Reflection 2
Chapter 12
Making History Come Alive
What is History?
- History as defined by Ellis is a record of the past.
- Old books, exhibits, and ancient maps can stimulate children’s imaginations.
- Teachers can take advantage of using oral history in the elementary grades because students relate well to the concept of the family.
- Local studies often provide the best opportunities for researching historical topics.
Stearns Offers 6 Reasons Explaining Why Young People Should Study History
- History helps students understand societies and people.
- History helps people understand change and how societies started.
- It is important in our lives.
- History increases our moral understanding.
- It gives us a sense of identity.
- It is essential for good citizenship.
The Power of Storytelling
- Storytelling is a very good way to teach history.
- Some of the best historians are story tellers.
- Some of the best sources to use for elementary social studies teaching are children’s trade books.
- The NCSS provides a list of notable children’s book on this webpage: http://www.socialstudies.org/notable
- These can be biographies or historical fiction.
- Primary sources are very useful and consist of images, texts, and artifacts that were created at the same time events took place.
- The most common resource of course is the social studies textbook.
- Although many textbooks can be motivating using primary sources and trade books will make teaching more exiting.
Biographies
- Biographies describe someone’s life.
- The life and times of people like Abraham Lincoln, Jane Adams, and Marie Curie can be very motivating for young readers.
- Primary-age children rely more on oral forms of learning than older children.
- Teachers can bring life when they use biographies by wearing costumes and becoming that person as they read to children.
- This technique is also useful for older children.
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Historical Fiction
- Historical fiction works are an important resource for teachers because they can be used to help children learn the difference between fact and fiction.
- Good historical fiction includes real settings which helps students understand ways of life during a particular time such as the suffering American soldiers had to endure during the American revolution.
Historical Sources
- Secondary sources include textbooks, encyclopedias, and workbooks.
- The main weakness with these sources are that they include conclusions that are already formed, but they are important because they prepare children to use primary sources.
- Primary sources do not offer conclusions and include artifacts and original texts.
- Children need to use both types of sources.
Active, Hands-On, Experiential Activities
- Ellis encourages the use of active, hands-on, experiential activities and classifies the following activities as such:
Oral Histories
Personal Histories
Time Lines
Experiential History Activities
Oral Histories
- Oral histories are especially suited to young students because they emphasize interviews.
- Children can interview a number of people including older family members, students at their school, or with members of certain cultural groups.
Personal Histories
- Personal histories are very motivating and allow children to learn about the structure of historical documentation.
- Students need to gather data and may need to interview family members.
- Personal histories can involve specific aspects of students’ lives.
- There are many possibilities for using this strategy:
Students can investigate the day they were born.
They can keep journals that document events over one year.
They can pretend to be television reporters and ask other students about a particular period.
Time Lines
- Time lines provide a graphic aid allowing students to think about the difficult topic of chronology in a more concrete way.
- An effective strategy for elementary students is to have them create a personal time line consisting of a few significant events from each year of their life.
- Another strategy can consist of assigning students to create time lines including people and events from different eras.
Experiential History Activities
- Testing possibilities or replicating inquiries from the past helps students feel history come to life.
- Ellis (2007) offers several examples of teaching that fulfills this goal.
- For example Thales traveled to Egypt where he measured the Pyramids.
- Students can replicate what Thales did by measuring things at school.
- Another activity teachers can use is to give students activities which ask them to solve riddles or interpret myths from the past.
Conclusion
- The major theme of this chapter is making history come to life.
- In order to do this, teachers can use the family for student investigations on their own pasts and their ancestor’s pasts.
- An easy way to start is to have students explore the day they were born and relate that to what was happening in the world at that time.
- Timelines of events in children’s lives and storytelling are other useful strategies that make history come to life.
- Ellis mentions that classrooms should have bulletin boards, time lines, photographs, maps, music, art, and drama.
- Finally, teachers need to be excited and enthusiastic because these attitudes are contagious.