Planning Beyond the Course Long EQs

Yesterday, I drafted the two overarching, organizing questions that I will use to structure student inquiry in my Western Civ class. One question focuses on the discipline of history, the other on the specific content of the course. Both are open ended, challenging, and, I think, meaningful to pursue.

Year Long Process Question: Constructing the Past: How do historians do history?

Year Long Content Question: The idea of progress: How civilized are we?

What exactly do I mean when I say I will “use” the above questions to “structure student inquiry”? I need to start getting specific in my planning. Students are in my class for 90 days, 90 minutes a period, amounting to 8100 minutes or 135 hours.

 

How will students spend their time in my classroom? How much reading, writing, discussing, creating, interpreting, and collaborating will they do? After 135 hours, how will I know I have reached my targets? What are my targets?

 

I spent some time this morning thinking through the first question my students will consider as they begin to encounter the year long process question. This mind map will help me to articulate the big ideas I associate with Inquiry 1: What is history? This is a work in progress. And, most importantly, since I am shifting my approach to inquiry, few of the ideas on the mind map will be presented to students directly. Students will work on a variety of assignments that will help them to build their own understandings and connections. To construct these type of assignments, I must thoughtfully determine what my own understandings and goals are.   

 

 

 

 

Getting Started: Two Essential Questions

     The word investigation triggers in my mind thoughts of searching, exploring, and inquiring. I think of detectives in the field and scientists in the lab. I do not, if I am honest, think of the students in my history classes. I now need to align my classroom practices with the vision that is inspiring me.  

     Bruse Lesh writes about History Labs, where students conduct source work, inquiry, and ultimately construct and share historical interpretations. I am modeling my historical investigations around this recursive, challenging, and meaningful intellectual process.

Two Essential Questions will Frame the Course

     I love the idea of using one or two open ended questions to frame all of our inquiry in my Western Civ course. Students will revisit these questions repeatedly and, over time, develop increasingly sophisticated ways of thinking about them. Journals, blogs, and/or portfolios can be used to monitor students’ search for meaning, as they construct, share, and refine their responses.  

     For Western Civ I have decided that I will use a process AND a content question.

Year Long Process Question: Constructing the Past: How do historians do history?

Year Long Content Question: The idea of progress: How civilized are we?

     Contrast a traditional unit approach to teaching history with an investigatory model and it is easy to see the appeal. I am excited to begin planning how I will help my students explore the complexities of the past and of the human condition in an honest and meaningful way.