A seminar by, for, and of the students. THAT is student agency!

I have begun to teach a new course this year, called Advanced Seminar in Social Studies. As far as I know, it is a wholly unique class for my school.

However, it isn't a unique idea.  When I was a senior in high school, I took a course called Advanced Seminar run by the English Department.  The course was taught by Liz Whaley, and it had a very simple premise: as a reward for doing well for three years, students would get to run the class.  We chose the books, we led the discussions and we workshopped the papers that we wrote.  The English Department was committed to building student agency, even though they didn't use those words; they created a student-centered learning environment, and then they did a great job of getting out of the students' collective way.  So for this idea, I owe a debt of gratitude to Liz Dodge, Liz Whaley, Emma Rous and the late Dick Tappan; they've had a tremendous impact on how I teach!

My desire was simple: I wanted to have a discussion-based course that would reward students by empowering them to take control of their own education. I have long felt that we don't do discussions well in my department or in my school. By that I mean we don't create an environment where student interest is why students speak up, where they are intrinsically motivated to participate rather than extrinsically motivated. I wanted to change that.

One of my colleagues also recently remarked that, "The second we assign a book, kids will hate reading it. We can't impact how students feel about reading." I mostly agree with him; making a book a requirement is a sure way to kill it.  So, rather than my mandating what they read, I figured students could choose what areas of the social sciences to study and choose what they read about those topics. That way, I am not impacting how they feel about reading, they are doing it themselves.

If they are choosing what they read and are then motivated to talk about it because of their own desires, then it only follows that they should also be in charge of determining the methods by which they are assessed on their performance.

So Advanced Seminar in Social Studies is a semester-long, student-directed seminar. We talk. About books. The students were presented with a list of non-fiction books from all different areas of the social sciences and were told to investigate the books. They were also invited to add in any non-fiction they have read or are interested in reading.  Ultimately, they chose to read four books. Each student is in charge of leading the discussion at least once during the course. Participation is assessed through a regularly held conference with me. They have agreed, after discussion, to compose a written check in halfway through the book, and a written assignment at the end of each book, which they will design to reflect the contents of the book. I am a member of the class and my role is to jump start the discussion if needed, and to serve as the referee/arbiter should that be necessary.  Otherwise, I read along with them, I add my opinions to the discussion, and I stay out of their way.

There are 12 students in the class, and they have a range of strengths. They are not raising their hands to speak, but rather they are working out how to have conversations without a teacher calling on them. They are grappling with issues of economics, politics, psychology and sociology. As a result, my classroom is noisier than it has ever been before; the "noise" is 12 seniors actually talking to each other about books they enjoy, about topics they are interested in and it is all the direct result of their desires and choices.

We need more of this in our schools.

Local Civics projects for Snow Day make up work

Below are the final projects that the BHS Social Studies Department did for the snow day make up assignments aka "Blizzard Bags." Let me say again how much I dislike that term...

Overall, they were a successful pilot of the program.  Reflecting on the overall concept, I think that there is a fine line that we need to walk between creating the teacher-directed portion and the project portion.  For instance, the 9th graders were able to pretty much parrot back the information that we provided them in the composition of their project.  From my perspective, it wasn't a big deal for them to do that, as voting information is voting information; we weren't interested in them doing synthesis-level thinking for these projects!  In the end, what we really wanted to accomplish was to familiarize our students with some of the basic and important avenues of civic interaction with their state and local governments, and by and large, I think we did that successfully! I don't know the exact completion rate, and I don't have copies of students' final work to share, but anecdotally, teachers shared with me that students had little difficulty in completing the assignments, not one parent complained about the assignments, and my own students said that they actually learned something from doing the project, so I'll take that as positive!

Grade 9 project description, Grade 9 supporting presentation

Grade 10 project description, Grade 10 supporting presentation

Grade 11 project description, Grade 11 supporting presentation

These are public copies of the documents, but they are set to view only in Google Drive.  Please feel free to make use of them, but do credit the BHS Social Studies Department should you reproduce them!  High School teachers in the commonwealth of Massachusetts, I don't know the outcome of DESE's decision making on the future use of these types of assignments, but know that you can use these with minimal changes should your district require that you come up with assignments that your students can complete in the event of another winter full of 100 year storms!

Snow Day Make up--the rough cut

Two things off the top:

First, our charge was to come up with something that could be done in the equivalent of two-three class periods if we were in school, but that could also be scaled up or down in the future depending upon the number of days that were missed.

Second, I made the executive decision that each teacher was not going to do his or her own thing.  It seemed to me to be easier for us to all collaborate on one project for each grade level (so all 9th graders will do the same thing in all classes) rather than each teacher try to come up with an acceptable activity on his or her own.  I also wanted to avoid the inevitable comparisons that parents would do between what one teacher assigned and what another assigned.  Invariably, someone would complain that so and so's assignment was easier/harder than another teacher's. If they all do the same thing, this concern is a non-factor.

What follows is the first draft of the project description:

9th grade: Are to research how a person registers to vote, where voting happens, and how voting is done in the town of Burlington and the state of MA. They can interview, research and read about this. They must then make an infogram and a physical poster explaining this information that would help to guide a person with the process of voting, from registration to casting the ballot. We provide them with copies of the MA Constitution with commentary/annotations/presentations to guide their reading in this process, and perhaps also give a guided reading about voting rights in the US. Posters are placed in the hallways of the school and town buildings. Infograms are shared via Padlet.com. Honors student possible extension: look at how voting rights have evolved in MA from colonial times until now.

10th grade: Are to learn about how town government works--what happens at all levels of local decision making--Selectmen, Town Meeting, School Committee, Ways and Means, etc.--They can interview, research, read about this. They are then to create a digital presentation that shows the way that all aspects of town government are interrelated...like a flow chart in Explain Everything/Showme, or a series of slides, or a diagram of who does what, how it happens and how a person gets involved/elected. Presentations are posted to a YouTube channel and/or given to BCAT as infomercials to run and shared with the town government.  We provide students with copies of the MA Constitution with commentary/annotations/presentations to guide their reading, and perhaps a guided reading about the history behind NE town government as a structure different from the rest of the nation's structures.

11th grade: Are to learn about how state government works.  Who are their state representatives, how long have they served, what do they do.  What are the parts of state government and how do they connect?How does the state government function? They can interview, research, read about this. Students are to produce a video that explains state government (think, I’m Just A Bill-esque, or a Welcome to Your State Government, or a TED talk).  Videos are posted to a YouTube channel and/or given to BCAT for broadcast and shared with Burlington’s State Reps and Senator. We provide students with copies of the MA Constitution with commentary/annotations/presentations to guide their reading, and perhaps a guided reading about the differences between state and federal government.

All we have to do ahead of time is annotate the MA Constitution for the relevant information for each grade level, and find a reading and make some questions, all of which can be done in Google Docs for rapid and easy distribution on a snow day. I can create the common submission points for their digital work, which would make it easier to pass along to others, and to check off compliance/completion. Because they are publishing their work publicly it can be largely done pass/fail, I think, or we can create scoring guides if we want to, and scale the expectations for AP/Honors, CP I and CPII, with a layer of expectations depending on future number of days they have to spend doing the work. In the event of lots of days off, we could also extend it by asking them to submit a written reflection, or a critique, or suggestions for improvement to the political process they are researching.

Common Core Rubric for History/Social Studies 9-10

For the past few weeks, my colleage Mike Milton (michaelkmilton.com) and I have been sharing some work we have done with the Common Core State Standards for History/Social Studies.  During that work, we created some rubrics to help guide us based on the 9-10 standards and the 11-12 standards.

Below is what we created for the Reading Standards for History Social Studies for the 9th and 10th grades. (Mike posted the 11-12 standards on his blog earlier this weekend.)

Take a look and let us know what you think!

Key Ideas and Details (Green Circle)

RH.9-10.1. Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, attending to such features as the date and origin of the information.

Needs Specific Improvement	Approaching	Meets	Exceeds
- Student does not cite any evidence from the text.	-student cites some specific evidence, but omits the important ones. -attempts to connect details to the text as a whole	- Cites specific evidence to support analysis of text	Student brings in outside information from prior knowledge/other sources

RH.9-10.2. Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of how key events or ideas develop over the course of the text.

Needs Specific Improvement	Approaching	Meets	Exceeds
-does not identify the central idea. -summary is a regurgitation of sections of the text	-accurate summary is lacking; key points omitted	provides central ideas but adds superfluous details from the text	Clearly and succinctly identifies the central ideas of the text AND makes a connection to historical/modern events.

RH.9-10.3. Analyze in detail a series of events described in a text; determine whether earlier events caused later ones or simply preceded them.

Needs Specific Improvement	Approaching	Meets	Exceeds
-Students are unable to see connections between events. -Students are unable to articulate the difference between an event that simply happens and an event that causes another to occur.	-Student can identify that there is a connection between events, but cannot explain the connection -Students struggle to differentiate between “preceeding” and “causing” events	-Student provides an analysis of the series of events, showing causality.	-Student offers a valid hypothesis to explain why an action or event occurred based on the text. -Student points to areas of uncertainty based on what the text omits or leaves vague.

Craft and Structure (Blue Square)

RH.9-10.4. Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including vocabulary describing political, social, or economic aspects of history/social science.

Needs Specific Improvement	Approaching	Meets	Exceeds
-Student is unable to determine the meaning of words and phrases or the meaning of words and phrases comes directly is a regurgitation of a website definition.	-Student can vaguely define the words and phrases in the context of the source text. -Student can use political, social, economic vocabulary appropriately and in the context of the time period being studied.	-Student can accurately define the words and phrases as they are used in the text. -Student attempts to integrate the vocabulary into work outside of the confines of the source text.	-Student can regularly make use of the words and phrases in non-textual situations. -Student can offer alternative terms to replace vocabulary used in the text.

RH.9-10.5. Analyze how a text uses structure to emphasize key points or advance an explanation or analysis.

Needs Specific Improvement	Approaching	Meets	Exceeds
-Student cannot explain how different sections add to the text as a whole.	Student can vaguely identify how the text uses structure to emphasize key points.	-Student can explain the importance of the structure that the author used to the meaning of the document	-Student can identify the’ importance of structure AND connect them to the historical context of the time.

RH.9-10.6. Compare the point of view of two or more authors for how they treat the same or similar topics, including which details they include and emphasize in their respective accounts.

Needs Specific Improvement	Approaching	Meets	Exceeds
-Students are not able to identify a point of view in any of the documents.	-Students are able to identify a point of view, but not multiple. -points of view are identified but details are mis-aligned or ignored.	-Students are able to identify the difference between multiple points of view and can hypothesize why different authors might have different perspectives.	-Students can articulate the points of view of more than one author and can imagine the points of view of other people not present and hypothesize how they would treat the subject.

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas (Black Diamond)

RH.9-10.7. Integrate quantitative or technical analysis (e.g., charts, research data) with qualitative analysis in print or digital text.

Needs Specific Improvement	Approaching	Meets	Exceeds
-Students are not able to integrate quantitative or technical analysis with qualitative analysis.	-Student can identify methodologies of data presentation (i.e.: charts vs. graphs) but can not integrate them with qualitative analysis	-Student can identify methodologies of data presentation (i.e.: charts vs. graphs) and can integrate them with qualitative analysis.	-Student can create his or her own quantitative analysis based on qualitative analysis.

RH.9-10.8. Assess the extent to which the reasoning and evidence in a text support the author’s claims.

Needs Specific Improvement	Approaching	Meets	Exceeds
-Student is unable to identify reasoning or evidence the author is using.	-Student can identify the evidence that the author uses but cannot evaluate it.	-Student can assess the validity of an author’s claims based upon evidence gathered.	-Students are able to identify gaps in evidence, or offer additional evidence to support the author’s claims.

RH.9-10.9. Compare and contrast treatments of the same topic in several primary and secondary sources.

Needs Specific Improvement	Approaching	Meets	Exceeds
-Students can neither compare nor contrast how the same topic is treated in different sources.	-Students can either compare or contrast (but not both) the same topic in several primary and secondary sources.	-Students can compare and contrast different treatments of the same topic in several primary and secondary sources.	-Student can evaluate diverse texts to create an explanation of an idea or source, noting discrepancies among the sources.

Common Core Social Studies activity for 11-12

Continuing with our posts (my colleague Michael Milton (michaelkmilton.com) and I), below is a sample activity for 11 and 12th graders using the Social Studies Common Core Literacy standards. 

I decided to make use of John Locke's Second Treatise of Civil Government, particularly his views on Natural Law in Chapter II, because that helps our students to see how the Enlightenment thinking practically impacted the creation of the primary documents of American government.  These could be directly used in any US history course, AP US, or AP Government, and indirectly could be useful in AP World History and AP European History course. You can, of course, use more or less of the document as you see fit and to fit the needs of your curricular standards!

Once again, I am breaking down the standards into our Green Circle, Blue Square and Black Diamond levels, and incorporating some technology into the activities. However, each of the activities could be done with no technology at all; just good old pen and paper would be fine!

At the end of the activities (linked as before to the standards) I will include links to the documents I would use as supporting these lessons. These do not necessarily translate well to the 9-10 or 6-8 Common Core standards, but, with some creativity and alterations, they could be adapted to those levels.

Key Ideas and Details (Green Circle)

RH.11-12.1. Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, connecting insights gained from specific details to an understanding of the text as a whole.

1. What is the overall purpose of Locke's Second Treatise? How do you know? Compose a 5 sentence paragraph on your blog in which you describe his purpose and state your evidence in your own words.

RH.11-12.2. Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary that makes clear the relationships among the key details and ideas.

2. What is the most important idea of Locke's Second Treatise? A) Compose a paragraph in which you support your answer with 2-3 pieces of evidence. B) if you feel ambitious, distill his idea into a 140 character tweet.

RH.11-12.3. Evaluate various explanations for actions or events and determine which explanation best accords with textual evidence, acknowledging where the text leaves matters uncertain.

3. Is Locke correct in his descriptions/depictions of how people act when left to their own devices? Provide three real-world examples in the behavior of teenagers that proves or disproves Locke’s ideas.Tweet your examples (in words or pictures) with the hashtag #stateofnature

Craft and Structure (Blue Square)

RH.11-12.4. Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including analyzing how an author uses and refines the meaning of a key term over the course of a text (e.g., how Madison defines faction in Federalist No. 10).

1. Locke states in Chapter II, Section 6: “But though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of licence: though man in that state have an uncontroulable liberty to dispose of his person or possessions, yet he has not liberty to destroy himself, or so much as any creature in his possession, but where some nobler use than its bare preservation calls for it.”

          A. Based upon your understanding of the document create a near definition (which means you may not use a dictionary or word defining app of any sort to reach a definition) of the following terms in the context of the author’s work.

        Liberty--

        Licence--

        Possession--

          B. Using your new understanding of the terms above, rewrite the sentence that begins Chapter II, Section 6. Post the near definitions and your new sentence on your blog.

RH.11-12.5. Analyze in detail how a complex primary source is structured, including how key sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text contribute to the whole.

2.  Read Chapter II, Sections 7 and 8. Explain in a blog post: how do they both lead to the final sentence of section 8?

3. In a paragraph you post to your blog, answer the following question: Why does Locke conclude Chapter II, Section 15 with the statement “But I moreover affirm, that all men are naturally in that state, and remain so, till by their own consents they make themselves members of some politic society; and I doubt not in the sequel of this discourse, to make it very clear.” Is this consistent with how he began Chapter II, Section 4?

RH.11-12.6. Evaluate authors’ differing points of view on the same historical event or issue by assessing the authors’ claims, reasoning, and evidence.

4. Show, using educreations or showme, how do the documents (Second Treatise of Civil Government and Document 3) define the State of Nature? Do Locke and Hobbes use the same concepts to reach their definition(s)?

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas (Black Diamond)

RH.11-12.7. Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., visually, quantitatively, as well as in words) in order to address a question or solve a problem.

1. Use Document 2 to compose a blog post in which you demonstrate why Christianity's creation myth supports the notion of a state of nature for human beings.

RH.11-12.8. Evaluate an author’s premises, claims, and evidence by corroborating or challenging them with other information.

2. Read Document 3. Compose an argument for/against Locke’s explanation of natural law and either write on your blog or record yourself (using audioboo or your iPad's camera) giving it. You must use the contents of Document 3 and at least two examples from current events to support yourself.

RH.11-12.9. Integrate information from diverse sources, both primary and secondary, into a coherent understanding of an idea or event, noting discrepancies among sources.

3. Read the selection from the textbook pertaining to the writing of the Declaration of Independence, and the Declaration of Independence (Document 5) itself. The textbook claims that Jefferson was heavily influenced by Locke’s work and beliefs. First, find two selections from the Declaration of Independence that support this claim and post them to your blog. Then compose answers to the following: Are the authors of the textbook correct in making this statement? Why does the textbook place Jefferson in the same context as philosophers like Locke, Hobbes, and Rousseau? Is this comparison valid? Why or why not?

Second (or as a separate activity), explain in a blog post why would Jefferson not embrace Hobbes’ views on the state of nature and natural law? What events in America’s early colonial history would predispose the Founders to reject Hobbes and embrace Locke?  If they had embraced Hobbes, how would the Declaration of Independence have been written differently?

Document 1: John Locke's Second Treatise of Civil Goverment, Chapter II, sections 4, 6, 7, 8, 15. Document is available at: http://www.constitution.org/jl/2ndtreat.htm

Document 2: Painting of Adam and Eve, by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472–1553). A digital copy of this image is available at: http://traumwerk.stanford.edu/philolog/2009/09/lucas_cranach_the_elder_adam.html

Document 3: selections from leviathan, by Thomas Hobbes, CHAPTER XIV, section 1, 2, 3, 4 available at: http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/hobbes/leviathan-c.html


Document 4 is selections from your own textbook account of the writing of the Declaration of Indepenence. (If your book doesn't have this, or, fortunately for you, you don't use a textbook, you can use wikipedia's entry on the subject.)


Document 5 is the Declaration of Independence, located at: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html