I chose to teach a lesson on analyzing primary sources to determine significance.  Booker T. Washington’s controversial dinner in the White House with President Theodore Roosevelt is often left out of history textbooks.  I felt the event and surrounding controversy is an excellent subject to use for a lesson on primary source analysis.  Additionally, as the month of February is Black History Month, a lesson of this kind fits well in the time of year as well as within the timeline of curriculum taught in most US History classes.  This reflection will give a general overview of the lesson, my initial reactions to its implementation, my reaction to watching the video of myself teaching, the tuning protocol comments of my peers, and ideas for future implementation of the lesson and my teaching.

Overview of the Lesson and Design

I began the lesson by introducing the guiding question and objectives for the lesson.  The guiding question for this lesson plan is, “How do historians use primary sources to reconstruct the past, analyze cause and effect, and determine significance?”  I chose to use this as the main question because it addressed all aspects of analyzing primary sources needed by the Virginia Standards of Learning, and the skills the students would develop and refine throughout the lesson.  I followed by outlining the objectives of the lesson:

#1 Construct a chronology of black history in America including significant events, people, organizations, etc.

#2 Evaluate primary sources of an event in history using the SCIM-C method.

#3 Reconstruct the event both visually and orally to demonstrate understanding of the political scene, social culture, and historical significance.

These objectives were met throughout the lesson by the different activities the students participated in.  All three of these objectives were designed to have students develop and refine their skills for working with primary sources.  To accompany my verbal introduction of the guiding question and my objectives for the lesson, I created a power point to guide me through teaching the lesson.  My assessment method directly related to the lesson.  I made informal assessments of student participation in the opener, Historical Scene Investigation activity, discussion at various points during the lesson, and the closer.  Students produced work during the opener, the SCIM-C activity, and the closer that could be later used for formal assessment.

The design of the lesson is meant to reach my desired outcome of the students being able and comfortable analyzing primary sources as historians.  Wiggins and McTighe outline six Facets of Understanding that I kept in mind while planning the lesson.  When creating this lesson I wanted the student to reach four of the levels: explanation, interpretation, application, and perspective.  Using the SCIM-C method, students were required to analyze the sources using these four levels of understanding.  With my endpoint in mind, I began to design the lesson.

This is a student example of the opener I used for the lesson.

The lesson began with a Think Pair Share opener activity that required students to construct a timeline of black history in America from years 1850 to 2010 including significant events, people, organizations, etc.  I gave the students about two and half minutes initially to work on their own to fill in the timeline.  Next, students worked with a partner to fill in more significant events, people, and organizations important to the history of African Americans.  Finally, I had students share their answers and fill in more parts of the timeline based on the discussion and input from the entire class.  This opener met the first objective and served as a trigger for prior knowledge leading into the lesson.

The transition to the next section of the lesson involved acknowledging the many aspects of African American history students were able to recall.  I pointed out their inclusion of Booker T. Washington in their timelines, but told them the event we were to study that day is often left out of the history books.  I distributed the previously prepared case files with numerous primary documents relating to the dinner with Washington event.  I reviewed the Historical Scene Investigation process and the SCIM-C analysis by modeling the first primary source to ensure students were given the right tools to reach the second objective of the lesson.  I felt it was important to review the process because it had been several months since the students last did primary source analysis using this method.  I chose to model the first document because it provided the opportunity to give the students both auditory, visual, and a model example of the instructions for the assignment.  It is important to provide several modes of instruction in diverse learner groups to best assist all levels of ability.  I allowed students to work together during this activity to make it a beneficial collaborative learning activity.  By doing so, students could learn from each other, consider others’ ideas, and work as a team to rebuild the story of the dinner with Washington using primary sources.  The meaningful objective of the lesson was not that they could correctly rebuild the story, but that they developed and honed their skills of analyzing primary sources.

A student example of primary source analysis using the SCIM-C method.

After working through the documents and using the SCIM-C method to analyze the sources, I instructed the students to start to group the documents based on a timeline of events, perspectives of the north and south, and type of sources.  In this way, the students were able to begin to organize the documents based on their findings.  I developed two other handouts to help with source analysis and synthesis.  The first was a worksheet called SCIM Process for Analyzing Sources.  This required students to group the sources by listing the similarities, differences, accumulated conclusions, and gaps in information.  The second worksheet was called the Significance Storyline.  I had students write a paragraph or create a storyboard that told the story they “detected” during the Historical Scene Investigation.  This helped students synthesize their findings to reconstruct the story.  I brought the group together to discuss the event, their experience working with the sources, and their findings.  The written outcomes of these activities were meant to help the students correctly analyze the primary sources and think critically about the event and the response to it.  All together, these activities served to meet the third and final objective, to reconstruct the event both visually and orally to demonstrate understanding of the political scene, social culture, and historical significance.

Example of the Significance Storyline worksheet completed by a student.

Finally, I closed the lesson with a closer entitled “One More Headline.” It showed the headline of the Washington Post the day that President Barrack Obama won the election.  The closer instructed students to create a significance sentence based on what they just saw.  The goal was to have students come up with the significance of the controversial presidential dinner with a black man and almost one hundred years later, a black man was elected to the oval office.  My intent behind the closer was to make the lesson meaningful, connect to their lives, and illuminate the event within its historical context and perspective.

A student example of the closer I used to bring the lesson full circle.

Initial Reactions to Teaching

My initial reactions to teaching the lesson are both positive and negative.  I felt I had control of the class, promoted class participation and discussion well, and moved around the classroom during collaborative learning activities to keep students on task and answer questions.  The design of the lesson was to be student activity oriented with little instruction from me.  Most of the time was spent collaboratively working towards common goals.  There were a few instances where students got off topic or dwelled on a particular activity for too long and I was able to redirect them within a reasonable amount of time to keep the lesson flowing.  When I initially allowed the students to share their findings for the timeline opener, I opened the discussion with the broad concept of “share some of the things you and your classmates found.”  I quickly realized that the students were all over the timeline with their input and they needed more structure to keep the discussion organized.  I think I was quickly able to adapt and provide scaffolding by giving the students limited parameters and decades to share their significant events for the timeline.  I also felt I did a great job providing scaffolding for the students beyond this initial verbal scaffolding for the opener. 

I gave them multiple modes of instruction.  I provided the power point which created the visual instructions for the activities.  I also included the instructions for the various worksheets I handed out at the top of the papers.  Finally, I verbally explained the instructions in the transitions from activities to the next part of the lesson.  Also, I felt I modeled the SCIM-C process well, with step by step instructions on how they should evaluate the sources while allowing students to give me analysis of the model primary source.  I was able to meet my objectives, although I would have liked to spend more time on the activities to better reach the objectives.  I believe the guiding question worked well with the lesson.  I was able to keep the focus of the lesson on the skills of primary source analysis rather than just content retention.  By doing so, I was able to adequately meet the NCSS themes and SOLs.  I was well prepared with the materials needed and handouts required to meet the objectives.  My informal assessments on class and student participation proved fruitful as well as formal assessments using the worksheets.  Finally, I believe the lesson was well planned with organizational structure with a connecting opener and closer. 

I have several initial critiques of my own teaching style and format of the lesson.  First, although the lesson was organized and prepared, I had way too much for my time restraints.  While it is better to have more than less, I gave too much to the students and I am sure it was overwhelming.  I needed to cut down both the content and extent of the literary sources and decrease the number of sources I expected them to work with.  I also did not account in my initial planning for the amount of time that I would need to adequately address the opener.  While it was successful, it greatly reduced the amount of time available for the main activities of the lesson.  Second, I feel as though the time spent going over the objectives and the guiding question was time the students could have been working on the opener.  If I were to do it over, I would have allowed students to do the opener individually, in pairs, and shared with the class and then quickly addressed the objectives for the day.  The first objective was met by the opener so I believe my thought process led me to the order I taught, but I feel as though it would have flowed more smoothly if I switched the order.  Finally, I caught myself several times during my teaching talking with my hands excessively which can be a huge distracter for some students.  Initially, last semester I was not aware that I did this while I taught a lesson and only realized this while viewing the video of my teaching.  I have grown in my self awareness of this bad habit.  During this lesson, I caught myself a couple times talking with my hands excessively and was able to stop.  Hopefully this awareness will continue as I teach more and more until I no longer talk with my hands excessively.  My initial reactions to my lesson are generally positive, with a few critiques of the lesson and teaching style.

Watching Myself be the Teacher

Below is the video reflection of me watching myself be the teacher.  Additionally, I have answered some questions while watching the video of my lesson.

Peer Tuning Protocol

The tuning protocol offered by my peers directly after the lesson is incredibly useful when judging my overall teaching, the student participation and understanding, and ideas and suggestions for improvement.  One of the most poignant comments made in the tuning protocol involves the clarification of the big picture objective at the onset of the SCIM-C evaluation of sources activity.  I modeled the primary source analysis process, but did not give them a clear end goal for the analysis of the sources.  I only said reconstruct the story.  They suggested that I should clarify what I wanted and put it in a larger context.  One suggestion for the bigger picture was to say something like, “This is one event in the history of African American race relations.  I want you to use the sources to retell the story and the reactions to the event.  Think about how this fits in the context of race relations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.”  The students felt as though they did not have a clear direction and endpoint for analyzing the sources.

Another major critique from my colleagues involved the time constraints and overwhelming task of analyzing the sources.  The general consensus was that I had way too many sources to analyze within the time constraints and that I should have cut down some of the sources to a more manageable length.  I had seventeen sources to analyze and realized right away that I had way too many.  They suggested that I not only identify their origination, the date, and location found to assist in source analysis, but also cut some of the longer articles down to allow students ample time to address all of the sources.  Many students felt as though they were easily sidetracked and just wanted to continue reading the interesting sources.  Cutting the documents down would have eliminated some of the distractions and kept the students on track.  Another suggestion was to create a series of sources that tell the story to give to one group of students and another series to give to another.  From there, the groups can present their findings and compare and contrast their reconstructions of the same event based on the sources.  This provides another more in-depth level of analysis.

The students greatly appreciated the connected concept of the lesson brought together by the opener and closer.  One student even said that it “took us full circle.”  They really liked the timeline concept for the opener and how it triggered prior knowledge.  Some even felt this was a great activity to use for other lessons in other contexts.  The closer brought the significance of the lesson in its historical context and made it meaningful to the students’ everyday lives.  The concept of time was consistent throughout both the opener and the closer.  In this way, it was a well conceived connection from beginning to the end of the lesson.  The students also liked the variety and intrigue of the sources.  Although there were way too many sources for the time constraints, they did span a variety of levels, types, and content perspectives.  Some students found the primary sources were very interesting and did not want to put them down.  This positive feedback is great because it reinforces an objective of the lesson to be student centered and engaging.

I certainly agree with all of the constructive feedback I received.  The clarification of the big picture objective for the SCIM-C activity was not initially apparent to me, but after reviewing the video, I see the need to clarify the end goal of this activity.  In the future, I certainly will be more clear and have students thinking of the event in the broader context of race relations.  I also think that this might be something I should have written in front of them as they review the primary sources.  Teaching this lesson next time or in another context, I will print off the big picture objective for the activity and paste it to the front of the case file in addition to verbally explaining the objective.  The comments regarding the time constraints were expected as I realized early on during my teaching of the lesson plan that I had d have cut the sources to more manageable chunks as well as cut down the number of soway too many sources and expectations for source analysis.  I completely agree that I shoulurces.  I really liked the suggestion for different series of sources.  In the future, I think I could divide the reactions to the event between the different groups and have the students evaluate the similarities and differences between their recreated versions of the story based on the perspectives they received.  This could initiate great and thoughtful discussion among students on bias and perspective.  Overall, the tuning protocol of my peers was very beneficial to my evaluation of my teaching and lesson.

Concluding Thoughts

In general, I felt that this was a successful lesson that met all of my objectives.  I am excited for future adaptations of this lesson or parts of this lesson into my teaching.  As a class, we talked about the potential for the timeline activity as the structure for a lesson within itself on many different aspects of history.  One potential topic in World History is the development of technology through time.  Comparative government teachers could use this to compare democratic models of government, specifically when certain groups were granted suffrage or established specific democratic ideals.  The structure of the SCIM-C can be used as an analysis of one source as an opener or within a lesson, or I could develop another (smaller!) set of sources for another event to work on primary source skills.  I am definitely going to work on clarifying my overall objective for activities and conveying the bigger picture and significance idea in all of my lessons.  Additionally, I will work on judging my time better when I prepare for certain lessons.  Finally, I will continue to work on my bad habit of teaching and public speaking, talking with my hands.  I am excited for the possibilities of this lesson and for the future of my teaching.