Reflection 2

Chapter12.ppt

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

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.