Do you ever show your kids an image, political cartoon, map, chart graph, etc., and find that kids focus on the One Thing in the image and then miss all the “small stuff” and the details?
Oooorrrrr .....
Do you ever find a great image (or map or graph or chart or painting or photo or ....) in your book or somewhere and ask your kids, “Can you look at the small bottom left corner”, “do you see the thing near the top”? “Look at the third column on the graph” ...
And then take 10 minutes trying to get everyone to see what you’re trying to show them?
Oooorrrrrr ....
Do you ever struggle with fitting in multiple perspectives into some lessons?
I like to say,”Oh Crop!” when that happens.
(not really. But it sounds funny)
If you’d like to use more visuals in your class (paintings, sculptures, photographs, maps, charts, graphs, political cartoons, etc.), but you find it annoying and frustrating, check out this “Crop It” strategy!
Here it goes!
What is it? “Crop It” is a hands-on learning routine where teachers pose questions and students use paper cropping tools to deeply explore a visual primary source.
Why Use it? Life moves pretty fast. We see thousands of images a day and we don’t give many of them more than a second or two of our attention. “Crop It” slows us down to provide time for students to think and to examine the details that they might otherwise miss. It also helps them “get into the head” of the artist (or creator) of the visual.
Prep:
Print and cut a bunch of “Crop It” tools https://www.teachinghistory.org/sites/default/files/2018-08/crop_it_tools.pdf
- Choose multiple images for your kids to dig into. Consider some such as:
- Various sources like cartoons, propaganda, advertisements, newspaper articles, etc.
- Sources that represent multiple perspectives on a topic
- Sources depicting the different people, places, events within a unit.
- Sources representing perspectives missing from the textbook.
Print enough so that every kid (or pair of kids) have an image and a set of Crop It Tools. Multiple kids can have the same image. You don’t need thirty different images. You can have 5 or 6.
- Prepare some higher order thinking questions to accompany the images on the board or screen.
Step One: Ask kids to choose an image that either:
- Connects to an experience they have had
- Relates to something they know about
- Leaves them with questions
- Evokes their curiosity
Step Two: Explore the Image
- Pass out two “Crop It” tools to each student.
Demonstrate how to use the “Crop It” tools to focus on a particular piece of a source. Students can make various sizes of triangles, rectangles, and lines of “crop” to focus attention on an important part of the source.
- Invite students to carefully explore their image by using the tools. Pose a question and ask students to look carefully and “crop” to show an answer. Some example questions might include:
- Crop to show what first caught your eye. Think: Why did you notice this part?
- Crop to show who or what this image is mainly about. Think: Why is this person or thing important?
- Crop to a clue where this takes place. Think: What has happened at this place?
- Invite kids to use divergent thinking. Where ELSE could you crop to answer the question?
4. Let kids look at other students’ crops, to see what their images showed and what they focused on.
Step Three: Collect evidence.
- Collect evidence that students cropped on the board or on chart paper by asking them recall the details they cropped and list that evidence. These charts encourage students to notice details that can be used later.
- Relate the evidence back to your Learning Goal (benchmark) or LEarning targets or Essential Questions.
Be careful of ...
- Asking too many questions during Step Two, Keep it moving quickly so kids don’t get off task and so they stay focused on their primary source.
What do you think? Is it worth a try? Do you have enough copies left this month to make a class set of “crop it” tools? Remember -- download them from here and make copies https://www.teachinghistory.org/sites/default/files/2018-08/crop_it_tools.pdf
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