You Down With OPV?

You down with OPP (Yeah you know me)

You down with OPP (Yeah you know me)

You down with OPP (Yeah you know me)

Who's down with OPP? (Every last homie)

Large chunks of the “OPP” song (by Naughty by Nature, 1991)  are pretty inappropriate for me to send out through work email.    So, don’t think about those parts and we’re all good.

And don’t listen to it on your work computer or with students around. Just saying!

Instead of “OPP”, we’re going to talk about “OPV”

Like Naughty by Nature has said, “O is for Other, P is for People”

The last “V”, well, that’s not so simple.

I won't get into that, I'll do it...uh...sorta properly.

Ok, ok, enough silliness. This IS really a strategy and it IS really called OPV. O= Other; P= People; V=Views.

Our benchmarks ask us to look at multiple perspectives frequently -- particularly with historically underrepresented groups. We even have a benchmark about seeing history through the eyes of the people who lived it.

We also have a current societal problem where people live in echo chambers where they don’t actually experience opposing viewpoints in their social circles -- or if they do, the common response is to ridicule and mock the other side.

So how can we help kids learn to examine Other People’s View? I’m down with OPV (I know i sound old. I can live with that)

OPP, how can I explain it? I'll take you frame by frame it.

This is a hook activity that’s intended to be an introduction to a lesson and should take less than 10 minutes. Other People’s View (OPV) is from CoRT Thinking Tools , an exploration tool to broaden perception. It’s a very important part of thinking to be able to see the different points of view of other people -- not just your own. The OPV helps kids to broaden their (our?) overall thinking about a situation.. ​​​

Here’s how to do it:

•Step 1: Display a photograph (or painting or another visual stimulus)  without giving background information. Have students analyze the photograph. ​​​

•Step 2: In each of the thought bubbles have students individually write what they think the people/animals/objects in the image may be saying, thinking or representing. This step is intended to help students think about different points of view.​​​

•Step 3: Have students share and compare the comments they wrote in the thought bubbles with a partner or in groups. ​​​

•Step 4: Debrief whole class making connections to related concepts and establishing historical context.​​​

The example here shows a famous photo of police dogs and a Civil Rights demonstrator in Birmingham in 1963.  How can students attempt to understand viewpoints of the the demonstrator, the bystanders, the police, --even the dog?  \

How can we get use this tool to get students to look at multiple viewpoints?

We can try this with photographs, of course. But political cartoons and paintings work, too. Here’s a Civil War cartoon about Lincoln. The caption (which may be too small here for you to read), says “Lincoln’s Last Warning: ‘Now, if you don’t come down, I’ll cut the Tree from under you’”.     

This is an easy strategy to set up! Just open a word document, paste the image you want in the center (leaving big margins) and insert the speech-bubbles.

If you don’t know where to find those, go into Word, under “insert” click “shapes”. At the bottom should be several versions of “callouts”. Choose one and resize and flip as needed.

That’s it.

Say OPV I like to say with pride

Now when you do it, do it well and make sure that it counts

You're not down with a discount

You’re down with OPV (Yeah, you know me!)

Don’t forget to have your kids share their thought bubbles together to encourage deeper conversation. It doesn’t have to take long and it encourages creative thinking and multiple viewpoints!

Well if you do, that's OPP and you're now down with it

But if you’re not, here's your membership

You’re down with OPV.

Yeah? You know me?

Email me! Tell me how OPV goes!

-Tracy

Oh, Crop!

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:

1. Print and cut a bunch of “Crop It” tools https://www.teachinghistory.org/sites/default/files/2018-08/crop_it_tools.pdf
2. Choose multiple images for your kids to dig into. Consider some such as:
1. Various sources like cartoons, propaganda, advertisements, newspaper articles, etc.
2. Sources that represent multiple perspectives on a topic
3. Sources depicting the different people, places, events within a unit.
4. Sources representing perspectives missing from the textbook.
3. 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.
4. 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:

1. Connects to an experience they have had
2. Relates to something they know about
3. Leaves them with questions
4. Evokes their curiosity

Step Two: Explore the Image

1. Pass out two “Crop It” tools to each student.
2. 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.
3. 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:
1. Crop to show what first caught your eye. Think: Why did you notice this part?
2. Crop to show who or what this image is mainly about. Think: Why is this person or thing important?
3. Crop to a clue where this takes place. Think: What has happened at this place?
4. 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.

1. 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.
2. 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