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 ...

One of my favourite introduction activities for historical thinking is the Bio-Poem. A simple "fill-in-the-blanks" poetry exercise from The Big Six   that gets students thinking deeply about evidence and historical perspectives. I know that many history teachers start in historical thinking with Historical Significance , but I would argue, based on my experience with this lesson, that most teenagers will connect and engage more readily with Historical Perspective-Taking. I think this might be because adolescents live in the emotions and imagination, and this is often what we need to do in taking historical perspectives. The trick is to then get them to connect those emotions and imagination to the evidence. This lesson was designed to happen at the beginning of the course as part of a Portfolio Assessment and takes about 2 class periods, but certainly can be adapted for other times and uses. I really love the fabulous 20 minute NFB film - Minoru: A Memory of Exile . It s...