the United States’ Westward Expansion.

3. Explain which features of the painting lead you to those conclusions about diverse peoples’ attitudes.

4. Describe what the painting shows about the role of technology in the United States’ Westward Expansion.

Painting information Title: American Progress Artist: George A. Crofutt (copying an 1872 painting by John Gast) Year: 1873 Source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division at www.loc.gov/ item/97507547/ Note.

Preassessment used to gather data on students’ level of mastery of the objectives prior to teaching a unit, with instructions given in English. Crofutt, G. A. (1873). American Progress [Print].

Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/item/97507547/

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Figure 6. Preassessment Instrument (Spanish) Mire la siguiente pintura. Escriba una oración explicando los siguientes temas (4 oraciones en total).

1. Resuma lo que muestra la pintura sobre las actitudes de los europeos-estadounidenses sobre la expansión hacia el oeste.

2. Explique lo que muestra la pintura sobre cómo los indios americanos y los mexicoamericanos, que anteriormente vivían en Occidente, podrían haber entendido como sucedió la expansión hacia el oeste de Estados Unidos.

3. Explique cuales características de la pintura les dan sus opiniones sobre las actitudes de diversas personas.

4. Describa lo que muestra la pintura sobre el papel de la tecnología en la expansión del oeste a los Estados Unidos.

Información de pintura Titulo: Progreso americano Artista: George A. Crofutt (copiando una pintura de 1872 de John Gast) Año: 1873 Fuente: División de Impresiones y Fotografías de la Biblioteca del Congreso en www. loc.gov/item/97507547/ Note.

Preassessment shown in Figure 5 as modified for a student who speaks Spanish as a first language.

Crofutt, G. A. (1873). American Progress [Print]. Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/item/97507547/

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Figure 7. Two Students’ Responses to the Assessment Shown in Figure 5 Student A Response: 1. This painting shows that White Americans thought the West was a dangerous place.

2. Lots of different people like farmers and miners wanted to go West and take the Indians’ land.

3. A lot of pioneers got sick when they were going West on the Oregon Trail.

4. Trains made it quicker for people to go West.

Student B Response: 1. This painting shows that in 1873 many White Americans thought that they had the responsibility to bring civilization and progress to the West.

2. American Indians shown in the painting being driven out, had a perspective that was ignored by Gast in this painting. Gast painted them like he did the wild animals, a very racist view.

3. The artist used light as a symbol of progress (as the title of the painting suggests) with European Americans bringing light and driving out darkness, which ignores what Indians thought.

4. Technology was a key to the United States’ ability to expand to the West, with new ways of farming, the telegraph, the railroad, and steamboats all playing a role as shown in this painting.

Note.

Two hypothetical student responses to the assessment shown in Figure 5.

Along with careful record keeping, this formative assessment would allow a teacher to differentiate instruction during a subsequent inquiry-based lesson. Student A might work with similarly skilled peers who would receive instruction from the teacher on sourcing and the use of documents as evidence as they investigated a single source representing an Indigenous perspective. For example, Chief Charlot, a Salish leader, like the artist Gast, used light and darkness as symbols when he described the encroachment of the United States into the West: “We were happy when [the white man] first came. We first thought he came from the light: but he comes like the dusk of the evening now, not like the dawn of the morning. He comes like a day that has passed, and night enters our future with him” (Turner, 1974, pp. 253–254). Meanwhile, Student B could work more independently with a group of similarly skilled peers to contrast the perspective shown in 1872 in Crofutt’s printing of John Gast’s painting American Progress with the 1861 painting Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze, as well as with Chief Charlot’s 1876 quotation. The preassessment allows the teacher to adjust an inquiry lesson to build on each students’ prior skill levels.

Formative Assessment Unlike preassessments given prior to teaching, formative assessments are administered after teachers have given some instruction. Teachers use formative assessments, also called diagnostic assessments and assessments for learning, to gather data that will help them know how their teaching has been received and how to adjust their teaching both for individual

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students and for the class as a whole (Boston, 2002; Popham, 2017). For instance, formative assessments help teachers decide whether to slow the pace of instruction or speed it up.

They help teachers know whether additional concrete examples are needed or whether students are ready to think about concepts in more abstract ways. Formative assessments guide teachers’ decisions to remove scaffolding, increase scaffolding, or continue with about the same level of support. They help teachers identify areas of confusion or misconceptions so that they can try again to correct them. Formative assessments help teachers know whether students have developed certain skills or whether they need continued instruction and practice. They help a teacher plan how to differentiate instruction for those students who may need more support and for those who are ready to work independently. In addition, the feedback students receive through formative assessments can help students monitor their own progress toward learning objectives and can remove any surprises on grades when final assessments are administered after instruction.

As mentioned, the second assessment given at the start of this chapter (related to the Hine photograph; see Figure 2) is an example of a formative assessment. The teacher used it after teaching about the Progressive Era to see whether students could identify its major themes, as well as the tactics used by reformers. The assessment also provided data on students’ ability to use evidence to support a claim. The teacher might use the scoring guide shown in Figure 8 to create data showing students’ level of learning of these two instructional goals.

With this data, the teacher can then adjust instruction to continue to nurture students’ understanding of the Progressive Era and their ability to use evidence to support a claim.

Figure 8. Scoring Guide for Assessment Shown in Figure 2 Score

Description

Example

1

Focuses solely on child labor

This photograph shows how terrible child labor was.

2

Talks about child labor AND the Progressive Movement

This photograph shows how terrible child labor was. The Progressive Movement was a reform movement that tried to end child labor and other problems like dangerous working conditions.

3

Talks about the photograph as evidence of the tactics used by Progressive Reformers

Hine took this photograph because he wanted to make people feel bad for child workers.

Progressive reformers supported laws against child labor and other problems, and pictures like this would build support for these laws.

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4

Note.

Talks about the specific content of the photograph and its source information as evidence of the tactics used by Progressive Reformers

Information about the photograph helps us know Hine’s purpose as a progressive reformer. Hine mentioned the children’s ages and showed that they should have been in school.

He made choices in the photo, like cropping out the head of the supervisor to exaggerate his fearful presence.

Scoring guide for assessing students’ responses on the assessment shown in Figure 2.

Postassessment Postassesments, like the end-of-the-unit multiple-choice test described in the first vignette in this chapter (Figure 1), measure students’ mastery of learning objectives after instruction has concluded. Postassessments, also called summative assessments or performance assessments, are the most familiar type of assessment, though they are less helpful in promoting students’ learning than preassessments and formative assessments (Bransford et al., 2000; Popham, 2017). Like an autopsy—occurring too late to help the deceased, though providing useful information to doctors and family—postassessments do not help students much, but they provide important data for teachers and are a useful instructional tool.

Looming posttests motivate some students to study, practicing retrieval strategies that have been shown to improve learning (Roediger et al., 2011). Their results provide a rationale for students’ grades and provide data on the effectiveness of the instructional approaches that the teacher used.

Consider Figure 9, a postassessment, designed to measure students’ mastery of the skill of contextualization, the strategy of considering the physical and social context of a text’s creation (Wineburg, 1991). Also consider Figure 10, a scoring guide used to grade the assessment. This assessment might be administered at the conclusion of a unit on World War II, when students have been exposed during a document-based inquiry to the hostility, racism, and discrimination that Japanese Americans faced during the war. With background knowledge concerning the forced relocation of Japanese Americans to internment camps, and after having practiced the skill of contextualization, the teacher now wants to find out whether students can recognize racism and think critically about the post-Pearl Harbor context in which it spread. Because this assessment is designed to evaluate whether students can identify racism, the teacher does not use the term in the prompt. The teacher intends in subsequent lessons to make explicit connections between the paranoia and fear that fostered racism after Pearl Harbor and other contexts when racism and discrimination grew, such as the hostility Muslim Americans faced following the terrorist strike on the World Trade Center. The teacher believes that students equipped with an understanding of these patterns will be better prepared to take action to confront racism when they see it.

It should be noted that assessments of various formats can be used for preassessments, formative assessments, and postassessments. For instance, a multiple-choice quiz might

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be used to preassess, or a brief document analysis writing assignment could be used as a formative assessment or postassessment. The distinction between a preassessment, a formative assessment, and a postassessment is based upon when they are administered and how the results are used rather than the nature of the instrument.

Figure 9. Postassessment Designed to Measure Students’ Contextualization On February 13, 1942, Dr. Seuss produced a political cartoon supporting the internment of Japanese Americans.

Political Cartoon Information Title: Waiting for a signal from home…

Artist: Dr. Seuss Publisher: PM Magazine Date: February 13, 1942 Source: Special Collections and Archives, UC San Diego Library linked to the Library of Congress through https://lccn.loc.gov/2003556745 Using the strategy of contextualization, write a paragraph of at least 50 words reflecting on why Dr. Seuss and many other Americans may have supported the internment of Japanese Americans, using this cartoon as evidence.

Note.

Postassessment designed to assess students’ mastery of the skill of contextualization in association with the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Dr. Seuss. (1942). Waiting for a signal from home… [Political cartoon]. Mandeville Special Collections Library, University of California, San Diego; Library of Congress. https://lccn.loc.gov/2003556745

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Figure 10. Scoring Guide for the Assessment Shown in Figure 9 Score

Description

Example

0

No mention of the physical or social context

This cartoon is racist. It exaggerates the racial features of Japanese Americans.

1

Mentions inaccurate contextual information

This cartoon shows how happy most Japanese Americans were to live in California, Oregon, and Washington.

Accurately describes either the physical or the social context

[Answer showing the social context] After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor many Americans, including Dr. Seuss, were angry and paranoid about another attack. Racism grew.

Some people took out their anger on Japanese Americans, drawn in such a hateful way in this cartoon. Dr. Seuss’s cartoon shows Japanese Americans being handed explosives, showing his paranoia.

3

Accurately describes both the physical and the social context

[Answer shown in 2 above, plus the following, showing the physical context] This overreaction was especially seen on the West Coast, where people felt most nervous about a surprise attack and were afraid that Japanese Americans might help Japan. The paranoia resulted in racist attitudes and hostile acts and Japanese Americans were forced to move to relocation camps.

4

Accurately describes both the physical and social context and one other element of contextualization

[Answer shown in 3 above, plus the following, showing an analogous context] The context after Pearl Harbor is easier to understand when we hear about hateful things being said and done to immigrants in the US today because of paranoia rather than facts.

2

Note.

Scoring guide used to evaluate students’ use of contextualization on the assessment shown in Figure 9.

Preassessment, Formative Assessment, and Postassessment Used Together Measuring students’ growth toward learning objectives can be enhanced when a teacher can make direct comparisons across preassessments, formative assessments, and postassessments. This is easiest to do when the assessments have similar formats.

For instance, during a unit on the Cold War, a teacher wants students to develop a rich understanding of the causes, events, and effects of the Cold War. The teacher plans to

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conduct a series of document-based inquiries on Cold War themes and needs to know what students already know about the Cold War in order to plan the lessons. So, prior to the start of the unit, the teacher preassesses students’ knowledge about the Cold War through a concept mapping exercise. In such an assessment, students draw a schematic map showing how concepts and facts are associated in their memory (see Figure 11). The teacher tells students to start by drawing and labeling bubbles representing the causes, events, and effects of the Cold War (the content objectives of the unit). The teacher encourages students to record all their ideas, right or wrong, so that the teacher can identify what they know well, what they do not know, and what misconceptions they have.

The teacher scores each student’s concept map using a simple scoring sheet (see Figure 12), noticing patterns across students’ background knowledge. For example, the teacher finds that every student knows much more about the Vietnam War than they do about the Korean War. The teacher finds numerous misunderstandings about the causes of the Cold War, such as the erroneous idea that the United States and USSR fought as enemies during World War II. Findings from this preassessment will influence how the teacher prepares students for inquiry lessons. For example, the teacher notes that students will need to be given adequate background information and have their misconceptions confronted (Bransford et al., 2000) before they will be able to engage in a document-based inquiry on the causes of the Cold War. Figure 11. A Student’s Mind Map Used to Preassess Prior Knowledge

Tunnel warfare

Vietnam War

Soldiers not respected

Antiwar protests

Events

Wall dividing Berlin Berlin Wall

US and USSR fought in WWII

Communists built wall Causes

Cold War Cuban Missile Crisis

Effects

Note.

13 days

Nuclear Weapons

A student’s concept map produced prior to a unit on the Cold War using mindmup.com, showing limited background knowledge and some misconceptions.

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Figure 12. Scoring Sheet for the Cold War Mind Map in Figure 11 Cold War Concept Map Scoring Sheet Preassessment Totals Correct Causes

0

Incorrect Causes

1

Correct Events

9

Incorrect Events

0

Correct Effects

1

Incorrect Effects

0

Note.

Postassessment Totals

Scoring sheet for the Cold War mind map, with preassessment totals from Figure 11 recorded and postassessment totals unrecorded.

At the end of an inquiry during which students debate the significance of various causes of the Cold War, the teacher again asks students to create a concept map, this time focused solely on the causes of the Cold War. This formative assessment allows the teacher to see that students have a richer understanding of the complex relationship between the USSR and the United States during and after World War II; however, the teacher also sees that many students confuse the symbolic iron curtain with the actual, physical Berlin Wall. The teacher makes a note to address this misunderstanding during the next class. Other concept mapping exercises are used at other points during the Cold War unit to help the teacher monitor students’ learning of the causes, events, and effects of the Cold War. Finally, at the end of the unit as a postassessment, the teacher returns to students the concept maps that they drew as a preassessment. They are assigned to make additions and corrections to the concept map using a different colored pen than they originally used. The teacher again counts the number of correct and incorrect causes, events, and effects that students have listed, looking specifically for the concepts that were taught during inquiries in class (one on the causes of the Cold War, one on the Korean War, and one on the summits held between Reagan and Gorbachev) to identify whether students reached the content objectives of those lessons. The postassessment concept map allows the teacher to make direct comparisons between what students knew at the start of the unit and what they know at the end of the unit, providing strong evidence of students’ learning. Further, the assessment system helps the teacher identify strengths and weaknesses in the instruction during the unit. This example shows how preassessments, formative assessments, and postassessments can be used in tandem to enrich students’ learning and to provide rich

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data on the impact of instruction. The particular means of assessing, the concept map, is less important than a teacher’s ability to make direct comparisons between the results of preassessments, formative assessments, and postassessments.

How Should Social Studies Teachers Assess?

The focus of this section will be on how social studies teachers can assess students’ learning of objectives associated with the C3 Framework, including the intended outcomes of the inquiries described throughout this volume. Teachers can assess students’ learning in a great number of ways, with no single correct way to assess in any given situation. For example, teachers can appropriately use multiple choice or free response tests, performance assessments, oral interviews, graphic organizers, class presentations, audio and video recordings, structured or informal observations, art- or music-based projects, problembased projects, class discussions, and other activities to assess. Among the most useful of assessments are authentic assessments, through which students receive genuine feedback from community members, professionals, or others, often outside of the school setting (Newmann, 1996). Regardless of the type of instrument, strong assessments always have three qualities: reliability, validity, and practicality, with each of these qualities enhanced through the use of rubrics.

Reliability First, strong assessments are reliable. Reliable assessments are those that yield consistent results (Popham, 2017). If a teacher were to have a student complete an assessment, then have the student complete it a second time, the results on both should be the same. If the teacher grades it once, then grades it a second time, the scores should be the same. If a teaching assistant evaluates an assessment and a different teaching assistant grades the same assessment, the scores should be the same. A student in a third period class who has a mediocre understanding of a concept should receive the same score on an assessment as a student with the same level of understanding in a sixth period class. Students who complete Form A of an exam should not have any advantage over students who complete Form B. Admittedly, because of human subjectivity, assessments are never completely reliable, though reliability remains the ideal. Rubrics and scoring guides that help a teacher score assessments consistently, such as those shown throughout this chapter, increase the reliability of an assessment (Jonsson & Svingby, 2007). In contrast, inconsistencies, such as scoring more harshly the assessments completed by a student who frequently disrupts class or by students with poor handwriting, yield unreliable assessment results.

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Validity Second, good assessments provide valid data. Researchers consider many aspects of validity, but for teachers, there is only one type that really matters: construct validity. An assessment has construct validity when it measures what it was intended to measure and the score that each student receives matches their level of learning of the objective being assessed (Popham, 2017). Factors outside of students’ learning of the objectives should have no influence on their scores. For example, a student who has mastered the learning objectives for a history unit should receive a high score on a final assessment whether they speak English fluently, suffer from test anxiety, broke up with their girlfriend immediately before the assessment was administered, or regardless of any other factor. When the score on the assessment perfectly matches students’ mastery of the learning objectives, the assessment is valid. Of course, as with reliability, perfect validity is impossible for humans to achieve, yet construct validity remains the standard.

There are many things a teacher can do to increase the validity of assessments. For example, in the assessment shown in Figure 3, a transcription of both documents was provided because the cursive handwriting in the documents might be illegible for some students. Without the transcriptions, the students’ ability to read cursive might interfere with an accurate assessment of their ability to corroborate across primary sources. The assessment shown in Figure 6 is administered in Spanish so that a bilingual student’s limited fluency in English would not invalidate the assessment results. The following accommodations, based on individual students’ unique needs, might increase the validity of an assessment: • allowing a student to eat snacks while testing in order to reduce their test anxiety and let them think more clearly while completing a test • allowing a bilingual student who is more fluent in Spanish or another language than English to complete the assessment in their native language • giving students adequate time to complete an assessment unrushed • avoiding reducing the score on an assessment for penmanship or other factors unrelated to learning objectives • reading the assessment instructions out loud to students • allowing a student to digitally record their answers, spoken orally, rather than requiring them to write responses • administering culturally responsive assessments that allow students to demonstrate learning in a manner that is familiar and valued within their culture In contrast, the following situations would decrease the validity of an assessment of historical content knowledge and historical thinking skills because they introduce factors outside of students’ learning of course objectives into their assessment outcomes: • The teacher reduces a student’s grade because of poor penmanship.

• The teacher gives extra credit on an assessment because the student contributed

171 Using Library of Congress Resources in Purposeful Social Studies Assessment

canned food to the school food drive.

• A student with test anxiety suffers an emotional breakdown during the test and leaves many questions unanswered.

• A student who is not fluent in English receives a poor score on an assessment because of language-related issues.

• A test administered to 8th graders is written at an 11th-grade level, so many students cannot comprehend the questions.

Further, providing frequent assessments using multiple means of assessing (i.e., both written and oral responses) at increasing levels of sophistication, a process sometimes known as looping (Parker, 2018), increases the validity of an assessment system.

Of importance, as with instruction, assessments should be adjusted to meet the needs of individual students. For example, the history teacher of a student with a moderate learning disability might work with a special education teacher to establish appropriate learning goals for that student. When the learning goals are personalized in this way, the assessments must also be adjusted for that student in order to produce valid results. For example, the questions used in the formative assessment associated with child labor and the Progressive Movement shown in Figure 2, might be adapted for a student with moderate learning disabilities as shown in Figure 13. If needed, a teaching aide or the teacher could read the questions to the student. Depending on their skills, the student could write their answers or record them using an audio recorder.

Figure 13. Modified Assessment Question From Figure 2 Question: What does this photograph show? Who took the photograph? How does it make you feel to see the children working like they are in this photograph?

Note.

Questions modified from the questions in Figure 2 for a student with a moderate learning disability to measure their learning of individualized learning objectives.

Modification of assessments according to individual students’ needs can increase the validity of an assessment if it removes factors from a student’s performance that are unrelated to learning objectives, such as access to technology at home, language proficiency, ability to write, reading comprehension proficiency, extreme fear of public speaking, and countless other factors.

Practicality In addition to reliability and validity, effective assessments are practical to administer and evaluate. Teachers must consider, for example, the amount of time it will take to score an assessment, whether an assessment can be administered equitably within the constraints of the school schedule, and whether resources are available for administering an assessment.

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For instance, having a set of interview questions that a teacher asks individual students one-on-one to assess their mastery of a series of objectives may be a reliable and valid way to assess. However, if the average discussion takes 15 minutes and the teacher has 150 students, the assessment would take over 37 hours to administer. Impossible! Even a 5-minute interview with each student would be unreasonable in many educational settings.

As a result, an alternative assessment that is more practical must be used. Similarly, frequent formal assessments that take a great deal of time for the teacher to score may not be practical.

Rubrics Because rubrics are a practical way to increase the reliability and validity of an assessment system, it is important to understand the basics of rubric design. A rubric is a matrix that supports teachers’ evaluation of student products using clear criteria for judgement (Jonsson & Svingby, 2007). Most rubrics list the elements for which the project will be evaluated along the left side of the matrix in rows, with columns labeled along the top of the matrix establishing the criteria used in evaluation (see Figure 14). For example, a teacher might have students write a few paragraphs extending the assessment shown in Figures 5, 6, and 7 to include an evaluation of a series of paintings and statements about Westward Expansion from various perspectives. The rubric shown in Figure 14, based in part upon Monte-Sano and her colleagues’ work (2014), might be used to evaluate students’ learning of objectives associated with argumentative historical writing.

To design such a rubric, the teacher first determines the level of skill that would demonstrate that students have mastered the objective. In a standards-based or masterybased scoring system, these criteria would be listed under the heading “meets standard,” “proficient,” or a similar term. The teacher then considers gradations of the standard including criteria for a product that exceeds the standards. Rubrics are often designed using a 4-point scale: students who are not making progress toward a standard score as a 1, students who have a basic understanding but need more practice score as a 2, students who have met the standard score as a 3, and students who have exceed the standard score as a 4. Rubrics that are shared in advance with students help them appreciate the attributes of high-quality products, and this can help them better understand the learning objectives of the class (Montenegro & Jankowski, 2017). It should be noted that assigning grades using a 4-point, standards-based rubric requires unconventional thinking. For example, a student who scores a 3 out of 4 should not be considered to have earned 75% on an assignment, or a C grade.

Instead, a score of 3 on most rubrics that use a 4-point scale indicates that a student has met, but not exceeded, instructional objectives. A teacher should develop an equitable system to convert rubric scores to grades, such as that developed by Marzano (2011) where scores of 3 average to an A- grade.

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Figure 14. Sample Rubric Rubric Used to Evaluate Students’ Argumentative Historical Writing Elements of Argumentative Writing Critical evaluation of evidence Recognition of multiple perspectives in evidence Substantiates claims with evidence Rebuttal of opposing viewpoints Essay structure

Note.

Exceeds Standards Uses sourcing, corroboration, and contextualization to critically evaluate evidence Provides evidence that diverse people viewed westward expansion differently Evidence supporting claims is drawn from the strongest documents based on critical reading Provides evidence drawn from the strongest documents to support critical view of opposing claims Includes introduction, supporting paragraphs, rebuttal paragraph, and conclusion with transitions

Criteria for Evaluation Meets Standards Approaching Standards

Does Not Meet Standards Accepts information at face value, ignoring contradictory evidence

Uses sourcing and corroboration to critically evaluate evidence

Critically evaluates evidence based on factors unrelated to historical analysis

Acknowledges that diverse people viewed westward expansion differently Evidence is drawn from the documents to support claims

Acknowledges only one point of view in analysis of evidence or making claims Evidence supporting claims is not drawn from the documents or lacks explanation Criticizes opposing claims without evidence

Does not recognize that diverse perspectives on westward expansion exist Does not make a claim or support to a claim with evidence

Lacks one/two of the following: introduction, supporting paragraphs, rebuttal paragraph, and conclusion

Lacks three/four of the following: introduction, supporting paragraphs, rebuttal paragraph, and conclusion

Provides evidence to support critical view of or reconciliation with opposing claims Includes all of the following: introduction, supporting paragraphs, rebuttal paragraph, and conclusion

Does not mention opposing claims or interpretations

Rubric used to evaluate students’ argumentative historical writing.

Four Examples of Purposeful Assessment The following four assessments, using Library of Congress resources, are designed to assess students’ master of inquiry-related thinking skills in reliable, valid, and practical ways. Each example includes some contextual information, the instructional objectives, the assessment instrument, and a rubric or scoring guide to increase the likelihood that the assessment is administered with reliability and validity.

Example From a Middle School History Lesson Instructional Objectives Ms. Swanson, a seventh-grade teacher, would like students to have a deeper understanding of the tactics used by patriots during the Revolutionary War. In addition, she wants students to be able to develop interesting questions to guide historical inquiry. She provides some instruction, helping students understand the following characteristics of good historical questions (Barton & Levstik, 2004; Logtenberg et al., 2010; van Drie & van Boxtel, 2008): • The question is something you really wonder about.

• The question cannot be answered simply with a “yes” or “no” but must be explained.

• Different people would probably answer the question in different ways.

• The answer is not just an opinion but can be answered with the help of historical evidence.

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• The question might be about causes of things that happened.

• The question might be about changes or continuities.

• The question might be about the historical context.

• The question might compare or contrast two events or time periods.

• The question might be about how significant an event or condition was in the past.

Instrument After talking with students about the nature of propaganda and the patriots’ use of propaganda during the Revolutionary War, Ms. Swanson provides students with the engraving entitled The bloody massacre perpetrated in King Street Boston on March 5th 1770 by a party of the 29th Regt. by Paul Revere (see Figure 15). She assigns students to write a historical question that they have after looking at the image, using the standards for questions that she has taught them. She passes out a copy of the rubric shown in Figure 16 and reads with students the criteria for stronger and weaker historical questions. In doing so, she uses the rubric as a teaching tool as well as a resource to increase the reliability and validity of her evaluation of the students’ questions. Determined to differentiate this assessment, she lets students know that they can write two or three questions rather than one if they feel that they have a good grasp of the idea of historical questions. “It’s better to have one strong question than three weak questions, though,” she informs them. When Ms. Swanson notices a few students struggling to write their own question, she gives them five possible questions that she prepared in advance and has them pick one or two that they are interested in that have the strongest qualities of historical questions. She keeps a record of the way she adjusted the assessment for different students, which will help her know how to interpret the data she receives from this assessment. Because she intends to continue to work with students on questioning, using data from this assessment to guide her teaching, this is a formative assessment.

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Figure 15. Image and Question Used as a Formative Assessment

Instructions: Write a historical question that you have after looking at this engraving of the Boston Massacre by Paul Revere. Make sure that your question has the characteristics of strong historical questions. If you want to, you can write a second or third question that you have.

Note.

Engraving of the Boston Massacre by Paul Revere, used as a formative assessment of students’ ability to engage in questioning. Revere, P. (1780). The bloody massacre perpetrated in King Street Boston on March 5th 1770 by a party of the 29th Regt. [Engraving]. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/2008661777/

Figure 16. Scoring Rubric for Historical Questioning Historical Questioning Scoring Rubric Standard

Outstanding

Proficient

Emerging

Question is real.

I can’t wait to start looking for the answer.

I want to know the answer to this.

I might look for the answer if I was bored.

Question is open ended.

It would take a book to answer this question.

It would take a paragraph to answer this question.

It would take a word or sentence to answer this question.

Answers are debatable.

I can think of lots of ways people might answer this.

I can think of a few ways people would answer this.

Most people would probably agree on one answer.

Answers are defensible.

There is a lot of historical evidence to help me answer.

There is some historical evidence to help me answer.

There is very little historical evidence to help me answer.

Question is related to historical themes (causes, changes, continuities, contexts, comparisons, or judgments).

Answers are related to more than one theme.

Answers are related to one of the themes.

Answer is not really related to any historical theme.

Note.

Scoring rubric used to evaluate students’ ability to formulate strong historical questions.

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Example From High School History Class Instructional Objectives Mr. Garcia is a high school history teacher who has been teaching about the causes of the Civil War as well as strategies for searching online digital archives like the Library of Congress for historical evidence. He wants to dispel any persisting doubts that students might have about the enslavement of individuals as a root cause of the Civil War, and he is confident that immersing students in historical evidence will achieve this aim. He has spent a great deal of time in class modeling for students how to navigate the Library of Congress’ digital collections. The formative assessment is shown in Figure 17. It could be given in class or assigned outside of class and could be used to assess students’ understanding of the secessionist movement and to measure students’ ability to locate and evaluate evidence relevant to a historical question. The scoring guide shown in Figure 18, like the other scoring guides and rubrics included in the chapter, is intended to increase the reliability and validity of teachers’ scoring of the students’ research and writing. In addition, see the Appendix for a sample of Library of Congress sources that a student might locate showing the role of enslavement in the secessionist movement, as listed in Figure 18.

Instrument Figure 17. Assignment to Assess Students’ Ability to Find and Use Primary Sources Instructions: Today, there continues to be some debate over why Southern states seceded from the Union at the start of the Civil War. In particular, there is debate about the role of the enslavement of African Americans as a cause of secession. Find a primary source from the Library of Congress or another digital archive that could be used as evidence of the motivation of Southern states to secede. Write a few sentences about the document explaining whose perspective it shows, how much you trust it, and what evidence it provides of the motives of secession. The following document serves as an example of the types of evidence you seek.

Document information: A political cartoon created by an unnamed artist and published in Currier and Ives, a New York-based magazine, in 1861. Found in the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division www.loc.gov/item/2003674576/ Note.

An assignment given to assess students’ ability to search for primary sources, identify their relevance, and analyze their perspective. The “Secession Movement.” (ca. 1861). [Political cartoon].

Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/item/2003674576/

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Figure 18. Scoring Guide for the Assessment Shown in Figure 17 Score

Note

Description

Example

0

Fails to find primary source materials

1

Finds a primary source that is irrelevant to the question of secession

Student cites the source The Battle of Gettysburg

by Samuel Adams Drake (1863), which is a book about the Battle of Gettysburg rather than about secession.

2

Finds a primary source somewhat relevant to secession or engages in a faulty analysis or no analysis of a highly relevant primary source (such as failing to describe the perspective it represents or accepting its content at face value without critical analysis)

Student cites the source Secession Unmasked by A. J. Cline (1861), in which a Northerner takes on a Southerner’s voice in describing the reasons for secession, but the student just lists the reasons for secession, failing to recognize that the Southern viewpoint is filtered through the perspective of a Northerner in this source.

3

Finds a primary source highly relevant to the motivations for secession and engages in an adequate analysis, noticing the source and explaining its content

Student cites the source Confederate Echoes by Albert Theodore Goodloe (1907), in which a veteran of the Confederate army remembers speeches prior to the war. The student acknowledges the problems with memory that result from this record being produced so long after the war, but also recognizes the strength of the source, coming from someone in the thick of the secessionist movement.

4

Finds a primary source highly relevant to the motivations for secession and engages in a critical analysis, identifying the perspective it represents, evaluating its trustworthiness, and providing a critical (rather than a literal) description of its content

Student cites the source The Iron Furnace, or, Slavery and Secession by John H. Aughey (1863). The student explains that the writer is a Unionist in Confederate Mississippi, so he provides a unique perspective on secession. His presence during the heat of the secessionist movement makes his perspective especially valuable in spite of its obvious biases against the secessionists. The reader can hear in the author’s description of the Confederate’s arguments his belief that they were being irrational.

Scoring guide used for the assessment shown in Figure 17. See the Appendix for more details on the examples of primary sources discussed here as well as other primary sources.

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Example from Middle School Geography Class Instructional Objectives Mr. Francis, a geography teacher, has been teaching students to think critically about the content of maps, recognizing that the purpose of a map influences its content. He has modeled how to make inferences about each map’s purpose by what is included and what is omitted. After teaching this critical thinking strategy to students, the teacher asks students to access on their computers at least two of the maps shown in Figure 19 and gives the students the following writing prompt, which they complete in the last few minutes of class as an “exit slip” and hand to the teacher as they leave the classroom. Using their computers, students zoom in as needed to see the details of the maps. Of course, this assessment is only practical if computers are available to each student. Using the scoring guide in Figure 20 to increase the reliability and validity of his grading, Mr. Francis intends to look over the exit slips before the next class to know whether he needs to reteach any part of the lesson, making this a formative assessment. In addition, he adapts this assessment to meet the needs of different learners, such as requiring some students to evaluate all three maps or to find an additional map on the Library of Congress website and identify its purpose.

Alternatively, he requires Preston, a young man who struggles with writing, to sit by him and discuss one-by-one his analysis of the maps orally with him. Mr. Francis gives Preston the same prompt, the same maps, and uses the same scoring rubric, during the oral discussion about the maps, as is used with the other students.

Instrument Figure 19. Exit Slip to Assess Students’ Ability to Infer the Purpose of a Map From its Content Instructions: Compare two of the three maps of the Grand Canyon National Park, paying special attention to the differences between them. Write a few sentences explaining the purpose of the two maps you choose. Talk about specific things you see on the map that help you to know about its purpose. Talk about the differences between the maps that help you know their purposes.

Map 1: Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, published in 1984. Relief shown by shading and spot heights. Found at www.loc.gov/item/84695480

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Map 2: Map produced by the National Park Service and published on their Grand Canyon webpage showing Traditionally Associated Tribes. Found at www.nps.gov/ grca/learn/historyculture/associated-tribes.htm

Map 3: Topographic map of the Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, published in 1948. Found in the Library of Congress Geography and Map Division at www.loc.gov/ item/98687189

Note.

Assessment instrument used as an exit slip to assess students’ ability to infer the purpose of a map from its content. Map 1 is National Park Service. (1984). Grand Canyon [Map]. Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/item/84695480; Map 2 is National Park Service. (n.d.). [Map showing approximate locations of the traditional territories of the 11 tribes that have cultural connections to Grand Canyon] [Map]. www.nps.gov/grca/learn/historyculture/associated-tribes.htm; Map 3 is Topographic map of the Grand Canyon National Park Arizona. (1948). [Map]. Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/item/98687189

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Figure 20. Scoring Guide for the Instrument Shown in Figure 19.

Scoring Guide Score

Description

0

Student does not complete the assessment.

1

Student talks about two maps but does not address the purpose of either map.

The first map is a lot more colorful, and the third map is more detailed.

2

Student discusses the purposes of one of the maps but provides no specific evidence.

The first map looks like it was made for tourists coming to visit the National Park.

Student discusses the purposes of both maps but provides no specific evidence.

The first map looks like it was made for tourists. The third map was made by geologists for more scientific purposes.

Student discusses the purposes of one of the maps with specific evidence.

The first map looks like it was made for tourists. It shows the location of campgrounds and picnic areas.

Student discusses the purposes of both maps with specific evidence.

The first map looks like it was made for tourists. It shows the location of campgrounds and picnic areas. The third map was made by geologists for more scientific purposes. It provides detailed information about the elevation in each canyon.

Student discusses the purposes of both maps with specific evidence and makes direct comparisons between the maps.

In addition to the previous response: Geologists would have been less interested in tourist resources so information about campsites and gas stations is missing from the third map.

3

4

5

6

Note.

Example

Scoring guide to evaluate students’ written responses to the exit slip instrument shown in Figure 19.

Example from an Elementary School History Lesson Instructional Objectives Ms. Stirland has been teaching a unit on World War I to a fifth-grade class. They have studied a lot about the home front, including shortages and rationing, enlistment drives, and war bonds. She has also been working with fifth-grade students to help them understand propaganda. She has tried to help them recognize that propaganda is usually designed to

181 Using Library of Congress Resources in Purposeful Social Studies Assessment

move someone from a belief to an action by appealing to their emotions. People are more likely to do something when they feel sad, angry, patriotic, afraid, or another strong feeling.

After discussing this concept with students, she wants to conduct a formative assessment to identify which students understand the purpose of propaganda and the role of emotion in achieving that purpose and which students might need more instruction on those concepts.

She is aware of the Library of Congress’ vast collection of propaganda posters from World War I and decides to use one of these posters to evaluate students’ ability to identify the purpose of a propaganda poster and the tactics used by its creators to achieve that purpose.

During the lesson on propaganda, after introducing the concept to the class, she displays the following information in front of the class and reads the instructions out loud to the students (see Figure 21). As students write, she creates a scoring guide that will allow her to quickly assess students’ responses (see Figure 22).

Instrument Figure 21. Formative Assessment of Students’ Understanding of Propaganda This propaganda poster was published in the United States in 1918 during World War I when the United States was fighting against Germany. The bird with a shield shown on the pant legs is a German eagle. Answer these questions about the poster: 1. What did the person who created the poster want people to do?

2. How did the person who created the poster try to get people to do what he wanted them to do?

Title: Keep these off the U.S.A.—Buy more Liberty Bonds Creator: John Norton Year: 1918 Publishing information: The Strobridge Litho. Company Location: Cincinnati, Ohio Found at: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division www.loc.gov/ item/2002722447/ Note.

Formative assessment used to evaluate students’ ability to identify the purpose of propaganda and the role of emotion in achieving that purpose. Norton, J. W. (1918). Keep these off the U.S.A.—Buy more Liberty Bonds [Poster]. Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/item/2002722447/

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Figure 22. Scoring Guide for the Formative Assessment in Figure 21 1

Correctly identifies the purpose as trying to get people to buy bonds

yes

no

2

Correctly identifies the use of fear to try to get people to buy bonds

yes

no

3

Elaborates on how the artist attempted to use fear—the bloody boots and/or the threat of an invasion of the United States

yes

no

Note.

Scoring guide used to quickly assess students understanding of the purpose and methods used by the creators of propaganda.

Additional Assessment Resources and Ideas The Stanford History Education Group has designed numerous assessments that use Library of Congress resources to measure students’ development of the historical thinking skills of sourcing, corroboration, and contextualization mentioned in this chapter. These assessments, packaged under the label “Beyond the Bubble” to differentiate them from traditional fillin-the-bubble multiple choice tests, meet the criteria of reliability, validity, and practicality for assessing their intended target skills. In addition, further examples of preassessments, formative assessments, and postassessments are shown in Figure 23. Creative teachers modify ideas by incorporating technology, making adaptations for individual students’ unique needs, integrating oral and written responses, or requiring feedback from peers. As long as assessments are reliable, valid, and practical, they can provide useful data for teachers to use to guide students’ learning and evaluate their teaching.

Figure 23. Assessments and Ideas for Obtaining Reliable and Valid Scores and Applying Them Practically Assessment KWL pre, post

Description

Scoring

Application or Example

Students make three lists. The first two, what they know (K) and what they want to learn (W), are completed before an activity.

The third, what they learned (L), is completed after instruction.

Unscored.

The teacher evaluates to find patterns in misconceptions and gaps in knowledge. Students add to and discuss as instruction continues.

A teacher has students complete the first two columns of the chart as a class before giving them a primary source document. The teacher uses the KWL chart to guide a discussion of the primary source, addressing students’ misunderstandings, gaps in knowledge, and questions. The class collaboratively completes the third column after the analysis.

183 Using Library of Congress Resources in Purposeful Social Studies Assessment

Poll

Teachers conduct a survey to identify pre, formative students’ interests or to measure their comfort with target content or skills.

Unscored.

Technology is especially useful to gather composite data on the entire class.

Teachers can use various apps or poll students by having them show a thumb up or down or move to a certain place in the classroom to get a quick, general sense of the class’s ideas or comfort with content or skills.

Document analysis

Students write a few sentences evaluating the reliability and usefulness of a document related to a historical question.

Teachers create a scoring guide or rubric based on the specific historical reading skill they assess.

Teachers use these to assess sourcing, corroboration, perspective-taking, or other strategies, using this data to make decisions about how to continue to nurture students’ skill development.

Library of Congress primary source sets could be used.

Teachers administer multiple-choice questions assessing students’ mastery of content or skill objectives (rather than trivia).

Computer grading is possible, allowing quick, reliable scoring of a large number of assessments.

Multiple choice questions about historical evidence might be used in connection with writing prompts to make the scoring of assessments less time-consuming and more practical.

Teachers administer one or more writing prompts assessing students’ mastery of content or skill objectives

Teachers use scoring guides or rubrics to increase the reliability and validity of scoring.

Teachers can use free response writing prompts in exit slips; during the analysis of photographs, art, political cartoons, or other resources; in connection with multiple-choice questions on a final exam; or in other assessments.

The teacher gives a surprise quiz that is collaboratively evaluated but not factored into students’ grades.

Self-corrected during a class discussion on strong and weak responses

A teacher provides students with the source information of four pieces of evidence and asks them to rank them in order of usefulness to a historian. This assessment identifies areas of weakness that are retaught while correcting it. Students use it to self-assess.

pre, formative, post

Multiple choice questions pre, formative, post Free-response writing prompts pre, formative, post

Ungraded Pop Quiz (UPQ) formative

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Exit slip formative

Traffic light assessment formative

Creative project formative, post

Oral interview Pre, formative, post

The teacher gives Teacher evaluates students a writusing a scoring ing prompt to be guide. completed and turned in at the end of class as their “ticket” out.

A teacher provides students with two historical photographs during the last few minutes of class and asks them to critically analyze them. The teacher collects their writing as they leave class and evaluates them, noticing patterns in the errors students make. The teacher addresses these errors during the next class.

Teacher projects a traffic light with red, yellow, and green lights.

Students use sticky notes to post what they understand well on green, what they don’t understand on red, and questions they have on yellow.

Unscored.

The teacher reviews students’ responses to determine what needs to be retaught.

The teacher pulls questions from the yellow, reads them, and talks about them with the class at the end of class.

The teacher looks at the red to plan future lessons.

The teacher assigns students to create a diorama, poster, collage, or other project that requires the transfer of skills and content into a new situation.

Teacher evaluates using a scoring guide or rubric, shared with students at the time the assignment is made.

Creative projects are especially useful for assessing students’ ability to apply concepts and skills within new settings, providing data on students’ deep learning.

The teacher asks students a question or series of questions, listens, and takes notes on their responses.

Teacher evaluates using a rubric or scoring guide as students speak

A teacher assigns a writing task to most students associated with the analysis of a historic political cartoon but uses an oral interview with two students who struggle with writing.

Conclusion To summarize, assessment plays a vital role in learning-centered and inquiry-focused social studies classrooms. However, traditional assessment instruments that test students’ recall of trivial historical information are inappropriate within classrooms that follow the C3 Framework and promote inquiry (Ercikan & Seixas, 2015; Reich, 2015; VanSledright, 2015).

Instead, assessments that measure students’ progress toward learning objectives should

185 Using Library of Congress Resources in Purposeful Social Studies Assessment

be used, focusing on students’ development of conceptual understandings and skills, and their ability to engage in inquiry. Teachers can use data from preassessments and formative assessments to plan lessons and to differentiate instruction to meet students’ individual needs. Postassessments may motivate students to study and provide data on the success of instruction but are less useful in interactions with students. A wide variety of assessments are available, each potentially appropriate if they meet the standards of reliability, validity, and practicality related to the instructional objectives and the context in which they are administered. Rubrics and scoring guides can be used in instruction and can increase the reliability, validity, and practicality of assessments.

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References Barton, K. C., & Levstik, L. S. (2004). Teaching history for the common good. Lawrence Erlbaum.

Boston, C. (2002). The concept of formative assessment. Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation, 8, Article 9. https://doi.org/10.7275/kmcq-dj31 Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind experience, and school.

National Academy Press.

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Appendix Possible Primary Sources on the Reasons for Secession Found in the Library of Congress (see Figure 17), With Samples of Strong Analyses of the Sources and Perspectives Aughey, J. H., (1863). The iron furnace, or, slavery and secession. William S. & Alfred Martien. www.loc.gov/ item/02017765/ This book was written by John Hill Aughey, a Southerner living in Mississippi who remained loyal to the Union and suffered for it. He includes a great deal of evidence for the reasons for the Southerners’ secession, from his unique perspective as a Unionist. For example, he records a speech given by a Colonel Drane in Choctaw, Mississippi, in 1860 (pp. 14–19). Drane gives many reasons for the secession of the South, Lincoln’s potential election and its threat to slavery being first mentioned by him. Of course, the words of the speech come through Aughey and are not Drane’s original words. Several other similar pieces of evidence about the secession of Mississippi are provided throughout the book, always from the perspective of a Southerner who opposed secession.

Barksdale, E. (1861, January 2). Washington County. The Weekly Mississippian, Image 2. https:// chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84024323/1861-01-02/ed-1/seq-2/ This newspaper article summarizes the results of an informal vote on secession held in Washington County, Mississippi, along with a resolution written by Judge Yerger of that county. In the resolution, the judge explains that the election of Lincoln makes it necessary to secede in order to protect the rights of slaveholding states and to protect the institution of slavery. He encourages a convention of all slaveholding states. This article spins the story, including the summary of events in Washington County, in favor of the secessionist movement.

Cline, A. J. (1861). Secession unmasked, or an appeal from the madness of disunion to the sobriety of the constitution and common sense. Henry Polkinhorn. www.loc.gov/item/02001002/ The title of the book gives away Cline’s purpose for writing during the year that secession happened: he wants to show that secession was madness. He takes on the voice of a secessionist, explaining the reasons for their decision to secede (p. 7). This gives a Northerner’s perspective of the Southerners’ reasons for seceding. It is not a very good resource for the real reasons for Southerners’ secession but a great primary source on a Northerner’s perspective of the Southerners’ reasons for secession.

Drake, S. A. (1892). The battle of Gettysburg. Lee and Shepard Publishers. www.loc.gov/item/02010457/ Goodloe, A. T. (1907). Confederate echoes: A voice from the South in the days of secession and of the Southern Confederacy. M. E. Church, South, Smith, & Lamar. www.loc.gov/item/07038912/ This book was written by Albert Theodore Goodloe, a former Confederate soldier, many years after the Civil War had ended. His writing is influenced by his hindsight, though he remained true to the Southern cause many years after the war. He provides much evidence for the reasons for secession, including his memory of a speech given by former Confederate Captain Ed Baxter at a reunion of Confederate soldiers in 1892 (pp. 30–40). In this speech, Baxter talks a great deal about Northern tyranny and the Southerner’s defense of the rights of the minority (talking about White Southerners as the minority). His speech includes references to Lincoln’s

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election, abolition, and Southerners’ right to own property in slaves. Goodloe dedicates an entire chapter to the reasons for secession (pp. 60–73). He states that he is unsure how much of a role slavery played but then spends the entire chapter talking about slavery. Again, it is important to remember that this document represents the perspective of a veteran of the Confederacy produced many years after the war, highlighting the virtue of its lost cause.

Johnson, R. H., & Black, J. H. (1861, March 13). Backing down! Daily True Democrat, Image 2. https:// chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn89051466/1861-03-13/ed-1/seq-2/ This newspaper article was published by two editors of an Arkansas newspaper in March 1861 as Arkansans debated whether to join those states who had seceded shortly after Lincoln’s election in November 1860. The article provides evidence that one of the main reasons the people of Arkansas seceded was because they were unwilling to support Lincoln’s plan to force those states that had previously seceded to stay in the Union. The authors wrote from the perspective of individuals who favored secession and were frustrated with those who remained loyal to the Union despite Lincoln’s election and the growing threat of war.

Stephens, A. H. (1866). Speech delivered on the 21st March, 1861, in Savannah, known as “The Corner Stone Speech,” reported in the Savannah Republican. In H. Cleveland (Ed.), Alexander H. Stephens in public and private with letters and speeches before, during and since the war (pp. 717–729). National Publishing Company. https://lccn.loc.gov/13018469 Alexander H. Stephens, the vice president of the Confederate States of America, gave this speech on March 21, 1861. A historian can be fairly certain that Stephens’ perspective, as a government official in a prominent position in the Confederacy, is representative of many Southerners who favored secession. In addition, Stephens gave this speech at a time when some states were trying to decide whether they would remain in the Union or join the Confederacy, suggesting that Stephens would use the strongest possible arguments for secession. He includes many causes for secession but discusses racist enslavement as a “cornerstone” of the new Confederacy.

Wikoff, H. (1861). Secession and its causes, in a letter to Viscount Palmerston, K. G., Prime Minister of England. Ross & Tousey. www.loc.gov/item/07008623/ This is a long letter written by Henry Wikoff, a Southerner, explaining the reasons for the secession of the Southern states. He writes to the prime minister of England, a nation that has banned slavery. He spends over two-thirds of this 94-page letter describing the history of slavery in the United States and the tensions it caused between the North and South, always blaming the Northerners for being unreasonable. Wikoff places slavery at the center of almost all of the sectional conflict and tries to justify its existence. In Wikoff’s mind, slavery is the root cause of secession.

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