Category Archives: primary sources

“I Have A Dream” Celebrating MLK Day

January 21, 2019Civic Engagement, civics, civil rights, constitution, historical thinking, history, lesson plans, literacy, primary sources, reading, resources, speechcassiemedley

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“This is not a black holiday; it is a people’s holiday,” said Coretta Scott King after President Ronald Reagan signed the King Holiday Bill into law on Nov. 2, 1983.

The lesson plans below are great resources that you can use to help teach your students the history surrounding Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and the man himself.

Kansas Council for Economic Education: Martin Luther King Jr. Day
National Park Service: The Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Legacy of Racial and Social Injustice: A Curriculum for Empowerment
National Council for the Social Studies: Close Reading & Discussion “I Have A Dream”
National Education Association: Classroom Resources for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
Center for Civic Education: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Power of Words

What lessons or activities do you use in your classroom, around this holiday, to help educate your students on the importance of this day?

Joel Breakstone & his SHEG civic reasoning tools just rocked #kssscon2018

October 29, 2018Civic Engagement, civics, conference, government, primary sources, strategiesCivic Engagement, civics, stanford, stanford history education groupGlenn Wiebe

joel 3 We all love the Stanford History Education Group. What’s not to like? You get incredible lessons aligned to the NCSS C3 standards. And for us Kansas folks, they aligned perfectly to our state standards. They great for training kids to use evidence, think historically, and develop arguments with evidence.

You get powerful assessments that they call HATs – historical assessments of thinking. Short and sweet, easy to use, summative and formative assessments that help you measure a student’s ability to use evidence, think historically, and develop arguments with evidence.

Yup. The two go hand in glove. Tools for teaching and tools for assessing social studies process skills.

And if you’re not using these two free tools . . . might I suggest you head over and take a look? Cause your brain is about to be blown. Seriously. This is a non-negotiable tool that every history teacher should be using. Cause even if you don’t use their lessons, they’re great as models for your own lessons. (And be sure to steal all of their modified primary sources.)

So we’ve got super awesome lessons, assessments, lesson support all coordinated by Sam Wineburg – historical thinking guru and all around history teaching genius.

But SHEG just got better.

Yup. Better.

Dr. Joel Breakstone, SHEG director, shared the keynote at the 2018 Kansas Social Studies conference this morning. He’s also presenting a couple of breakout sessions.

But this morning, he shared about how SHEG just got better.

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Continue reading Joel Breakstone & his SHEG civic reasoning tools just rocked #kssscon2018 →

Get Out the Vote With Dole!

October 22, 2018best practice, C3 Framework, civics, government, primary sources, resources, strategiesDole Institute of PoliticsKori Green

This week’s contributor is Julie Bergene: Julie Bergene is the public education coordinator at the Dole Institute of Politics in Lawrence. She leads K-12 and family education programs, including on-site, outreach, and online initiatives. Previously, she was an educator at natural history museums and holds a teaching license for secondary biology.

You can catch Julie at the Kansas Social Studies Conference next week: Get Out The Vote – Historically Speaking Monday. Monday October 29, 2018 1:00pm – 1:50pm
MU 250 B: Black and Gold Room ESU Memorial Union 2nd Floor

unnamed Want more access to great primary sources? Seeking to engage your students with voting and debates especially in this election season? Itching to try a new digital breakout game? If you answered yes to any of those questions, you need to attend the session “Get out the vote – historically speaking,” next Monday at 1 pm at the Kansas State Social Studies conference.

Hello, my name is Julie Bergene and I am the Public Education Coordinator at the Dole Institute of Politics in Lawrence. From the great primary sources of the Dole Archives, I will be simulating a document discovery workshop that you can do with your students or I can also come to your school for a free outreach program!

In my conference session, I will present a really interesting look at two constituent letters from Kansans in 1969 (before the 26th Amendment). They give viewpoints of two opposing sides of the right to vote at age 18. By the end of the exercise I hope the students appreciate how interesting primary sources are, understand the difficult decisions that our elected officials have to make on a daily basis, and display how important our public rights are in a democracy. Experience this for yourself in a hands-on demonstration on Monday afternoon. These interactive activities fulfill state standards and can be related to the C3 framework.

Also, I will be presenting a new digital breakout activity based on the Dole Archives. Similar to an escape room but all online, this 45-minute activity gives a great introduction to Senator Bob Dole and his career, while interacting with our online resources like digitized documents. This would be a great pre-assessment tool as you utilize the online Dole Archives primary sources or before your free outreach visit!

I would love to discuss with you how to utilize these free resources and more from the Dole Institute. I look forward to working with you and your students! See you at the conference!

(Pull It, Twist It, Bop It) Flip It: Blended Learning in the Social Studies Classroom

July 16, 2018best practice, Cassie Medley, computer, engaging, geography, lesson plans, literacy, primary sources, reading, resources, strategies, technology, Vocabularycassiemedley

The tired stereotype of the history teacher at the front of the room lecturing from bell to bell, droning on about nothing but names, places, and dates, and never noticing the kids sleeping in the back row needs to be thrown out the window! In its place, how about a teacher that never lectures but instead provides students time to work hands on with the content and apply their learning from bell to bell?

With Flipped Learning, this is possible in every social studies classroom!

flipped graphic_reinertcenter — https://www.slu.edu/cttl/resources/teaching-tips-and-resources/flipped-classroom-resources

Continue reading (Pull It, Twist It, Bop It) Flip It: Blended Learning in the Social Studies Classroom →

SHEG HATs for the win

April 2, 2018assessment, best practice, Glenn Wiebe, historical thinking, lesson plans, primary sources, strategiesassessment, HATs, historical thinking, sam wineburg, sheg, stanford history education groupGlenn Wiebe

I’m not talking about an actual hat. Not a baseball cap. Or a visor. Or a bowler, beanie, beret, or bucket hat.

I’m talking about SHEG HATS.

As in Stanford History Education Group and History Assessments of Thinking.

I’m sure that you’ve been over to the very useful Stanford History Education Group’s site with its three different tools, right? (If you haven’t, mmm . . . go there now and be amazed at how your life will be changed.)

All of us at the KCSS have been pushing Sam Wineburg’s work for years so I’m hoping you’re already familiar with the work his SHEG group has been doing around the idea of reading like a historian. They’ve packaged their work into three chunks – instructional lessons that focus on training kids analyze evidence to solve problems, onlive civic literacy lessons, and wait for it . . . Continue reading SHEG HATs for the win →

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