Keep Looking

We live in a fast world. We have the answer to most factual questions in our pocket, in the form of smart phones. We text each other and expect quick replies. We love Twitter, with its fast, 140 character limit and we adore Snapchat, where our pictures disappear just as quickly.

With the missed hurricane days, we are all trying to move at warp speed, too.

But sometimes, a slowdown can be a speed-up at the same time.

Like this strategy, called, “Looking 10x2” from Harvard Project Zero: Artful Thinking.

If you do it well, you actually get farther by slowing down.

You will use this strategy with an image -- a painting, a photograph, a political cartoon, a picture of an artifact. If you’re not sure where to start, try your textbook or curriculum materials.

Here’s how the strategy works. It’s pretty simple.

1. Instruct the students to look at the image quietly for at least 30 seconds. Have them let their eyes wander.
2. Ask them to list 10 words or phrases about any aspect of the image.
3. Repeat steps 1 & 2. Have the students look at the same image again and try to list ten more words or phrases to your list.

This thinking routine encourages students to slow down and make careful, detailed observations by encouraging them to push beyond first impressions and obvious features.

How often do we (AND our students) look at a visual for 3 seconds or less before moving on? Before looking at our phones? Before assuming that we’ve “got it” and speeding along?

But there are a billion powerful images to use to teach content in our classes. Try it yourself with images like this ...

.

Or this...

Or this ...

Think about the time involved. If you put up the image in front of your students and then explain it TO them, it will take you several minutes.

I’m long winded. I could easily spend 5 whole minutes on one of these images.

But if you put it up, ask them to look for 30 seconds, jot down ten things they notice, look again, and jot down ten MORE things -- then you have four clear benefits.

1. The kids are doing the thinking (and you have proof!)
2. It takes 2-3 minutes (as opposed to my five minutes of talking and another minute or two to answer the question from that one kid who always has a question.
3. The kids “own” their learning and it will therefore “stick” better in their brains.
4. The kids are examining the image more carefully and more deeply and therefore will have deeper understanding of the image and the topic.

You can also use it with non-art images or objects as well, although I would start with art to teach the strategy.

I think you can slow down with “Looking 10x2” and cover images more thoroughly, which means you actually speed up.

Practice it yourself, so you can experience the struggle of finding a SECOND set of observations before you ask your kids to try it.

Have you used this before? Are you going to try it? As always, I love to hear about it! Email me at newmantr@pcsb.org

What Are You Talking About?

Pop Quiz! Check your reading skills in the following passage and tell me what it’s about:

The procedure is actually quite simple. First you arrange things into different groups. Of course, one pile may be sufficient depending on how much there is to do. If you have to go elsewhere due to lack of facilities, that is the next step, otherwise you are pretty well set. It is important not to overdo things. That is, it is better to do too few things at once than too many. In the short run, this may not seem important but complications can easily arise. A mistake can be expensive as well. At first, the whole procedure will seem complicated. Soon, however, it will become just another facet of life. After the procedure is completed one arranges the materials into different groups again. Then they can be put into their appropriate places. Eventually, they will be used once more and the whole cycle will then have to be repeated. However, that is part of life.

Quick! What is the passage about?

Without context, it’s pretty hard to tell, isn’t it?

One of the more difficult parts of teaching Social Studies is the kids’ lack of background knowledge.

Now -- disclaimer! Kids will NOT have the kinds of background that you-the-college-educated-adult has. OF COURSE NOT!  They’re kids!

So how can we help them build some background knowledge -- while acknowledging that it won’t be as much as we wish it was?

I have a strategy! Let’s try a Predict-o-Gram!

What is it? It’s a way of giving kids a chance to build some (not college-levels) background knowledge.

1. How do I do this?
1. Before class, choose a few terms that are central to the understanding of the upcoming text. They do not have to be “vocabulary” words in the traditional sense. They can be familiar words mixed with new-vocab to give students a good starting place.
2. Read an intro paragraph to the students.
3. Give the students the pre-selected terms from the text
4. Ask them (in pairs) to use what they heard/read in the first paragraph AND the terms you share to predict what the text will be about.
5. Have them write one prediction and one question they will have about the text.
6. After they read, go back and revisit their predictions and questions. Have them add to  or fix their predictive sentence and answer their own question.

2. How do I keep my kids on task?
1. Keep it short. Select your text judiciously. Use something that has a useful (not so “hooky”) first paragraph.
2. Select your terms judiciously too. Mix some unfamiliar vocab with some familiar terms.

3. Why should I try this one?
1. It uses the “Explore” from the 5 Es in a useful and short way.
2. It helps kids build background knowledge for the text they are about to read. It gives them context for the text.
3. It gives kids a purpose for reading.

4. What could go wrong?
1. You could choose words that aren’t part of the central idea. Make sure they are related to the main idea.
2. You could choose words that are too difficult or too easy and the kids give up. Make sure to give a good mix of terms.
3. Your kids might get the impression that they have to use all the terms in the prediction sentence. They don’t. They just have to get a “gist” of the text.
4. You could forget to use it again in wrap-up.

I predict this will be about….	One question I have is …..
Now I know …	To answer myself, ….

Let’s try it!

Here’s my Predict-o-Gram words:

Can you predict what the passage is about using what you read in the first paragraph and these terms?

Terms: Women, suffrage, vote, amendment, ratified, wages, arrested.

Here’s the first paragraph.

Victory for Woman Suffrage

In the early 20th century, Carrie Chapman Catt and the National American Woman Suffrage Association lobbied at every level of government while Alice Paul and the National Woman’s Party lobbied and took part in other forms of civil disobedience.  They were attacked, arrested, imprisoned, and force-fed.  Support for woman suffrage grew.

Can you see how with those terms and a first paragraph, kids will now have a little background knowledge before you talk about the passage of the 19th amendment? They won’t have TONS, but they’re not starting a cold read, either.

What do you think about a Predict-O-Gram to help develop background knowledge? It should be short and sweet -- no wasted time. Five minutes, tops.

Have you used it? Or have questions? As always, email me at newmantr@pcsb.org

Hurricane History

* please forgive my typos and mistakes. I'm typing from the car. 

First and foremost, I hope you and your loved ones are safe and ok. 

It has been a wild week, hasn't it? The evacuations, the hunkering down, the junk food (that wasn't just me, was it?), the usage of our collective armature meteorology skills, the lack of power, the brush-clearing, the constant Florida sweating, the waiting for power.

We have all just lived through a major historical event. Together. 

Irma was historic in many ways: the 37 continued hours at 185+ mph, the largest evacuation in American History, the largest power restoration effort in American History, the longest stretch of no-school hurricane days in MY memory, the widespread damage from the Keys to Jacksonville to Naples and even into Georgia and South Carolina.

Even if Tampa Bay "dodged a bullet", as all the news reports keep saying, it was still a big darn deal to all of us. 

When kids come back to school Monday, many of them are going want to swap Irma stories. Heck, most adults I know are going to want o swap Irma stories. 

And some kids won't want to talk about it. And that's ok, too. 

This is a chance to teach about the many different stories that make up historical events. 

This would be a great opportunity for your kids to write about their Irma stories and compare a few (being SUPER sensitive about kids who may have been genuinely traumatized either personally or by connection)

You may consider sharing your Irma story and sharing another Irma story (maybe a student volunteer or one from the news). 

Then, discuss whose story was the "true" or "real" story of Irma. 

Chances are, your students can tell you immediately that there is no one "true" or "real" story of Irma. Instead, major events are made up of many different perspectives that are complied to make History-with-a-capital-H. 

And that's the point to history. History is never ONE narrative, written by ONE person to create The Textbook. 

Instead, History is created by thousands of stories, complied together to create a bigger picture. 

We were all a part of history this week. Until we are 100+ years old, we will remember where we were during Hirricane Irma and what our communities were like. What effects they felt. How they acted.

And while we're discussing this week as History, remember how many variations exist. Not everyone evacuated. Not everyone lost power. Not everyone suffered damage. Not everyone boarded up. Not everyone hunkered down. 

This is history. 

And if kids can understand history in this way with Irma, it will make it easier when they look at the many varied stories that make up the American Revolution or the Plague or the Great Migration. 

On a personal note, I'm writing this as I ride "shotgun" as we head home from Tennessee, where we evacuated. I-75 is closed due to flooding in North Florida, so we're learning all different back roads today. 

My story is different from your story. But added together, we make the story of Florida (and Georgia and Souh Carolina) during HurricaneIrma. 

This is how History is written - many different stories. And every one of us is a part of history, particularly this week. 

How can you use Irma to discuss history and geography and government economics this week? 

And if you want some more thoughts about teaching after Irma, check out these thoughtful ideas from a counselor who worked with schools after Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita - https://m.facebook.com/patti.m.ezell/posts/10214304169257010 

My favorite was the "don't rush to catch up on pacing" one. 

Again, I hope you all are well and getting back to normal! 

 See you soon! 

-Tracy

More Matters

I decided recently that I need to get a stronger upper body. So, I bought some small hand weights and I asked my husband to show me some weight lifting exercises. And then, I tried a couple of the exercises but I wasn’t doing them quite right. So we both decided that since he was good at it and I wasn’t, he should just lift the weights for me. All the time.

Hahahaha!!! Nooooooo, not really!

You’re thinking, “Tracy, that’s ridiculous! The only way to get better at weight lifting is to ...actually lift weights.

But I do think that’s what many of us do with reading in Social Studies. We want the kids to improve their reading, so we ask them to read something.

And then, they don’t do it very well because they are all kids and because some of them are not strong readers and others are not very into Social Studies and others are intimidated by the term “Amendment” or “Timbuktu” or “progressivism” and others looked at the single-spaced long (to them) piece of text and gave up before they started.

And then we say, “OMG! These kids can’t read!”

And then we say, “Since they can’t read, I had better do the reading for them”.

And then we put it in a powerpoint or a handout or in bullet points or fill in the blank or another actual language (for ELL students) ...

And then the kids don’t actually have to read.

We do all the reading for the kids.

And then we are frustrated when their reading doesn’t improve.

Huh.

I read recently a PSA campaign about fruits and vegetables that says “More Matters”. The idea behind the PSA is that just eating an apple a day isn’t enough. The more fruits and veggies you eat, the healthier you are.

They’re probably right. I should increase my fruit and veggie consumption if I’m not going to lift any weights myself  

But I would like to suggest that you apply the “more matters” philosophy to your students and pieces of text.

More TEXT matters.

Kids should have the opportunity to have their eyes on text every day in your class -- and  different texts. They should have maps and charts and graphs and textbook-style readings and primary source documents and secondary source documents and articles and political cartoons and artworks ...

All. The. Time.

And if your kids stink at reading?

Then they need to read MORE!! (It’s called productive struggle and it’s a powerful thing)

Of course, you will have to bust out all your strategies:

• Chunk the text
• Have kids mark the text
• Have them talk about the text.
• Have them write about it
• Have them think about it
• Have them read it again
• Have them respond in writing
• And about 1000 more reading strategies...

And when they aren’t good at it?

Try it again.  They need to read again!! That’s how they improve. Productive struggle is how we grow. Don’t take away that chance for kids to struggle for themselves.

I’m going to go work with my weights. And see if I can improve.  

How about you? How about your kids? Can you have them try “productive struggle” with text every day? Different text, different strategies, but stil working with text.

More Matters.

Email me! newmantr@pcsb.org

Start With Skills

It’s the beginning of the year. You’re still learning kids’ names. You’re still teaching classroom procedures. You’re still waiting for everybody to have their supplies. You’re still feeling the back-to-school total exhaustion.  

You’ve just started content and realized that your kids have no historical thinking skills. They look at you blankly when you even suggest that such a thing as “historical thinking skills” exist (even though you KNOW their social studies teacher from last year and you KNOW that they learned those skills.)

How do you know that they have no historical thinking skills (yes, those skills do exist!)? People who struggle with historical thinking skills often...

• ...Believe that there is only one answer to historical questions
• ...Talk about history in terms of “good guys” and “bad guys”
• ...Think history is boring and are bored with facts
• ...Wonder why  we need to learn history at all
• ...Think that all history is knowable (and that it’s all in the textbook)
• ...Believe that there is only one side to the story
• ...Can’t distinguish a good source from a blog by a weirdo
• ...Don’t have evidence to back up their claims

It’s time to adapt

The Stanford History Education Group (SHEG) has put together some fantastic, adaptable, brief mini-lessons that are fun and engaging -- and that teach historical thinking skills.

Some you could do in 10 minutes as a turn-and-talk and then debrief. Some would be more in depth.

But if you want to set the stage for the year and teach your students historical thinking skills explicitly and intentionally -- I would try these.

--Side note! These will make everything you try to do with historical thinking easier throughout the year. The will give the kids the skills they need in your class and on The Test.  

Check it out.

*Disclaimer. You will need to set up a free account with SHEG, if you haven’t done so already. Don’t worry. They won’t spam you or annoy you with email.

1. Lunchroom Fight: A fight breaks out in the lunchroom and the principal needs to figure out who started it. But when she asks witnesses, she gets conflicting accounts. Helps students understand how we know what we know about history and gets into using and evaluating sources.
2. Snapshot Autobiography:  What is history? And why do historical accounts differ? In this lesson, students create brief autobiographies and then reflect on the process to better understand how history is written.  
3. Evaluating Sources:  Are all historical sources equally trustworthy/ How might the reliability of a historical document be affected by the circumstances under which it was created? In this mini-lesson, students sharpen their ability to source documents and learn to think critically about what sources provide the best evidence to answer historical questions.
4. Make your case!: This lesson is about the skill of corroboration. To practice this historical thinking skill, students  evaluate and corroborate different accounts of who vandalized a locker room and who started a fight in a lunchroom.

Like building your classroom culture and your relationships with students, building historical thinking skills is something that takes a little time in the beginning of the year but that pays off greatly as the year goes on.

Try one and let me know how it goes! As always, I love to hear from you! newmantr@pcsb.org

-Tracy