The New History Wars

Post date: Sep 23, 2014 8:49:05 PM

This week we are talking history and its teaching. The goal is to have students understand that we are trying to teach their history class in a way that will give them the skills needed to not only understand the past, but to better understand the forces of their world today and in the future. This can be a challenge for them and it can be difficult for others to understand why the history of our past is not the history of today. Simply put: If the world of our past is not the world of today, how could our history remain the same?

This week we read an opinion piece that was published in the NYTimes. The article can be found HERE. On Tuesday we read through and annotated the article as a group. The reading that students are using has definitions in the border and can be found HERE. You can see an example of what the document might look like after being annotated by the group, HERE are the 2nd Hr. annotations.

On Wednesday the students are working in groups to go through the reading again, using a series of guided questions to help them to understand and put into context the information within the article.

On Thursday, students will write a letter to their parents explaining the skills we want to see in our study of history and explaining why our history might look different than theirs.

Have Questions? Email me at jms@oregonsd.net