Category Archives: Historical Writing

EDUprotocols, Historical Movies, Historical Writing

Smashing Eduprotocols

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What happens when you smash three EDUProtocols into one? You get an alternative assessment that gets your students talking about the book they are reading in your class. The Hero’s Journey and Jungian Archetypes are popular frameworks for analyzing books, films, and historical events. This activity merged them with a Sketch and Tell.

My students read this book and used the HJ & Archetype framework to take notes as they watched the movie. Then they worked in small groups to arrive at a consensus identifying people and events that represented the stages in the Hero’s Journey and archetypes commonly seen in historical narratives. You can see their attempts here.

While I was TWA — teaching (while) walking around — during first period, I observed many students struggling to use textual evidence and cite page numbers. I was able to reinforce that expectation with my second-period students and the quality got better. I have used the Hero’s Journey and Archetype Four Square EDUProtocols separately in the past and I was thrilled with how the addition of Sketch and Tell allowed students to collaborate and be creative while maintaining a focus on their reasoning skills.

In most classrooms, the students doing the talking are the students doing the learning, however post-pandemic, I have struggled to facilitate decent academic conversations in my classes. Too many students do not want to take chances on original ideas in front of their peers. Presentations are dreadful and small group discussions trail off, wither, and die before including any academic content. This trifecta of an EduProtocol smash built student confidence in applying historical knowledge within an academic framework. The requirement of creating consensus within a small group was the secret sauce or pièce de résistance that kept the conversations going.

It is important to teach students that it is okay to hold deep, contradictory, and complex thoughts in their heads. Real life is seldom black and white. Rewarding conversations teach us to appreciate the many shades of gray involved in historical interpretation. These three students each viewed Alfred differently. Despite this, they were each able to provide evidence and a line of reasoning to support their claim.

I’m happy to report that for their second rep, my students were able to identify the missing steps of the reward, road back, resurrection, and return with the elixir. Their analysis skills were tested and they passed. This was a low-stress, high-impact activity where students got to flex their critical thinking skills and practice using academic language in small group discussions. I will be smashing these EduProtocols again.

To learn more about using The Hero’s Journey, Archetype Four Square, and Sketch and Tell EduProtocols pick up our book The EduProtocol Field Guide: Social Studies Edition. If you are one of our 2,500+ happy customers, please consider posting a review on Amazon. Also, continue to share your student work with us on Twitter using the #EduProtocols hashtag. Lastly, don’t miss our Social Studies Show on the third Thursday of every month.

EDUprotocols, French Revolution, Historical Writing, Marie Antoinette

Smashing Corroboration & Nacho Paragraph EduProtocols

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Corroboration is a discipline-specific skill in Social Studies, but it can be used in all subjects to teach students how to analyze or explain data from multiple sources. This post will smash a corroboration activity with Nacho Paragraph using an I do-We do-You-do format to improve student writing with EduProtocols.

For this activity, I asked my 10th-grade World History students to pull some facts from the movie Marie Antoinette by Sofia Coppola and compare them to the facts that are presented in their textbook. My students can typically make 5-10 corroborations in one class period. The more complicated next step is showing them how to select multiple facts to create a line of reasoning.

I selected the above as a mentor text and modeled a think-aloud strategy with it where I showed students how to elaborate on the fact pattern and add page numbers with in-text citations. There were two learning objectives: 1) Students will learn how to create in-text citations for authors & academic sources. 2) Students will strengthen their line of reasoning by using evidence from multiple sources.

Not bad, but you don’t want to say “they” in academic writing. You should clearly be citing your sources in MLA or APA format and it should be an academic source. Let’s try – try again. Instead of saying “source one” and “the movie”, let’s give them some more formal attribution.

Much better. Notice how the in-text citations position the writer as an expert. By creating a fact pattern about King Louis using multiple sources, this author has established themselves as ready for the academic writing demanded by AP or other college-level classes. If your students struggle to craft academic or even grade-level writing, EduProtocols can save those who suffer when paraphrasing, citing their sources, or completing a paragraph. Your students won’t rely on ChatGPT if you rotate ParaFLY, Nacho Paragraph, and 3XCER into your regular instruction. You can give your students more writing practice with less prep and grading time on your part.

Disciplinary Literacy, French Revolution, Historical Writing

Book Review: Mademoiselle Revolution

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With themes of bisexuality and biracial justice, Zoe Sivak’s 2022 dual story of the Haitian and French Revolutions will surely be banned from public schools in Florida and Texas. As the father of two argumentative teenage daughters, this is exactly the book I want them to read as they wrestle with questions of white privilege, economic and racial justice, and reconciling the precarious balance between terror and freedom.

I devoured this book in two days and found myself thoroughly engaged with the imagined conversations between the heroine and Robespierre as the book speeds to the Incorruptible’s inevitable end. This review will not contain spoilers. Suffice it to say, I am a fan of how Spivak navigates her heroine through the female political clubs of French society, noodling with her fellow nobles, yet jibing with the Jacobins, and manipulating the Montagnard’s partisan sympathy for the sansculottes.

Meeting Olympe de Gouges moves Sylvie from a passive observer to a participant in partisan politics. She asks, “How can I not [participate]? We invite that risk into our lives every moment we pray for the mercy of men who hardly think of us at all” (316). Do all history teachers dream of texts where the main characters quote Rousseau in their arguments? This book delivers in capturing the intellect of the Enlightenment in French salons.

Although I wouldn’t recommend this book for middle schoolers, high schoolish budding feminists will love the delightful plot twists that transform Sylvie from a vain and vapid woman of privilege into a formidable, female freedom fighter who curses out Robespierre, “You betrayed us! You became obsessed with terror — this precious fuel to revolution… Terror is a crueler tyrant than some spendthrift queen or hapless king could ever be. It’s a monarch I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Yet you wore terror like a crown” (Spivak, 2022, pp. 394-395).

In the past, I have had my students read Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser and Pure by Andrew Miller to better understand the factions, motivations, and nuances surrounding the French Revolution. However, Sivak’s work of historical fiction may better engage teenage readers and engross them in meaningful discussions about liberty, equality, and fraternity… (or sorority) and what those words mean today. Brava, Zoe Sivak!

Historical Writing, Informative/Explanatory Writing

Does Practice with CER Result in Better Writing?

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­Although more than half or 64% of my 11th grade US History students could demonstrate their proficiency in identifying claims, evidence, and reasoning with in-class readings, I was curious as to how many would transfer this skill into a longer form writing assignment. I would like to see daily CER identification/explanation proficiency improve to at least 85% and will be designing more writing activities and reporting the results. Below is a proficient CER practice example that shows how daily practice was conducted.

During non-fiction reading activities using Hellhound on His Trail by Hampton Sides, this student could clearly identify a claim of fact, value, and policy. They selected textual evidence and cited it correctly with a page number. Then, they explained how the evidence supported the type of claim the author made. The consistent 3XCER practice made me wonder if students who successfully used CER in their exit tickets would have any trouble using CER in a subsequent essay. This post pairs two pieces of student work to hypothesize that students who successfully identify claims, evidence, and reasoning for practice will be more likely to write adequate responses that includes at least three claims, correctly cite textual evidence, and thoroughly explain their reasoning.

To assess student analysis or the quality of their explanations, I used the 2021 AP Language rubric from the College Board. I focused on how students supplied evidence to support or strengthen their claims. I used the row above to provide written feedback on student responses.

This student makes multiple supporting claims with textual evidence that are quoted, with cited page numbers, and explained clearly. For instance, they found textual evidence that suggested MLK’s stature was slipping by noting some unsavory information about King’s drinking, gaining weight, and poor sleeping patterns. Next, they mention how King’s movement had been losing support for years and state that an audience of Watts riot survivors had actually booed King at a rally. After, they explain how Malcom X, the Black Panthers, and others disagreed with MLK’s beliefs. With three pieces of textual evidence clearly quoted and cited by page number, the author then goes on to strengthen their line of reasoning that the cracks in King’s reputation repair rather than diminish his legacy over time. This student needs some help in elaborating and extending their analysis skills, but this proficiency with the QUOTE-CITE-EXPLAIN strategy shows they are proficient using the CER strategy.

However, this student who did not complete the exit tickets or log any practice time with CER subsequently failed to use the CER format successfully in this writing assignment. According to the AP Rubric, I would give this student a zero because they provide an opinion without any relevant evidence.  

This student addresses the prompt but does not include any quotations that would strengthen their argument. They use vague language that says – “part of me was surprised, and the other half wasn’t,” or “the history books and history story-tellers have glorified his good actions and have thrown his bad ones under.” These points do not use any evidence that would support or weaken an argument. The lack of focus on specific details is exacerbated by repetitive summaries of their opinion. Because they use zero quotes to support their argument that MLK’s reputation was slipping in stature, the teacher can only assume that they did not read the text and/or are unable to provide excerpts that support or refute that King’s reputation was slipping and he was losing control of the Civil Rights Movement. This student needs more practice with CER.  Research shows that when teachers stress performance outcomes, students develop performance goals. students who have learning goals are more motivated and engaged and have better reading test scores than students who have performance goals (Kamil, M. L. et al, 2008, p.27). The goal with this activity was for the students to demonstrate proficiency by hitting the learning goal of correctly using the CER writing strategy three times.

This instructional sequence is part of a formative assessment cycle suggested by (Graham, S. et al., 2016, p. 43).  While I cannot definitively say that practice with CER leads to proficiency in academic writing, I would need to analyze many more samples with a larger population of students. I can say, however, that this data suggests that students benefit from practice with CER and that students who show proficiency with CER in quickwrites seem to demonstrate proficiency more easily in longer form writing assignments. This work aligns with previous research that recommends integrating learning goals with focused literacy instruction.

References

Graham, S., Graham, S., Bruch, J., Fitzgerald, J., Friedrich, L., Furgeson, J., Greene, K., Kim, J., Lyskawa, J., Olson, C.B., & Smither Wulsin, C. (2016). Teaching secondary students to write effectively (NCEE 2017-4002). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance (NCEE), Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. eric.ed.gov/?id=ED569984

Kamil, M. L., Borman, G. D., Dole, J., Kral, C. C., Salinger, T., and Torgesen, J. (2008). Improving adolescent literacy: Effective classroom and intervention practices: A Practice Guide (NCEE #2008-4027). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/practiceguide/8

Historical Writing, Public Speaking, Speaking & Listening

Upcoming Speaking Workshop Jan 23

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Many teachers have lamented that post-pandemic students do not like to speak in class. Presentations are uninspired. Student podcasts sound robotic and scripted. The in-class speech has become an endangered species. In the hopes of ending this nightmare, I will be presenting the following sequence to re-energize speaking activities in January. We will start with Constructive Conversation Skills, then move to Hexagonal Thinking, next practice The Civil Conversation, and lastly play Socratic Smackdown. 

The Constructive Conversation Skills poster or placemat from Zwiers, O’Hara, & Pritchard (2014) can be used as a low stakes, five minute warm-up or cool-down where students discuss the day’s content with a thought partner. I print out the poster and give each student a different colored pen so they can cross out each sentence stem after they practice the four conversational skills. How many practice reps will students need before demonstrating improvement? Walk around the room and monitor their conversations. Offer encouragement. 

The Hexagonal Thinking strategy was developed by Betsy Potash and featured on the Cult of Pedagogy blog where there are templates for both paper and digital versions. Here is the three-minute explainer video that I didn’t have time to show. This is another low-stakes activity that will guide your students in discussing academic content. I would recommend trying it with 6-12 terms and names students should know. Give them a short amount of time, maybe five minutes, and see how many hexagons they can connect and explain. To increase rigor you can add more terms and time. I have asked my students to record two-minute Flip videos of these conversations to give them practice explaining their reasoning.

Next the Civil Conversation from the Constitutional Rights Foundation requires students to annotate, question, discuss, track, and reflect on a structured small group discussion. Introverts or observers complete flow or tally maps to track participation. Then they jump in to the next round as active conversationalists. They will have more confidence because they have just watched a session and learned the content. You can provide whole-class feedback after reviewing student reflections and help the class set goals for the next civil conversation. 

Lastly the Socratic Smackdown from the Connected Learning Alliance is the most structured of these activities and will require some planning and patience. Think purposefully about grouping and assigning roles. Spend some time selecting your discussion strategies, training your scorers and debriefing with the instant reply and coach cards. You might consider practicing this again with colleagues during some of your planning time before trying it out in your class. This might take several rounds before you are satisfied with the quality of the conversations. Don’t give up.

I look forward to sharing EduProtocol hacks and tools that make speaking instruction inspirational instead of dreadful. Take a deep dive with me at the Los Angeles County Office of Education January 23 & 24, 2023. Sign up here. 

EDUprotocols, Formative Assessment, Historical Writing

Assessing Retell in Rhyme

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One of my go-to EduProtocols this year has been Retell in Rhyme. The act of responding to a text in writing has a very large, positive ( .77) effect on reading comprehension. Sometimes it is not easy for teachers to tell if a student has selected historical details because they are important, or because they are easy to rhyme. Adding a self-assessment follow-up activity with a rubric and/or a success chart can give teachers more insight as to what students got out of the learning event.

This post will look at three samples of student work and examine their self-assessments. These tenth-grade students listened to a podcast from 15 Minute History and were allowed one class period (50 minutes) to listen, take notes, and create 10 rhyming couplets with a partner. The next day, they were given 10 minutes, this rubric, and a success chart to do a self-assessment. I asked them to write at least ten sentences.

Sample A

Self-Assessment 1

Self Assessment 2

Clearly, self-assessment 1 is effective at aligning their work with the language in the rubric. They identify four key terms that are on the success chart. They justify why they omitted important dates. They could be better at identifying how many events from the success chart they included. Is it 25%? 50%? 75%? In this case, a “good portion” is hard to measure. Self-assessment 2 only mentions that they met the 20-line requirement. They cite no evidence from the rubric or success chart. If I were to grade these reflections, assessment 1 would get an A, and assessment 2 would get a D.

Sample B

Self-Assessment 1

Self-Assessment 2

Both of these self-assessments would be in the B range. I like how #1 acknowledges that they needed more details. I like how #2 includes Napoleon & Gens de Couleur, but they could have been more specific when saying “Some lines had key summarized details.” This is your chance to convince your teacher you deserve an A. Don’t blow the opportunity with soft, non-specific language.

Sample C

Self-Assessment 1

Self-Assessment 2

Both of these assessments would be in the A category. Teachers can extend learning by asking students to compare their work to a success chart and/or a rubric. Andrade (2018) analyzed 76 empirical studies on self-assessment and concluded that “self-assessment is the act of monitoring one’s processes and products in order to make adjustments that deepen learning and enhance performance. Although it can be summative, the evidence… strongly suggests that self-assessment is most beneficial, in terms of both achievement and self-regulated learning, when it is used formatively and supported by training.” This means students self-assess to give themselves feedback and gain clarity on their performance guided by academic advisors. Students will improve their self-assessment abilities with coaching and reps over time.

I look forward to seeing your results with Retell in Rhyme. Please tag me on Twitter and use the #EduProtocols hashtag.

Historical Writing

Primary Source Scavenger Hunt

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Recently, I asked my US History students to use the Research EduProtocol to locate a primary source on an aspect of the Gilded Age. Only four out of twenty-five or 16% of my 11th grade students did this successfully.

What I love about using EduProtocols is that they simplify learning and make the results extremely visible. In this case, the indisputable visual evidence looked like this. There was lots of red and plenty of room for improvement. EduProtocols to the rescue.

The next day, these students were asked to do a Thick Slide where they were asked to find an academic definition of a primary source.

Then they had to write a C-E-R to explain their rationale. Most quickly realized that they had not curated a primary source. I didn’t need to tell them. They now knew the area they needed to improve in.

After this, students were ready for another rep to try again. This time twelve out of twenty-six or 46% of students were able accurately curate a primary source. This was an increase of 30%, which is not bad considering that I have five students or 19% who refuse to engage in any work. Plus, an additional two students were absent.

At this point I am wondering how many reps I would need to give these students before 90% or more could accurately curate their own primary source. Of course, the reason history teachers ask their students to interpret primary sources is to move them up to strategic and extended thinking levels, also known as DOK3 & DOK4. I’m thinking that the ParaFLY EduProtocol would be the next logical step. Do you ask students to curate their own primary sources? Do you use established curators like Gilder Lehrman, the Library of Congress or Reading Like A Historian from the Stanford History Education Group? Do you do all the heavy lifting and find your own primary sources? Would adding student choice increase motivation in the interpretation of primary sources?

Disciplinary Literacy, Historical Writing

3XCER Challenge

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Thanks to the awesome work of Science teacher extraordinaire, Ariana Hernandez, I was inspired to try the three-way claim-evidence-reasoning challenge with my World History students who are studying Middle East conflicts. I found this great reading by Dr. Sawsan Jaber and asked my students to work in small groups to identify claims of fact, policy, and value. 

My student teacher Mr. Preston Becker created a Kahoot to help our students do some retrieval practice when learning the different types of claims. After a round of practice in teams, students were ready to dive into the reading. I modified Ariana’s template so that students could all work in the same document and I could monitor their progress. They were given 30 minutes to identify the three different claims and talk about whether or not there was a grande claim — the most important point in their reading. 

Instead of providing individual feedback to each group, I chose a sample and added comments so that students could see where they need to improve. 

10th grade World History student work example.

Where I highlighted in red, I commented that a claim of policy should be made by an institution, organization, or government. This sounds more like an opinion or claim of value. Where I highlighted in yellow, I mentioned that a claim of fact should be able to be proven or disproven. How would you do this? Lastly, for the claim of value, I asked what is an adjective you would use to describe this value-oriented behavior?

Students will use this challenge again to identify claims in their reading of I Am Malala or The Kite Runner. I know that their English teacher and Chemistry teacher both use this CER format in their classes and I hope students will see how easy it is to transfer their knowledge and skills in all subjects.

Disciplinary Literacy, Historical Writing, Professional Learning

Interdisciplinary Approaches to ELA & History

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I am always on the hunt for good historical fiction that makes my students connect with the era under study in my class. This week, I finally finished Forbidden City by Vanessa Hua. It’s a fantastic book by a well-respected author and could engage students in deep learning about the Chinese Cultural Revolution, however, the focus on the love life between the Chairman and Mei Xiang makes this book too cringey for me to assign to my class. This is honestly the first book where I have censored myself and I wonder if other social studies teachers feel similarly in this political climate, or if I am alone in this sentiment. 

Do you feel as if your school administration would stand up to parents who want to question or argue with you about your curricular choices?

Does today’s anti-teacher sentiment make you anxious about assigning academic work outside of your district textbook?

Should teachers team together on interdisciplinary approaches to teaching ELA & History in order to diffuse some of this tension? 

Join me on Twitter September 26, 2022 at 5 PT, 7 CT, or 8 ET to chat about this topic with the #sschat #sschatreads & #engsschat community. Bring your most controversial titles. We will be issuing merit badges.

Historical Writing

Cybergeddon 22

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This week began with a cyberattack on my district computer systems that made digital instruction all but impossible this week. Kids are locked out of everything. Resetting passwords was not easy. Without missing a beat, my students utilized our class sets of books. My 11th-grade USH students began reading Hellhound on His Trail and my 10th-grade World History students had a choice between I Am Malala or The Kite Runner. 

Corroboration

One of my favorite ways to get students reading for a purpose is a corroboration drill. I give students a finite amount of time to corroborate facts from their reading with the textbook. I teach them a simple format to emulate, essentially Source 1 says… Source 2 says … When these two facts are taken together they suggest…

This is a very difficult cognitive task that students struggle to complete. Last year, my tenth-grade students could do four corroborations per class period on average with a low of four and a high of twenty-seven over two class periods.

This student has mastered cited text, but they need a little more work on analyzing the two quotes and drawing a conclusion from them.
This next student makes a claim that the confederacy was supported by cotton, but does not explain that the textual evidence is from two different time periods: 1) the Civil War and 2) the 1960s. This suggests a problem with reading comprehension and understanding on their part. I need to follow up with them and make sure they understand that the textual evidence they have chosen can not be used to make a claim.

When I follow up and build on this lesson, I will need to provide better examples so that students learn to improve this skill with additional reps. Sentence starters will go a long way toward improving this type of student writing.

Retell in Rhyme

In World History, students were challenged to choose 10 unfamiliar words from off the whiteboard and write rhyming couplets that summarized their understanding of what they read in I Am Malala.

Since this was the first time students used this EduProtocol, I paired them up to make this a collaborative task. I was very pleased with the results, which contained important historical details and indicated a strong understanding of the material.

My goal was for students to complete 10 rhyming couplets in 30 minutes. Not everyone hit the goal. The 11th-grade USH students did a better job, but I think this was because they had used this EduProtocol last year and were more familiar with it. I am looking forward to coaching up my 10th graders and giving them more reps with Retell in Rhyme.