History for me was a special topic due to my father. His stories were my primary source about the world, politics and the events that had changed society from 1911 to 1986. He had been born in 1911 and had a brother who served in WWI and another who served in WWII. In my mind’s eye, History was going to be a class of storytelling but when reality hit I was quickly disillusioned. The text book was thicker than any I had ever seen and the content was dry, factual, specific and lacked any of the qualities of my dad’s stories. Thankfully, he taught me how to navigate the text and introduced me to microfiche and autobiographies which helped add color to the stark black and white perspectives presented in the text. Although the act of cross referencing the text contents with primary sources and original recounts was tedious this process helped fill in the detail which had been scrubbed out of the text. With each passing History class I learned more about the quality of a text book, the validity of sources and how perspectives can change from one edition to another. History is still a subject I thoroughly enjoy and understand because I was taught how to use a critical eye in assessing the source and ways to triangulate any proposed theories. However, many students are not lucky enough to have a living breathing historian in their midst and for them History is a boring topic that couldn't be further removed from their everyday life. The Challenge of Historians The materials that a teacher has available to use can have an enormous impact on the delivery and uptake of the content. History by its very nature is both broad and deep therefore it is one of the more complex studies to teach. The materials are a cumulative collecti... ... middle of paper ... ...orical content in packaging that is more likely to be acceptable and navigable for today's youth. Works Cited Gewertz, C. (2012, December ). History Lessons Blend Content Knowledge, Literacy . Education Digest , pp. 11-16. MacPhee, D. A., & Whitecotton, E. J. (2011). Bringing the "Social" Back to Social Studies: Literacy Strategies as Tools for Understanding History. The Social Studies, 102, pp. 263-267. Reynaud, D. (2011). Dealing with historicl movies in the Hisotry and English classroom. Research & Scholarship , 48-52. Scheuerell, S. (2009, March). The Avalon Project: Using Literacy STrategies with Primary Sources on the Internet. Social Studies Research and Practice, 4(1), pp. 71-81. Schlepegrell, M. J., Greer, S., & Taylor, S. (2008, June). Literacy in history: Language and meaning. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 31, pp. 174-187.
Finding a definition of literacy is not as easy as it sounds. The Webster definition says that to be literate is to be” able to read and write.” But to some researchers, this definition is too simplistic, leading to multiple models of literacy. Most Americans adhere to the autonomous model, which falls closest to the standard, dictionary definition. Believers in this form say that literacy is a cognitive activity that students learn like any other basic skill. It has a set of proficiencies that one must master in order to be capable of decoding and encoding text (Alvermann, 2009; SIL International, 1999). A competing theory is the ideological model, which claims literacy is intrinsically linked to culture, and therefore what constitutes a “literate” individual is ever-changing. Society is the largest influence on literacy, according to this thought, and it is affected by politics, religion, philosophy and more (Alvermann, 2009; SIL International, 1999). These two are just the tip of the iceberg. For example, some studies recognize “literacy as competence,” which is a “measure of competence to do a given task or work in a given field,” (SIL International, 1999) such as being computer literate. Although more researchers are recognizing and exploring multiple literacies, the one that most influences American schools is the autonomous, cognitive model – the ability to read and write. For many, it seems a simple task, but millions of adolescents are struggling or reluctant readers, and there are many reasons why young readers have difficulty with reading. XXXXXX------NEED HELP WITH THESIS STATEMENT HERE PLEASE—(This paper will focus on the effects of low reading skills, some of the possible causes of reluctant and struggling readership...
One of the propositions Barton and Hamilton include when defining the nature of literacy is “Literacy is best understood as a set of social practices; these can be inferred from
History has many examples of these three themes, and to record them all, you would need to write a book. The three themes discussed in this paper have been used to inform and teach young students that history is important; Therefore, it is important to know your history; if you don't learn from history, then you are doomed to repeat
...History and World History, a professor only has a small portion of one class session to teach, for example, the Cold War. The devotion to a topic in such a large scale could become even more desperate because now teachers have to teach a whole new world of vocabulary along with the historical vocabulary that is necessary for students to succeed in future history classes.
Jones Diaz, C. (2007). Literacy as social practice. In L. Makin, C. Jones Diaz & L. McLachlan (Eds.), Literacies in childhood: Changing views, challenging practice. (pp. 203-216).Marrickville, NSW: Elsevier.
Hart, Diane, Bert Bower, and Jim Lobdell. History alive!:. Palo Alto, Calif.: Teachers' Curriculum Institute, 2002. Print.
To study history, the facts and information must be passed down. To do so, historians record the information in textbooks and other nonfiction works. Whether or not the historians retell facts or construct their own version of history is debatable. History can be percieved as being “constructed” by the historians due to their bias, elimination of controversy, strive for entertainment, and neglect to update the information.
Zinn, H. (2007). Why Students Should Study History. In W. e. Au, Rethinking Our Classrooms, Volume 1 (pp. 179-181). Milwaukee: Rethinking Schools.
The overall, topic for this week’s reading is Social Studies Textbooks and what is there point of view. In Loewen’s book, Lies My Teacher Told Me, the author makes the point that books show one-sided viewpoint of historical figures, fail to show conflict happening today, and fail to present multiple sides of an issue. The second article by David Tyack, Monuments Between Covers, talks about the idea to show that our past was full of right moments and if anything that was immoral was a small part and no big deal. Tyack points out the constant influence from political groups with different agendas fighting to influence and control what textbooks tell our countries’ children. In the last reading History Lesson by Dana Lindaman talks about the view point of American History throughout the world’s public schools’ textbooks. Overall, each of the countries diminished the role their nation played in terrible events and criticized other nations for their actions.
Literacy in the 21st century is multidimensional with Giroux arguing “Teaching and learning the culture of the book is no longer the staple of what it means to be literate” (Arthur, 2001, p.183).
Reading, writing and arithmetic, these three subjects are the basic outline for American schools. In those subjects, where does history fit in? Some believe that teachers avoid history because of how corrupt America has been. James W. Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me, says, "Parents may feel undermined when children get tools of information not available to adults and use them in ways that seem to threaten adult-held values." (Loewen 296.) The adults had to learn the same false history children are being taught today. By teaching children the truth about history, are adults risking the authority they hold along with adult-held values?
I walked out of sophomore AP world history and human geography not only with greater historical awareness, but also the ability to utilize that awareness to engage with other disciplines. In pushing beyond mere identification and recall, APWH challenged me to shift away from passively accepting information at face-value, to understand how context and rhetoric framed knowledge. In constantly deconstructing the nature of historical and empirical evidence and the lenses in which objects of scrutiny are extracted-- especially those defined by conflict and transformations--, I learned to be conscientious of how authors’ material conditions and interests shaped the presentation of given narratives. In-class emphasis of making historical connections while reading became ingrained into my
The twenty-first century has arrived, and it has brought some of the most advanced computing technologies into the classroom; this leaves us with a very important question, do we really need technology, such as iPads or computers, implemented in our learning plans? As a student that has taken entire courses on iPads or computers, I can tell you that the former is not the case. There are plenty of reasons to teach about technological advances in each individual field of learning, but, more often than not, technology is unreliable and distracting for students. Not to mention that methods of maintenance rehearsal, like taking notes by hand, are more effective for recollection of information than staring into a screen. The bottom line is, using technology as a tool for education in the classroom is not necessary because it can inhibit the way students learn material.
When most people think about history they remember a boring class they took in school a long time ago, they recall memorizing important dates, taking map tests, and falling asleep while listening to a lecture. The truth is that history really is an important subject to be teaching students. History is more than just some lecture you receive in class, history lets us look back, see the good things and the bad things, it allows us to learn from our mistakes and prevent such mistakes from happening in the future. Things that happened in the past are still changing things that are happening today. History is needed for everyone, from government leaders down to individuals; everyone has learned one thing or another from history at some point in their life.
National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (1999) The History Curriculum, Dublin- The Stationery Office.Gray, A. Contructivist Teaching and Learning. University of Saskatchewan, The Road to Knowledge is Always Under Construction'- A Life History Journey to Constructivist Teaching.O’ Sullivan, E. (2014) Constructivism in the History Class. Unpublished MIC Lecture-