Exploring Emerging America’s Windows on History Program

Since 2006, Emerging America’s Windows on History program has mobilized more than 30 research teams of K-12 students with their teachers and in partnership with historical societies, museums, town and college libraries, expert individuals, and other very local resources. Students learn to think historically as they track down primary sources to tell the story of their communities and their place in the world. This is the second in our series of close-ups on these sites.

Meekins Library Archivist, Daria D'Arienzo shows how to interact with primary source documents.

Fourth and fifth grade students at the Hilltown Cooperative Charter School published their research at: Colonial Voices of Williamsburg. The site lays out students’ entire path of discovery, including: photos and discussions from visits to local archives, student-created traditional Colonial floor cloths, a historical timeline, and ultimately, the gravestone of Master, Jonathan Warner.

Document Excerpt:
…Bind the aforesaid John Curtis with his consent Apprintice to Jonathan Warner of Williamsburgh in the County of hampshire Yeoman to learn his art trade or mystery being a house Carpenter or Joiner after the manner of an apprintis to Serve him from the day of the Date hereof for and During the full term of four years three months and twenty days…

Students began their investigation into a 1771 indenture document at the Williamsburg, Massachusetts Historical Society. Having seen the real thing, they knew where the document came from and when. Now they gave it a close reading, picking out characteristics (old yellowed paper, stained, old-fashioned cursive, lots of signatures, probably a legal document). Once they figured out that it bound an apprentice to his master, they explored what the master had to do (teach a trade, and provide him with room and board) and what the apprentice had to do (obey) and not do (marry, leave, gamble, drink, etc.). Students discussed what these obligations might say about social relations in the era. Then they brainstormed where they could find out about these two people and their era.

Teacher, Laurie Risler, turns every class into a research and publishing laboratory where the skills of inquiry are the core lesson. (Though inevitably, such projects also spark students to retain far more than the usual degree of content knowledge.) In this case, students’ journey led them to two local archives and ultimately to the master’s grave site. Among other findings, both men fought in the Continental Army during the Revolution. Risler’s students learn to question creatively and systematically. Their website beautifully documents the process of investigation and conveys something of their sense of wonder and persistence.

1964 King and Malcolm X, (Library of Congress)

In Fairbury, Nebraska–pop. 5,000–where I grew up in the 1960s, there lived literally zero black people. It was not by chance: the Klan and its allies had driven blacks out of much of the rural Midwest. (My parents’ Civil Rights advocacy found scant welcome in my home town. But that’s another story.) When I was in 6th grade, my older, wiser brother (a 9th grader) handed me the Autobiography of Malcolm X and set me on a journey that compels me still.

More recently, two scholars in our Teaching American History (TAH) program reset my world view as powerfully as my brother did back in 1971.

At our 2010 TAH Summer program, Manisha Sinha, UMass Amherst, presented a powerful case that African Americans were the critical factor in the Union’s Civil War victory. Lincoln himself declared the 186,000 black soldiers to be essential. This figure excludes many thousands more black civilians who fed the Army, moved it, and built its fortifications. At least as important, escaping slaves hollowed out the Southern economy, helped split the white South along class lines, and ultimately forced Lincoln’s hand on Emancipation.

In the Fall of 2010, Rob Romer’s groundbreaking study, Slavery in the Connecticut Valley of Massachusetts, established with inarguable evidence a higher rate of slavery in the colony (8%–in the town he studied) than the estimates accepted for more than 200 years. Romer also gave me the insight that the ultimate seed of Abolitionism germinated not among enlightened whites–as I had long heard, but in generations of resistance, including decades of advocacy in the courts by African Americans. My understanding had circled back to the self-empowerment philosophy of Malcolm X.

For a richly textured immersion into the world of 1840s Abolitionism, including the ministry of Sojourner Truth, I am proud to refer you to our own Online Exhibit, Radical Equality.

Watch this blog for further installments on this great strand of American History.

I invite insights on the quality of two intriguing secondary sources, brought to my attention by Suzanne Judson-Whitehouse. Please look them up and comment here.

- Slavery and the Making of America -by James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Orton
‘The part I liked from the review’ (SJW): “the authors describe the slaves’
valiant struggles to free themselves from bondage”

- Child-Sized History — Fictions of the Past in US Classrooms by Sara Schwebel
“her book recounts how the [traditional] time-worn canon [of
historical fiction] came to be and how it mean be used in the
classroom to deepen historical understanding about such topics as
Native Americans, wartime, and tensions between black and white.”

World War II marked a watershed for American identity, equality and opportunity. Advocates called bastions of racism into question and for the first time effectively challenged many aspects of discrimination. The war gave minorities (including women) a chance to contribute in a noticeable way to American society. It was not an easy transition. Horrifying reactions occurred.

Axis propagandists used America racism to knock America off its high horse of moral superiority. An excellent book utilizing personal accounts from this time period is Double Victory, by Professor Ronald Takaki (Back Bay Books, Little, Brown and Co. New York). Takaki gives an overview of many ethnic stories of striving for American identity. The phrase double victory refers to a February 7, 1942 letter to the editor of the Pittsburgh Courier from James G. Thompson, encouraging equality for people of color in the United States. “The first V for victory over our enemies from without, the second V for victory over our enemies from within.” Link to a wiki on the impact of the Double Victory Campaign. (The “Double V for Victory” button by the page title leads to a unique large photo of a Double V rally.)

Although the concept of Double Victory was conceived from an African American view, Takaki perceptively expands its impact on a multitude of ethnic identities. A resonant theme in the book is how each person felt very strongly that America was their home and personal identity in spite of the historical treatment of their ethnicity. World War II was a uniting factor for American identity and a flowering of equality in American society.

The Library of Congress also offers materials on African American struggles for equality in World War II. The Library of Congress also presents audio links of interviews with people responding to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Exploring Emerging America’s Windows on History Program

Since 2006, Emerging America’s Windows on History program has mobilized more than 30 research teams of K-12 students with their teachers and in partnership with historical societies, museums, town and college libraries, expert individuals, and other very local resources. Students learn to think historically as they track down primary sources to tell the story of their communities and their place in the world.

Seven Towns and Their Moments in History

Since before the American Revolution, it has been common knowledge in Western Massachusetts that there lies a tension between the wealthy centers of farming and trade along the Connecticut River and the steep, rocky, and isolated “Hilltowns.” Yet these small towns, like communities everywhere, have sometimes played outsized roles at key turning points of our nation’s history.

Over the winter of 2010-2011, Dawne Piers-Gamble’s eighth graders at Gateway Regional Middle School, in Huntington, Massachusetts set out to uncover and publish some of those stories at: Gateway Hilltown History. In addition to a host of primary sources, such as census data, maps, town histories, employment data, and images such as the one displayed here, students pored over such secondary sources as a 1982 Historical Commission survey, a 2004 study of New England mill towns, and a 1916 History of Paper Manufacturing. Students also hiked part of the route of the Boston to Albany Railroad and interviewed historical reenactors. Here are a few highlights from their retelling of this multi-layered American tale:

In the 1730s, English settlers from existing towns such Springfield and Westfield, petitioned the General Court in Boston, for land in what today are Blandford, Chester, Huntington, Middlefield, Montogmery, Russell and Worthington:

• In the winter of 1775, General Henry Knox brought cannons through this area by sled from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston. Those new roads in turn hastened settlement.
• Many Hilltown Patriot veterans sided with angry farmer Regulators against Boston and Northampton merchants and speculators in what came to be called Shays Rebellion.
• In 1791, the now wealthy Henry Knox first proposed building a canal from Boston to Albany. The ambitious route proved too expensive–until the railroad linked the cities in 1841, one key piece of a growing international market economy.
• In a typical Industrial Revolution story, in 1855, a paper mill at Crescent Mills was one of only eight in the nation. Eighty men produced 13.6 percent of all paper made in America.

Emerging America embraces social media as a means to fulfill our mission to provide high-quality professional development to K-12 teachers on History, primary sources, and the Common Core State Standards. Quality professional development is more than just attending workshops and seminars. It requires a sustained process of learning and developing ideas about how our work impacts students. Social media offers a space where this kind of development can continue long after the workshops are over.

Army Signal Corps working wireless in the field. (Library of Congress)

Through Facebook, Twitter, and regular updates to our blog, we will:

• Feature stories of local and national historical importance.

• Identify engaging primary sources.
• Share information about new and upcoming programs at Emerging America.
• Let you know where Rich and Suzanne are, and what they are up to.
• Explore the new Common Core State Standards and ways you can implement them in your classroom.
• Welcome expert teachers and scholars to join in the discussion.

Social media is a way to connect with you where you are.

• “Like” our Facebook page to receive notices about upcoming workshops, programs and deadlines right in your News Feed.

• Follow us on Twitter to hear the latest news about what’s going on in the world of history education — events, resources, publications and grants — and receive updates from Emerging America programs.
• Read our blog, which features what’s hot in the world of history education. You can subscribe to it by RSS feed or use a feed reader to have the latest posts sent directly to you.

Social media can’t be only us speaking from our world. We all want to hear from you

• What’s is exciting–or challenging–in your classroom?

• What inspires you?
• What can you–should you–share with colleagues?
• What do you want to know more about?

So come and read our blog, “like” our Facebook Page, and follow us on Twitter. Most of all, please join the discussion!

Rich Cairn, Director, Emerging America
Suzanne Judson-Whitehouse, Assistant Director, Emerging America

Rep. Preston beats Sen. Sumner. 1856.

In actuality, by most measures, political violence has declined enormously in recent years. The Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995 marked the last large-scale eruption of wholly domestic political violence in the U.S.

Deeper questions arise:
- To what extent does the American Political system effectively allay violence by offering genuine change through voting and other nonviolent means? Does the system effectively balance the factions that James Madison envisioned in Federalist 10?
- Do mass media today only inflame passions? Or do they also provide a vital outlet for unpopular and contrarian views?
- What other factors are at play?

For one source of rich debate steeped in primary sources and thoughtful analysis, I recommend the ongoing discussion on Civility on the Constitution Daily, blog of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. The Center is a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to education and debate about citizenship and of course, our own Federal Constitution. Recent articles include “Should the people be able to veto Supreme Court decisions?” and an “opinion lab” for classroom use, asking, “Is divided government good or bad for the country?” Sign in, and speak up.

The Common Core approaches the content areas (Social Studies and the Sciences) with a particular emphasis on literacy. This has several implications.

First, note that literacy in the Common Core means listening and speaking as well as reading and writing. Audio files from the Library of Congress, for example, have an important role to play. Further, English Language Arts components of the standards incorporate numerical data, audio-visual, and digital information. Census and economic data, historic films, and survey data–all gain importance in the classroom.

Second, the standards greatly increase the emphasis on informational text at all grades. For instance, the Common Core document itself lists selected “literary nonfiction” in its guide to grade-appropriate complexity levels of primary sources. And assessment designers explicitly recommend a 50-50 split between fiction and informational texts, from Kindergarten up. (Most elementary classrooms today, especially in the primary grades, strongly favor literature over nonfiction.) In order to understand these informational texts, students must have adequate background in subject-specific facts, concepts, and vocabulary.

In addition to reading complex texts, the Common Core emphasizes effective, advanced narrative writing about content, as well as writing for and presentation of research. Early grades already emphasize narrative-writing about informational as well as literary topics. Through the grades, students increasingly shift to writing explanation, argument, and analysis. Students’ capacity to source, organize, analyze, cite, discuss, and write about primary and secondary sources is paramount. Bottom line, the standards call for all students to be able to write History research papers and persuasive essays by 12th grade. They will need a lot of scaffolding to get there.

Finally, Common Core assessment designers recognize that:

“All fields of study demand analysis of complex texts and strong oral and written communications skills using discipline-specific discourse. Because each discipline requires, develops and shares knowledge in distinct ways, educators in each field must take ownership of building robust instruction around discipline-specific literacy skills.” (PARCC, 2011. p. 11).

If literacy in historical thinking is to take a central–and welcome–role in schools, history teachers clearly need to step up, not only in their own classrooms, but in collaboration with colleagues across all grade levels and subjects. Emerging America features concrete strategies for students (and teachers) to learn and apply historical thinking skills. We welcome the opportunity to advance historical thinking and to help convene the discussion across disciplines.

Find the full Common Core standards and explanation of them for History teachers here on EmergingAmerica.org.

PARCC Model Content Frameworks for ELA/Literacy. Nov. 2011. PARCC is one of two Federally funded initiatives to develop assessments for the Common Core.

• Tips for Teachers – tips for working with primary sources, gleaned from our own network of local sources and from the ever-growing world of national websites and articles. (Of course with particular insights into the millions of items at the Library of Congress!)
• Guest Posts – critical ideas and exemplary practice from teachers.
• History Content – timely questions, ideas, and resources on specific historical events.
• Event Recap – successful ideas and materials from our own practice as teacher educators and from the many conferences and events in the field.

We welcome your feedback and ideas, including your suggestions for guest posts! Watch for additional features and media as the year progresses.

Rich Cairn, Director, Emerging America
Suzanne Judson-Whitehouse, Assistant Director, Emerging America