A HISTORY OF US FROM COLONIES TO COUNTRY 1735-1791

The book A HISTORY OF US FROM COLONIES TO COUNTRY 1735-1791 written by Joy Hakim, brings history to life. Her teachings are a delightful animated story telling. One that motivates me to continue my read for history.  Joy Hakim's style of teaching is very effective for me and appealing to my students. 

Her style of teaching, I believe would be effective for both right and left brain learners.  The left brain learners have the primary sources such as facts, quotes, pictures and maps. The right brain learners will engage themselves in the creativity of her true storyline that bring the history to life.  Hakim's book is threaded with cartoons to help remember the facts and stories being told.  As we learned in our small group during our May activities, cartoons are pictures of many words, most of them not to be forgotten.  One of my favorite cartoons is on page 38, showing Benjamin Franklin, who was trying to help the Indians.  My students could relate to many of the true accounts in this book.

My students are good at relating to Ancient Civilizations by comparing "Then" and "Now" by using graphic organizers to see the similarities and differences of today.  Joy Hakim makes it easy to relate to her stories of history or maybe not!  When I was reading the chapter "Summer in Philly" a time when bathing was thought to be unhealthy and they had "necessaries" or "privies", holes in the ground to bathe in, well this made me think.  On page 163, Elizabeth Drinker states, "I bore it better than I expected, not having been wet all over at once, for 28 years past." I'm not too sure my students could relate to that however, I think they will remember that! Also on the same page it sounds as if the first jacuzzi was in the making.  It states, "Benjamin Franklin did have a bath. He never let other people's ideas stop him from experimenting.  He had a round wooden tub built and set it on large paving stones that were heated by fires circulating hot air under the stones. Stories made for discussions!

This book is made to use across the curriculum.  These history stories would be appealing to my students for their writings.  There are many open-ended questions on the character of the early Americans and the heroism and adventure that was compared to the Greek history on page 61.  The study of the maps would also be interesting. Working across curriculum is valuable due to the time restraints during PSSA prep time. This would work in my classroom.

Right Brain/Left Brain While Teaching Historical Literacy

Applying Right Brain/Left Brain While Teaching Historical Literacy

I remember learning about the left brain being very analytical, learning in a step by step manner and the right brain being a more creative way of learning. According to Linda Verlee Williams, an associate of The Learning Circle in Berkely “while the left hemisphere is busy separating out the parts that constitute a whole, the right specializes in combing those parts to create a whole. It could also be said that the right hemisphere sees the pictures while the left hemisphere sees the components of the picture.” Reading our assigned articles we can easily see how a lesson should be orchestrated to involve both sides of the brain for a deeper learning.

Deeper learning will give our students a lesson they can sink their teeth into. Having a classroom with many different Genres of history being read during our literacy time with the activities carefully thought out to engage both hemispheres of the brain.

Wow! How inspiring is Matthew Reif’s classroom! In my 5^th grade classroom we read our history and science books using our reading strategies, comprehension/thinking strategies. Infering and drawing conclusions. We learn to read non-fiction differently from fiction to find information. At the end of each chapter we summarize it in our summary point writings. I am eager to take my history classes to the next level as Matthew does. Our goal is to connect history with our lives by having students linking the past to the present by learning to think for themselves. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “Every effort must be made in childhood to teach the young to use their own minds, for one thing is sure, if they don’t make up their own minds, someone will do it for them.”