My project idea is to create an introductory historical thinking activity for middle school students. The project is focused on teaching students how to contextualize, source, corroborate and close read. The project also serves as a tool teachers can use and implement in their own classes. I have created a teacher’s guide and most of my student interactive exhibits. Each exhibit serves as a lesson for historical thinking. I have broken the exhibits into steps and have incorporated activities students can complete.

Graphic organizers are used often in order to serve as a Universal Design for learning and a differentiation tool.

To make my project friendlier to students, I have included videos and guiding images like Bitmojis to provide further direction on the modules and assignments.

 

 

I completed my fourth exhibit related to historical context. I decided to have students identify the context for two lunch boxes that can also be used for a future activity on corroboration. The two lunch boxes are Peanuts by Shulz and Wee Pals Kid Power. I selected these two lunch boxes since Peanuts creator Charles Shulz and Wee Pals creator Morrie Turner were contemporaries and colleagues. Wee Pals was inspired by Peanuts and was created in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement.

I feel as though there are a lot of things students can dig into for historical context with these two artifacts. In my context exhibit, I also provided oral history interviews with Shulz and Turner so students can hear from the cartoonists themselves about the significance of their creation. They also serve as additional multimedia primary sources students can use to eventually answer the compelling question.

I still need to complete the rest of my exhibits. These exhibits are related to corroboration, empathy, students answering the compelling question and students sharing and reflecting on the activity. I also need to create instructional videos for teachers and students in order to explain how to go through the site.  

I am going to resolve these challenges by just dedicating time to completing the exhibits this week and searching through my district’s resource to reapply them to my exhibits.