Re:Weaving History

Do you or your colleagues ever get "stuck in the trenches?" I have heard this expression in many Ontario schools where we teach the grade 10 course: Canada from 1914 to the Present. It refers to when you have gone into too much detail on the First World War, and find yourself with a wildly disproportionate lack of time to cover the other 96 years of history in the course! My brilliant colleague, Sue Pannell-Barrett introduced me a decade ago to a much more fun way of getting stuck in the trenches, while actually getting out of them time-wise in your course. I haven't looked back since!           Second Battle of Ypres, 1915 Could be any WWI battle! The genius of this activity, is that it is totally inquiry-based, students are practicing historical thinking (primary source evidence and significance), collaboration and organization skills, while having A LOT of fun playing in the sand. Attendance is never better than on sandbox day, and students consistently rank it their f

  A story about my failures and my learning in teaching students in CHC2P for the blog series: Hindsight 2020. Originally published as part of Write-On, the 2016 Ontario summer literacy symposium, also published on the OHASSTA website It was hard to believe that they were the same students. Phones were put away (mostly), eye contact occurred between students whose heads were together in intense and sometimes spirited discussions about rural life in 1950s Quebec society. “Why did he just go to church and pray?” “I would’ve been so angry, I would just burn the sweater!” “Why didn’t he just send it back and get a new one?” “Who was the minority? Was it the francophones or the anglophones?” Part of the student-developed word wall *** The week before, Kim had been trying to get these same students working together. The desks were in groups and had been all semester. She had grouped according to the learning needs of particular activities, accounting for reading ability, first language, inte