Historical Thinking, Tier 1

As fifth grade teachers, I think covering Tier 1 is basically our goal.  We have to provide a solid foundation for the students, because we are their first real stop when it comes to learning history.  It is essential that we teach them that they cannot use the values of the present to understand the past.  I think that doing a first person narrative as a person from the past can help them put themselves in their shoes somewhat.  It will make them have to think about the issues from that historical time.  Just visualizing what things looked like 500 years ago will be important.  We really have to scaffold their learning if we want ten year olds to gain that perspective though.  It is a very high level of thinking.  I think using the SPECs can help here, because it makes them look at the different parts of the history through a different lens.

Writing Assignment

Our group decided to plan ahead for our fifth grade narrative writing next trimester.  We are going to plan a lesson that has the students write a story about the journey of a person or the actual explorer of their choice.  We started to brainstorm which explorers had a compelling story that can be turned into an interesting narrative.  It seems like a very simple assignment, but I think the it fits well for the objective of learning the history and writing.

Fall 2011

When I think about our weeklong workshop, I automatically think of heroes.  Dr. Denenberg leaves quite an impression.  The students in his classes must have learned a lot.  He gave us a lot of "take and use" ideas.  We were given so much information that it is still sinking in today.  The history professor gave us so many interesting stories that it seemed like some of them must have been made up.  I have been reading more about some George Washington's early battles.