Blog Archives

Perfect for Collectors

Teaching students to write presents a range of obstacles. Clearly defining or modeling long form student essay research and writing continues to be a seemingly insurmountable hurdle. National History Day recently posted a simple piece of advice on Twitter advising … Continue reading →

Aside | Posted on February 20, 2014 by | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Mr. Vice President, and Mr. Speaker, and Members of the Senate

One of my many failures as a teacher of U.S. history (or shall we say “areas for development“) is around civics. My curriculum is filled with opportunities for teaching civics, but I rarely track student mastery of these concepts and … Continue reading →

Aside | Posted on February 16, 2014 by | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Definitions and Domains

At Glimmer Train, a former colleague and current friend, Peter Sipe, on building our students’ vocabularies (don’t do it with a dictionary!): Here’s another option. If you’re asked what draft means, explain that grandpa got drafted and hated his two years … Continue reading →

Aside | Posted on February 2, 2014 by | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Environment for Learning History

I came across this “Statement on Excellent Classroom Teaching of History” at the American Historical Association while reading the November 2013 issue of Perspectives on History. Doug Lemov recently posted about some common straw man criticism of history classrooms. I … Continue reading →

Aside | Posted on February 2, 2014 by | Tagged , | Leave a comment