LEA 5

Fifth Edition

Investigating with Children in Ele.~ent~ry and Middle Sc~.pols

Linda S. Levstik • Keith C. Barton \~

, C

am el D

ies, Lose Three Ti urns ong the m

ost difficult sources for E nglish language 1

ks are am

. . .

d , .

earners to understand ...-cxtbo

0 1

sentences, passive voice, an extensive use o

fp ro

n o

. W

h ,

, 1 ·

· com p ex·

. uns.

en L nglish J

ro their d others) m

ust read textbook p assag

es-an d

especially w h

th .

h an-

J11' ers (an

. .

en ey

ave to do so ,e 1¢11

. • im

portant to proV 1de the follow

ing supports: gti:1!1

dendy-1t is indepd1

. di. ,,,sions so that. students can connect the content o

f upcom ingpassag1:es to th : b

kgt ,,Jing

sen, '

. ,

ctr ac

ound , Prfft

nd expenenccs. kflowie<lgc ~-•ew

s so that students ace alerted to potentially unfam iliar w

ords a d h

• vQ(ab11/a,Y O vo,v•

' n

p rases that they "''

ncountcr. .

. ww c .

,1 •

0 that students can use visual clues and hcadm gs to predict the cont..

d .

. ~di£/lvtg11mcs, s

ent an orgaruzanon

• .

bo<>k passages. of tcxtd

.J:n,us so that students can be responsible for particular sections rather than being h ·I

d , 5tdtone ,ram ,,, ,

ovcrw c m

e IcngthY chapters.

. .

. .

by .

1 -_ , so that students see visual layouts o

f how m

form anon 1s presented in

, Graph« organ .,_ •. ·: .

a passage. ,.L

: p•Actzce so that students better understand how

to record and synthesize th .

, N ote•t"""ng

'~ '

• c content m

textbooks.

; w

ith adaptation, textbooks _and_ teacher talk should not dom inate social studies classroom

s. ].iven_

h difficult it is for E

nglish language learners to develop their abilities w hen m

ost tm

agine ow

the

read are in textbooks, m o

st w ords they hear com

e from the teacher, and m

ost w ords

wo rds Y

·

· N

n

l" th

ib

· b

· ·

. esult from

answ enng questions.

o t o

y 1s s

onng, ut It 1s far too narrow

a set .

. .

. •

ces to becom e proficient m

a language. L inda and R

enee, like all the teachers in this of expenen

. .

. k

·ve students rich and vaned chances to take part m the language o

f history by exposing boo ,gt

d h ·

h th

l .

f .

V an .ety o

f sources an avm

g t em

express em

se ves m a range o

w ay

s-n o

t JU st

them to a

. .

• ally but all the tim

e. S tudents are surrounded by m

eam ngful and authentic language use,

occasm n

, both w

ritten and spoken, and they delight in the chance to becom e part o

f it.

W HEN OBJECTS ARE THE PRIM

ARY SOURCES

Clearly, art and architecture can m otivate student interest and inquiry, but there is another im

portant reason to help students analyze and interpret m

aterial culture-som etim

es objects are the only evidence available for studying past cultures. B

efore the discovery o f the R

osetta Stone (w hich

made it possible to read E gyptian hieroglyphics), art, architecture and other rem

nants o f daily life

provided the prim ary evidence for understanding ancient E

gypt. fo r the earliest hum

an com m

unities, however, there can be no R

osetta S tone, because these people left no w

ritten records. T he only w

ay we can m

ake sense o f their lives is through m

aterial cu ltu

re-th e objects people left behind, w

hether cerem

onial objects found in burial sites, discarded household goods, o r tools left at w

ork sites. W hen

archaeologists unearth the rem ains o

f buildings abandoned in the w ake o

f w ar, fam

ine, m igration or

changing fashions, or they collect seeds and anim al rem

ains preserved in garbage pits, they help us better describe hum

an m igratory and trade patterns, the shift from

hunting and gathering societies to settled agriculture or the spread o

f artistic and technological innovation and patterns o f econorruc

developm ent W

hile reading and interpreting m aterial culture is the foundation for studying the m

oS t

dis~t past, it also enhances the study o f cultures less distant in tim

e and place-including o~r 0"".n. souror _several years, fifth-grade teacher Jenny S

chlarb focused on m aterial objects as_ ~l~t~ncal

ces. A fter training w

ith Prqject Archaeology a program that introduces teachers to act1V1t1es and

tAesohurces for teaching w ith and about archae~logy she decided to

ask for help from the K

entucky re aeot

· '

• I

· al fi ldw ork

andJ ogical Survey (K

A S). K

A S

includes K -12 student.~ in on-going archaeo ogtc

te buil,

ennyw as

h h d L

ind d R

enee Jenny t

up a .

sure er students w

ould love this experience. A s

a a an

.' ,,_

. ct repenn1re

f ·ed

h ·deas D

raw m

gon no/e Arrb

O

tn and true activities and continually soug to

u t new

1 ·

d aeokigJ suoo,,. .

. .

. rtifacts that represente

their li o

b ~

ao n

s, Jenny asked her students to b

n n

g m

objects o r a

!I' ed D

·d

vCS---pictur d

fi rth She also shar

aVl M

acaulay'. , 1

es, toys, a favorite cereal box, D V

D o

r C D

an so

O

." .

J-ler stu- d

sm ote/ ,r1 L-M

h

J gical excavat1on. ·

cntstoved °'

o ,:

rysteries, a hum orous account o

f a future arc aeo O

. .

---deciding .

. the w

ays . hi h

. . ted m

aterial objects 'tt~let "'

In w

c archaeolooists in the book m

ism terpre

th tuden•s a

~as a " o-

l gave

e s ...

g,,)(j lau !h b sacred um

," for instance. M acaulay's send-up o

f archaeo ogy g

U t als

· ·

b' cts 0 pointed out som

e o f the pitfalls o

f interpret1ng O

JC ·

79

R eading textbooks inde-

pendently requires extensive S

U pP

ort. C ruz &

Thornton /2013), Short /1998)

English language learners need rich and varied

experiences w ith language.

Som etim

es obiects are the only evidence for studying

past cultures.

LaM otta &

Schiffer (2001 )

H odder (2009)

Levstik, H enderson, &

Schlarb (2003}

From an archoeoio!lical

perspective, artifucts refer lo anything m

ade or used by hum

ans.

M acaulay(1993)

A cognitive check can be as simple as asking: "What were the most important things you learned?" or, more specifically, "What evidence did you uncover about lives in Henry Clay's house and lives in the slave quarters?"

Cooperative learning requires structures that ensure students must work together. Aitken & Sinnema (2008/, Cohen ( 1986/, Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec {1993/

Hess (2009/

I D. Lose Three Turns Came ,es, ·d mobiles to illustrate archaeological concepts (d· .

, dents also create . h d . 1sa n . Jenny s stu d h eology· defining strat1grap y an artifact). While !.,'IJ1shin

al ontology an arc a ' • student g between p e . • nd themselves of common terms, they particular! t·k s mad . d of the mobiles to rem1 I d . y I ed a " e goo use d t teacher. The locked, g ass-toppe box displayed . mys. b " d veloped by a stu en . a rotaan tery ox e rized as either artifacts or non-artifacts. When fo . g array b. . that students catego · . ' r instan of o 1ects ,, d h ould it be identified as an artifact? As one student •

1 . ce, ll'as

k ""ust a rock an w enc d k I k exp ained a roe J • 11 h meone used a rock to " o wor , i e kind of reg!lllar h. · , You h d b able to te w en so c ips f a to e "th ,· ust sitting there, not used by humans." · ron, a . e" from a rock at was I th • " . " . . ston . . t f their study of archaeo ogy was e dig. Dig sites ch

The most exciting par O . . . . . anged f d t , nthusiasm never waned. One class participated in an . ton, t year but stu en s e · excavati

year. 0 ' _ the site of Henry Clay's nineteenth-century plantation I on of ossible slave quarters on . . · nterview P th all this experience as one of the most interesting ways to lea b td three years later, ey rec . . . rn a out th

f t dents worked at one of the excavation umts-a series oft • h e Past. Each group o s u . . renc es d

d f th stored plantation house. Students examined strat1graphies (th I ug some yar s rom e re di . . e ayers of . . th • t they helped excavate), screened rt tn search of artifacts and clean ·d

deposits in e urn s . • f . . e , sontd "d .6 d Id b ttles and buttons nails and fragments o china. Archaeologists e and I entl 1e o o ' . . . ncouragtd

thi k b t time clues-the evidence of changing technologies for manufactu . th=to naoo . . . . th ,: d as well as context-the location of artifacts tn the stratigraphy At ob1ects ey ,oun - . . . . · each of

. d t used the skills they practiced m class. As students shifted from 1-ob t . b these sites stu en s . . " o Jo ,one of the boys, muddied and grinning, exclauned that this was the best day o f my life."

By the end of the day when students ga~he~ed on the lawn to discuss their experiences, it was clear that some objects were more easily interpreted than others. They could easily con- clude that iron tools indicated access to manufactured goods, toys the presence of children, and blacksmithing tools the pres~nce of horses. On the other hand, a long, thin metal rail protruding from the side of an excavation led some students to conclude that they had found pan of the Underground Railroad. And, even though they had been excavating slave quarters the majority of the day, some declared that Henry Clay opposed slavery-something a guide had told them during the house tour. Although it required very little discussion before students r: cognized the inconsistency, the ease with which they accepted the guide's interpretation suggests how import- ant "debriefing" can be.

Debriefing conversations offer teachers opportunities to assess what their students are learning and to address misunderstandings quickly. Jenny realized, for instance, that she hadn't made it clear that the Underground Railroad was a secret escape route, not a subway. She was also surprised by how little transfer there was from one activity (excavating the slave quanm) to another (touring the reconstructed home). This is a common problem with field trips. It is easy to assume that students see and hear what we intend them to. As with so many other aspects of teaching, however, careful observation and a relatively quick cognitive check pay enor- mous dividends.

As you can see, many of Jenny's (as well as Linda's) activities require students to work in groups-in fact, most of the activities throughout this book require some kind of cooperation. It's important for teachers to understand the difference between structured group work (often known as cooperative learnini) and simply having students "work together." In order for group tasks to be effective, certain structures and procedures have to be in place. One of the rnoSt

important is that working together is not an option, but is required by th e very nature of th,e assignment. Sometimes this involves assigning roles to group members (so that each s_tudents

t 'b · · · uon 1s to conn utlon ts required to complete the task), but another way of requiring cooperll ·hie have students complete a single task. For example rather than oiving each student a graP .

• e ' b- . ' studen~ organizer to complete and telling them to work together-which always results tn some c sheet working together and some working individually-Linda gives th e entire group 1ust on their to fill out. Of cours d . . . . k 0 ver from e, some stu ents could still decline to participate, or ta e unt· classmates and th· · k · a· idual acco

. . . ' ls reqwres two further elements of effective groupwor : tn iv hingof ability (m which h d . ) d the teac

eac stu ent ts held responsible for learning the content , an . )( ner.i- group skills (in whi h d 1 . . f ffectivc Cl >r . . c stu ents earn and practice the norms and purposes O e eraoon

tton). Just as effecti di · . . •ff> tivc c00P . ve scusstons reqwre that students learn how to discuss, e ec reqwres that stud t I h · en s earn ow to cooperate.

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