The Time Traveler

"The closer you can get to your setting [the event] and to primary sources, the more authentic your history is going to be."

--David B. Coe

Bringing primary documents into the classroom, can give students a sense of what it was like to be alive during a long-past era. Analyzing primary sources can also prompt curiosity and improve critical thinking and analysis skills. Primary sources expose students to multiple perspectives on significant issues of the past and present. In analyzing primary sources, students move from concrete observations and facts to questioning and making inferences about the materials. It encourages students to ask questions, evaluate information, make inferences, and develop reasoned explanations and interpretations of events and issues.

Primary sources help students relate in a personal way to events of the past and promote a deeper understanding of history as a series of human events. Because primary sources are incomplete snippets of history, each one represents a mystery that students can only explore further by finding new pieces of evidence.

-Library of Congress

The Prosper ISD C&I department is excited to share that we will be hosting Twitter chats to build and expand our PLC across the district and potentially beyond. The format of our Twitter chats will be a slow chat which includes one question posted each day. Our first chat will run October 31th-November 4th with one question released at 7:00AM each morning. You will have all day to post your response to the question and interact with participants' answers.

A registration link will be shared at the end of the chat so you can request credit for your participation. Slow chats provide you with 1hour of SBEC credit. We are looking forward to connecting and learning from our Prosper ISD family. We will release more details as we get closer to the chat.

Want new ways to use primary documents in the classroom, click on the new (and old favorites) strategies linked below that we have added to out instructional playbook.

1. Scribble Notes: Students explore multiple documents that are placed around the room with their peers to work with a series of questions to examine the historical documents. Click here.

2. See, Think, and Wonder: Using Sentence Stems, “I see, I think, I wonder, ” students will make observations of a primary source to stimulate curiosity and stage of inquiry. Click here.

3. Quadrant Activity: In order to create inquiry and closer observation, visual primary sources will be divided into quadrants and discussed in small groups. Click Here.

4. Six Hats Activity: Students examine an issue from different perspectives to arrive at a comprehensive analysis or a better understanding of a problem or issues. Click here.

5. Consensus Placement: Provides all students with an opportunity to share ideas and learn from each other in a cooperative small group discussion. Click here.

Secondary Social Studies teachers were able to participate in a field trip to The Henry B. Tippie National Aviation Education Center (NAEC), located at the Dallas Executive Airport. Teachers spent the morning exploring the hangar, the Arsenal of Democracy immersive exhibit hall, and the World War II Aviation Nose Art gallery . In the afternoon, teachers participated in a WWII Homefront simulation. Everyone took on the role of an individual who lives in Anytown, USA.

Anytown is a community that represents all towns across the United States in that EVERYONE contributed to the Allied effort to win WWII. The Home Front Experience blends history with science, math, reading, financial literacy, and more. It is a content-integrated approach that embeds TEKS from various subject areas.

All the characters in the Home Front Experience are real or based on real historical figures. Letters mailed and received during the experience are historically accurate with historical figures represented. For example, the town movie theater operator, William Thompkins, served in the Spanish-American War as a Buffalo Soldier and was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Characters, both seen and unseen, have a plethora of primary documents or further information about their lives and service for follow-up learning.

Middle School teachers started the morning learning and discussing about Assessment Design Qualities from Design in 5 by Nicole Demich.

The afternoon was all about teacher choice! Teachers had the opportunity to choose sessions that they were interested in and wanted to learn more about!

• Visual Non-Glossary Teaching Strategies with LaTonya Battles
• Accommodations & Modifications with Brittany Johnston & Nicole Boynton
• Explore Boards with Michelle Maple
• Extensions & Enrichment with Heather Caldwell
• Non-fiction Reading Strategies with Richard Branch
• Contact Jessica McDowell for tips from her facilitated discussion for Team Leads.