Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Typically, history classes are viewed as the realm where students develop their
understanding of a particular narrative, one of a linear and one-sided nature. Due to the transition
with the Common Core State Standards, students are further expected to transcend the skill-sets
learned in language arts courses into the social studies disciplines. This means that history
classes are moving away from the narrative approach and towards thinking historically. This
pedagogical shift leads to obstacles for students since they are required to not only learn the
content, but also read between the lines of certain historical narratives and evaluate them for the
purpose of developing their own conclusions about this past. Some of the positives of this change
include the integration of a diverse set of materials, rather than relying heavily on lectures and
However, thinking historically poses some unique problems, as curricular standards are
requiring that students read and interpret primary sources that are often above their grade-level,
and utilizing vocabulary and language that is archaic. With this, students may struggle with
considering how the authors perspective and the context of the time period impact the
documents that they are viewing. In other words, expectations require that students practice
decontextualizing their own thoughts and experiences in order to fully understand what the
documents are saying, and what they are not saying. With this, students are not just reading for
facts, but they are analyzing, evaluating, and synthesizing the materialsskills that are
Currently, I am in my third year of teaching at Shawnee Mission West High School, in the
Shawnee Mission School District. There are 1,800 students in grades 9 through 12, and it is
located in Overland Park, Kansas. West is an increasingly diverse school in the Shawnee Mission
School District, as the population is broken down into the following sub-groups: 14.21% African
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American, 18.04 Hispanic, 58.27 White, and 9.49 Other. With this, 13% of the schools
population consists of English Language Learners (ELL), as there are a total of 250 ELL
students. Between my World Regional Studies and Modern World History classes, I teach 24
students that receive ELL services at West, and seven of these students are newcomers whom are
limited in their English proficiency. Lastly, 41.56% of the student body is economically
language acquisition, when it comes to analyzing primary sources (Kansas State Department of
Education, 2014).
Currently I teach World Regional Studies, a class for Freshmen where they are exposed to
the characteristic of the worlds regions, while examining how the history of those regions has
impacted the issues that they are facing today. This course is a requirement for all freshmen, and
it is in an inclusive classroom. With this, both building and district initiatives, as well as the
requirements of the Kansas Career and College Readiness Standards, require that students are
consistently showing growth evidence-based writing across the curriculum. Therefore, West and
the District require that students in all social studies courses complete two document-based
question performance assessment during the yearrequiring that students utilize historical
thinking skills for the purpose of drawing conclusions about particular historical decisionsas
well as regular formative writing assessments where students work through the MEL-Con
The other course that I currently teach is Modern World History, an elective course for
sophomores. With this class, many of the students have a high-level of interest in history, and
many of them are in Advanced-Placement courses for English, math, or science. Although
students in this class are performing at higher levels of achievement, scaffolding the historical
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thinking and writing process is still necessary because they have to grapple with documents from
centuries as early as the 1300s; thus, much of the language is difficult to understand, requiring
modifications.
One of the obstacles I face in both World History and World Regional Studies is that the
curriculum is currently on a strict pacing guide with pre-selected objectives. When some of my
students are struggling with comprehension, or are still learning English, mastery is often
difficult. That being said, as you will see in some of the strategies outlined below, heavy
emphasis on scaffolding skills and the use of cooperative learning is necessary. Furthermore,
some students simply do not find certain subject material the least bit fascinating, therefore some
strategies are used to pique student interest, incorporate their schema, and provide authentic
learning experiences.
Despite some obstacles, Shawnee Mission West, as well as the entire Shawnee Mission
School District, has adopted the Rigor and Relevance framework developed by Dr. Daggett.
Therefore, the focus in the classroom has shifted from skimming the surface to digging deeper
and designing instruction and assessments that are relevant to students. When students find
success in challenging assignment, and have choice in materials that are relevant to them,
mastery of the content and skills is more likely. With this, students in SMSD have a great
advantage with the recently adopted 1:1 technology initiative. This means that all students, K-12,
are equipped with technological devices that encourage active learning and tools that enhance the
learning experience. When students begin to see the purpose of these devices as a means to learn
and explore, they are able to get out of the textbook and understand the content more deeply.
Strategies
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When considering the most effective strategies for increasing comprehension through
historical thinking, the methods I selected focus on allowing students to prepare for inquiry,
gather and discuss evidence, and work towards using disciplinary tools to draw historical
conclusions. Apart from inquiry charts, I have utilized the Discrepant Event Inquiry and
historical thinking skills developed by the Stanford History Education Group on a regular basis.
By using these strategies consistently, students will work towards mastering the skill-sets needed
to think like a historian, rather than simply memorizing facts, dates, and figures. Rather, they will
be able to question historical events and decisions, and develop their own evidence-based
Much of my pedagogical practices align with the newly adopted College, Career, & Civic
Life C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards (2013). This framework, developed by the
National Council for the Social Studies, organizes the various disciplines into an instruction
guide known as the Inquiry Arc. This Arc is divided into 4 dimensions, guiding students towards
Therefore, the following comprehension strategies begin with dimension 1preparing for
inquiryand conclude with a structure that prepares students for rigorous endeavors of
One of the greatest obstacles faced by all teachers is intrinsically motivating students, and
piquing their interest. Thus, incorporating strategies that hook students, allow them to take
ownership of discovery, and providing opportunities for exploration moves students into their
working memory. According to Dr. Marzano, students become engaged when they are organized
for complex tasks, and are allowed to generate their own hypotheses for testing (Marzano, 2011).
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That being said, the Discrepant Event Inquiry (DEI) is an exercise that serves the purpose of
engaging students in new content by allowing them to collect evidence and make predictions
about small bits of information. During the DEI process, students are reviewing the types of
questions they must ask to think historically, while drawing evidence-based conclusions. Being
in line with the C3 Framework, the DEI ultimately prepares students for inquiry (Yell, 2011).
I have utilized the DEI in a few different ways, both with visuals and riddles to carry a
tone of engagement in my classroom. When students enter the classroom, or are moving onto a
new unit of study, they are presented with a perplexing and confusing story or piece of an image.
For example, prior to learning about the understandings of the Black Plague, students
Boccaccio is the manager of a dock in a port city. One day when he is gone, his workers
unload a ship that is later seen drifting aimlessly at sea. After being told about this ship,
Boccaccio and his family mysteriously disappear and are never seen again. What
After reading the story, students spend the next two minutes crafting closed-ended questions that
serve the purpose of guiding them towards the solution. Questions and answers build upon one
another requiring that students continue inquiring and developing hypotheses. The questions and
o No
o Yes
o No
o Yes
o No
o Yes
Was it in Italy?
o Yes
As students work through the riddle, they continue asking questions until time runs out or they
develop a correct hypothesis. Either way, students are engaged and they move onto the inquiry of
study. With this strategy I have found that students are more engaged in reading the primary and
secondary sources that follow, and are curious to explore subjects that may often be thought of as
mundane (Yell, 2011). However, the one step that I would like to continue developing is having
students craft questions that they want to explore during a particular lesson or unit of study.
Historical Inquiry
Building right into the dimensions of the C3 Frameworks Inquiry Arc is the notion of
thinking like a historian. When students think, or read, like a historian, they are presented with a
series of primary source documentsas well as secondarythat they utilize for developing a
solution to a historical problem. Building off of curriculum developed by Sam Wineburg and his
colleagues at the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG), students begin thinking like a
historian when they understand and effectively source, close read, contextualize, and corroborate
evidence. However, the teacher must spend a significant portion of the school year, from the very
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beginning, explicitly teaching and scaffolding this process, as the skills students are required to
effectuate are rigorous, and the documents are often archaic. Despite the challenges presented
with thinking like a historian, the Reading Like a Historian curriculum provides materials
including modified documentsthat guide student thinking throughout multiple historical events
and time periods (Reisman, 2012). Thus, the final strategies that I outline here serve the purpose
of exploring the means by which I can most effectively push students towards crafting their own
historical understandings.
One of the structures that I found best served my students with incorporating all of the
developed by SHEG. With this, students are posed with a controversial question where there are
multiple means by which they may interpret the documents, leading towards fruitful discussion
and deliberations. Many of the historical questions presented by SHEG have students determine
what happened at particular historical events, or unveil the characteristics of certain time periods.
However, with the Structured Academic Controversy, students must sift through evidence to
By looking at the multifaceted image of Abraham Lincoln, or examining the governmental and
social structures of ancient Greece, students collect and evaluate evidence for the purpose of
deliberating and crafting a consensus in regards to the controversial questions. Thus, this
particular structure leads towards authentic learning experiences and a variety of understandings
of historical events, place, and individuals (Wineburg, Martin, & Monte-Sano, 2013).
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I found success with this strategy within the 8th grade American history classroom, as
well as Modern World History, despite the fact that SHEG has yet developed Structured
Academic Controversies that align with my present curriculum. That being said, I will have to
spend some time collecting documents and crafting a controversy that aligns with the curriculum,
but still holds true to the nature of the activity. For example, instead of having students craft
hypotheses about the English appeasement policy in 1938, students may explore the same
questionWas appeasement the right policy for England in 1938and documents to deliberate
and reach consensus over the foreign policy decisions that historians continuously debate and
Prior to deliberating and building consensus, as with most historical analysis, I require
that students work through an inquiry chart. The inquiry chart allows students to pull together
their close reading analysis from multiple, while making connections between a variety of
medianewspapers, speeches, political cartoons, laws, and more to their existing schema. The
charts include the list of documents on the left of the page, with the corresponding questions at
the top; thus students answer the same questions for each document, providing the means for
drawing conclusions about the particular historical investigation. The following is an example of
how to design an inquiry chart (Assaf, L., Ash, G., Saunders, J. and Johnson, J., 2011)
Ultimately, the of the inquiry chart supplements the procedures followed throughout the
England.
2. Both sides present their argument, and which each team presents; the opposing
team must record and repeat the other teams contentions and supporting
evidence.
3. With the presented evidence, students work to reach a consensus. They then report
Although students essentially worked through the document-based question process (DBQ), the
historical question and engages them through a means that moves away from the typical
evidence-based writing process that often characterizes the history classroom when primary
source documents are involved. This is not to say that the use of the DBQ is an ineffective
pedagogical practice for the history classroom, however, the Structured Academic Controversy
allows all students to feel success with the historical inquiry process, of which they may not
experience if their writing skills are still being tapped, as students can use the debates and
rather than independently organizing evidence and losing their focus in word choice and sentence
structures.
The importance of writing lies in the ability of the writer to convey an argument that
demonstrates the individuals critical literacy. In other words, students must learn to write, and
learn through writing, because it strengthens their ability to seek and communicate
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understandings or our world. However, as argued by George Hillocks Jr. (2010), a well written
argument focuses on the light brought forth by collected data; that the foundations of the
argument begin with a careful examination of textual evidence that give rise to a claim (main
idea) or thesis. These logical appeals, rather than persuasive writing, are the basis of
argumentative writing, and this type of writing is at the core of critical thinking and academic
difficult for most students, especially if they struggle with organization or language proficiency.
This type of writing does not come natural to any student, and it must be taught in a way that is
simple, and with content that is relevant and appealing. That being said, this section regarding
writing focuses more on a structure that I have utilized to make the writing process obtainable for
my students. Providing organizational structures, while utilizing the inquiry methods outlined in
With writing, much of the emphasis in the social studies classroom is that of the
Document Based Question (DBQ). The purpose of the DBQ is to guide students through
historical inquiry and argumentation. However, to supplement previous sections of this portfolio,
I will outline and review the use of a writing strategy that I have utilized and expanded district-
wide to meet our literacy initiativesMEL-Con. The MEL-Con writing strategy is one that is
applicable across content areas, and it is an advanced organizer that helps guide students through
the evidence-based writing process. Ultimately, the acronym helps students build evidence-based
writing by focusing their main idea (thesis), their evidence, the link back to their evidence (how
their evidence supports their main idea) and the concluding sentences of each body paragraph.
Some may argue that this makes the writing process formulaic, but many of my students have
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made tremendous growth in their ability to articulate their arguments with supporting evidence
from their document analysis. Below, I will outline what the MEL-Con looks like in my
classroom, as well as an evaluation of advanced organizers that scaffold the writing process for
Within both World Regional Studies and Modern World History, the writing process only
begins after students have questioned, explored, and discussed conclusions from a variety of
sources. For example, in the example below, students completed a concept attainment to unveil
the word nationalism. Then, after creating a definition and working through examples and non-
examples, they researched and collected data about a historical or contemporary example of
the following question: What is Nationalism, and is the event you researched an example or
non-example? Although this particular lesson was focused on vocabulary acquisition, students
worked through an inquiry-based process and presented their findings through evidence-based
writing.
Depending on the need of the individual student, advanced organizers are available for
use. These advanced organizers, as presented below, provide students with a pool of transition
words, as well as a structure for writing their paragraphs. Although proving beneficial for all
students, these organizers are particularly beneficial for English Language Learners that are
growing in the proficiency of the English language. Here are a few examples of what I provide
Transition Words
Phrases for Transition words Transition words for Transition Showing cause
introduction or showing context- compare/contrast words for and effect
conclusion- time and location examples
order
Furthermore After Analogous to As illustrated As a result
In addition Before As well as Coupled with Accordingly
In conclusion Beside By comparison In addition Because
Most Between Comparatively For example Consequently
importantly During Conversely For instance Due to
One In proximity to Correspondingly/ corresponding to Moreover For this reason
Overall Meanwhile Distinctively Hence
Secondly Near However Therefore
Subsequently Outside In contrast Thus
To begin Periodically In opposition
Ultimately Likewise
On the contrary
On the other hand
Nonetheless
Nevertheless
Similarly
Whereas
After implementing the MEL-Con strategy in my classroom, I found that my students writing
improved in accordance with how they presented and analyzed data collected during the inquiry
process. That being said, providing the writing structure, as well as transition words to pull from,
students will able to focus on conveying their conclusions, rather than becoming stuck in
organizational process.
Conclusion
There are many strategies that history and social studies teachers may utilize to pique
student interest and guide inquiry-based learning, but I have discovered the most success with
the structures outlined above. However, I hope to utilize these strategiesespecially Socratic
Circlesmore often for the purpose of creating authentic learning opportunities that align with
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the C3 Framework. As students become more familiar with the processes associated with
historical thinking, they will find that these strategies transcend beyond the history classroom.
Although they may never sit amongst peers to deliberate democracy in ancient Athens, or the
tribulations or Martin Luther, students will find it necessary to consider the context of speeches
elections, or if they should approve of present policy decisions made by their local school
boards. Thus, I will continue developing my practice of these strategies in hopes of guiding
References
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