Struck by his GCSE students' bewildered expressions when studying source extracts, Liam McDonnell decided to adopt a new approach to source analysis. Inspired by the work of other history teachers, McDonnell decided to use an anthology of substantial sources when studying nineteenth-century Whitechapel in London. By revisiting the sources at…

The "Australian Curriculum: History" has emerged out of a neoliberal federal education policy landscape. This is a policy landscape where pragmatic and performative, rather than pedagogic concerns are clearly foregrounded, and this has implications for curriculum development and implementation. A useful way to conceptualise the features,…

Developing disciplinary literacy in history requires that classrooms become an environment where students can engage in discursive practices typical of the profession. Disciplinary literacy refers to the specialized ways of reading and writing used in history to construct historical arguments and ways of reasoning. Learning history includes using…

As part of a project in working class history, ninth grade students conduct a bean bake for 1500 people. They cook pork-and-beans in huge black pots fueled day and night by two cords of wood and bake 1500 rolls of bread. An old-fashioned hoedown follows the feed. (KC)

Describes a junior high school social studies unit on the causes and effects of the French Revolution. Emphasis in the unit was on reasoning, and on understanding the logic of cause and effect relationships. Suggests how to help students improve reasoning and other skills, including reading critically, making a formal outline, selecting relevant…

The curriculum and teaching methods revisions necessary with the addition of a ninth school year to compulsory full-time schooling required innovation in history instruction. (JB)

Five classes of secondary school students were involved in an experiment to compare student interest in expository versus narrative text structures. Results with 313 ninth graders in Guam, using history texts, indicate that students favored narrative structure in face-to-face comparisons of texts. (TJH)

This document is a collection of lessons for teaching a unit on ancient Chinese history. The unit focuses on a specific dramatic moment in history from which students can explore the deeper meanings of selected landmark events and their wider context in the great historical narrative. Continuing narrative provides the contest in which the dramatic…

This overview of the first year of the La Mancha Project consists of papers on various aspects of the 5-year project to improve the composition instruction in Vermont schools, incorporating workshop and individual student conference techniques, and integrating writing with other academic studies. The papers include discussions of (1) ninth grade…

This unit begins by examining the problem of rural poverty in China in the 1940s. A variety of solutions attempted by the Chinese government between the mid 1940s and the present all aimed at the improvement of peasant living standards in the countryside. Because 80 percent of China's people are peasants, the Chinese Communist party saw the…

This unit is one of a series that represents specific moments in history from which students focus on the meanings of landmark events. By studying a crucial turning-point in history, students become aware that choices had to be made by real human beings, that those decisions were the result of specific factors, and that they set in motion a series…

Describes the comprehensive curriculum approach and teacher training program on the Jewish Holocaust that has been developed for adolescents by Facing History and Ourselves, a nonprofit organization. Course objectives, problems teachers will encounter, and student response are discussed. (MBR)

The purpose of this unit is to explore the ideas and ideals of the 18th century Enlightenment thinkers called the Philosophes, and to understand how they continue to influence basic notions about the nature of man and his world. The unit introduces key members of the Philosophes through short excerpts from their works. The selections illustrate…

Discusses the concept of knowledge design and its implementation with hypermedia composition tools; explains the instructional model used in research conducted on hypermedia presentations created by a ninth-grade history class; summarizes students' comments about their projects; and examines implications for the restructuring of schools. (JKP)

This unit focuses on a dramatic moment in the Renaissance from about 1420 when Filippo Brunelleschi single handedly created, defined, and engineered a new architecture by building the great dome of the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. The dome became the symbol of Florence's grandeur during the Renaissance, and a model for great…