Writing Across the Curriculum: HistoryFix
writing to show learning in social studies class
 Learning to write and writing to learn...
Hello, my name is Denise Boswell, and my own experience in traditional social studies classrooms had me memorizing and reciting dates and facts. Memorizing dates has never been a strength of mine; therefore, I was not a fan of the subject. Through my recent experience with the Northern Nevada Writing Project and the Teaching American History Project, social studies has become a passion of mine and my students.
I have found the importance of bringing history alive in my classroom by engaging my students through investigation, research, literature, and writing. Literacy has become the foundation on which I teach the social studies standards. Teaching students to write to learn is probably the most important skill we can give our students once they have become readers. We must write to share our thoughts and ideas, and this is something a multiple choice, true-false, and matching assessment cannot do. If you want a true assessment of your student’s learning, your students must write!
HistoryFix is a website that shares rich lessons created by Washoe County teachers where Social Studies is taught through literature and writing. All lessons are meant to be adapted to whatever level your students are working. Inspiring students to be inquisitive learners and creative writers is the goal of historyfix.
We are currently asking for student samples for each lesson from Elementary, Middle, and High School students. Here is the template that teachers may use when submitting lessons for consideration.
|
Lessons created by Nevada teachers for
HistoryFix: |
Historical lessons & resouces found on our
sister site: WritingFix
|
 Lesson Title: Spiritual Waters
Lesson Author: Denise Boswell, Nevada teacher
Lesson's mentor text: Washoe Seasons of Life: A Native American Story by Karen Wallis, Diane Domiteaux, and Lea Saling
Lesson objectives: Students will analyze primary source documents, pictures, and artifacts using describe, analyze, and interpret method; students will compare and contrast Tahoe City using a sketch from 1865 and a photograph of Tahoe City Today, and show understanding of cause and effect of the comparisons; students will compare and contrast Lake Tahoe from its past to its present.
Click on the lesson title or book image to access this lesson on-line. |
 Lesson Title: Historical Journal Entries
Lesson Author: Dayna Ayers, Nevada teacher
Lesson's mentor text: Pedro's Journal: A Journey with Christopher Columbus by Pam Conrad
Objectives: Students will study a historical event of interest to them, using classroom text books and library resouces; students will create a fictional character who would have been alive and present during their researched historical event; students will create a diary entry from the voice of their historical character, trying to combine emotions and historical facts.
Click on the lesson title or book image to access this lesson on-line. |
|
|
 Lesson Title: Civil Rights Warriors
Lesson Author: Denise Boswell, Nevada teacher
Lesson's mentor text: The Story Of Ruby Bridges by Robert Coles & The Other Side by Jacqueline Woodson
Lesson objectives: Civil Rights Warriors is a fun way to incorporate the teaching of research and biographies. Students will research a person connected to the civil rights movement and create a trading card on their researched person. Students will identify through research the qualities of a person from history and their connection to the Civil Rights Movement.
Click on the lesson title or book image to access this lesson on-line.
|
 Lesson Title: Gotta Go Back in Time
Lesson Author: Christy Hodge, Nevada teacher
Lesson's mentor text: George Washington's Socks by Elvira Woodruff
Lesson objectives: Students will study a historical era of interest to them, and they will plan an original story inspired by Elvira Woodruff's story about the Revolutionary War. Each student will compose a story, complete with beginning, middle, and end, where they travel back in time with a companion, witness historically accurate events, then return to their own time with an artifact from the past.
Click on the lesson title or book image to access this lesson on-line.
|
|
|
 Lesson Title: The Preamble: More than an Introduction
Lesson Author: Christy Hodge, Nevada teacher
Lesson's mentor text: We the Kids: The Preamble to the Constitution of the United States by David Catrow
Lesson objectives: The students will learn the meaning of the words within the Preamble to the Constitution in order to give them a better understanding of its content and of the constitution. The students will write a Found Poem to represent their personal learning from the Preamble.
Click on the lesson title or book image to access this lesson on-line.
|
 Lesson Title: Giving Credit Where Credit Might Be Due
Lesson Author: Dayna Ayers, Nevada teacher
Lesson's mentor text: Ben and Me: An Astonishing Life of Benjamin Franklin by His Good Mouse Amos by Robert Lawson
Lesson objectives: Students will research and then plan an organized and creative story where an animal or an object claims credit for something historically credited with someone else. Each story must contain, at least, five historical facts that are sequentially correct. Students will attempt to realistically capture the point-of-view of another entity that has witnessed history.
Click on the lesson title or book image to access this lesson on-line.
|
|
|
 Lesson Title: Moving West
Lesson Author: Denise Boswell, Nevada teacher
Lesson's mentor text: Covered Wagons, Bumpy Trails by Verla Kay
Lesson objectives: Students will research an immigrant trail, write down descriptive and interesting concepts, and turn it into a concept poem. This lesson can be extended from a poem into a picture book. Moving West is a fun way to integrate research skills and poetry writing.
Click on the lesson title or book image to access this lesson on-line.
|
 Lesson Title: The Presidential Quotation Report
Lesson Author: Corbett Harrison, Nevada teacher
Lesson's mentor text: Theodore by Frank Keating
Lesson objectives: Students will choose any president (other than Teddy Roosevelt) by researching famous quotes said by him; students will choose five favorite quotes, and they will research events and facts that might have led their chosen president to speak the words found in the quote dictionary; finally, students will organize a five-part report on their president that exclusively focuses on the historical events that inspired their president to utter those words.
Click on the lesson title or book image to access this lesson on-line. |
|
|
 Lesson Title: I Have a Dream
Lesson Author: Denise Boswell, Nevada teacher
Lesson's mentor text: We Dream Of A World... by various authors
Lesson objectives: Looking for a way for students to find the passion in the Civil Rights Movement and “I Have a Dream” speech? After listening to the audio of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream Speech,” students will locate words in the speech that connect to the Civil Rights Movement and create a diamond-shaped poem of their own. Through the poem students will express their own thoughts of the meaning of the poem and the movement.
Click on the lesson title or book image to access this lesson on-line. |
 Lesson Title: Boogie Woogie with a B
Lesson Author: Marie Johnson, Nevada teacher
Lesson's mentor text: "The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" as sung by the Andrews Sisters
Lesson overview: Using a famous World War II propaganda song, students will explore alliteration by changing the lyrics to create a new version of the song. After discussing what alliteration is and why this particular song was used and enjoyed by the people at home to promote patriotic spirit, the students will play with the lyrics to create their own alliterative patriotic songs. The students will then perform or present to the class their version of the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.
Click on the lesson title or book image to access this lesson on-line.
|
|
|
 Lesson Title: The Perilous Journey: My Experience
Lesson Author: Christy Hodge, Wendy Mulligan, and Shelley Gregory, Nevada teachers
Lesson's mentor text: The Perilous Journey of the Donner Party by Marian Calabro
Lesson objectives: Many students have a misconception about the Donner Party. The Donner Party was more than just a group of people that were faced with tragedy, bad luck and death. They changed the future for those traveling the West and disproved the Emigrants Guide to Oregon and California. This lesson will help students experience the entire journey of the Donner Party.
Click on the lesson title or book image to access this lesson on-line. |
 Lesson Title: A President's Perspective
Lesson Author: Corbett Harrison, Nevada teacher
Lesson's mentor text: My Tour Of Europe: By Teddy Roosevelt, Age 10, by Ellen Jackson
Lesson objectives: Students will choose any president (other than Teddy Roosevelt) and research this president's boyhood history; using the lesson's mentor text as a model, students will imagine that their researched president kept a boyhood journal too, and they will create a fictional but fact-based 15- or 20-day journal about their president's typical daily boyhood life or an extraordinary event (like a trip to Europe) that they discover happened to their president.
Click on the lesson title or book image to access this lesson on-line. |
|
|
 Lesson Title: Riding the Train of States
Lesson Author: Christy Hodge, Nevada teacher
Lesson's mentor text: The Train of States by Peter Sis
Lesson objectives: The purpose of this lesson is to help students memorize all fifty states and the capitals through classroom visual representation. The students will make a train car representing an assigned state. The teacher will make a train of states on the class bulletin to help students remember the states and capitals. The train will be used by the students to study the population, mottos, flags, and interesting historical facts about each state including important aspects of each of the fifty states.
Click on the lesson title or book image to access this lesson on-line. |
 Lesson Title: Native American Oral Storytelling
Lesson Author: Bernice Servilican, Nevada teacher
Lesson's mentor text: Waterlily by Ella Cara Deloria
Lesson objectives: Students will choose any president (other than Teddy Roosevelt) and research this president's boyhood history; using the lesson's mentor text as a model, students will imagine that their researched president kept a boyhood journal too, and they will create a fictional but fact-based 15- or 20-day journal about their president's typical daily boyhood life or an extraordinary event (like a trip to Europe) that they discover happened to their president.
Click on the lesson title or book image to access this lesson on-line. |
|
|
 Lesson Title: How Can We Say, "Never Again"?
Lesson Author: Vallarie Larson, Nevada teacher
Lesson's mentor text: A Persuasive Video about Darfur from You-Tube.
Lesson objectives: This lesson focuses on this Essential Question, “After WWII, it was said that never again shall we--the international community--allow an act of genocide to occur in the world. What events in the world today would prove this statement false?” Students will look at the current situation in Darfur and, utilizing persuasive writing techniques, create a persuasive poster campaign either about Darfur or another international situation that has occurred since WWII.
Click on the lesson title or video image to access this lesson on-line. |
Want to build a R.A.F.T. writing assignment?
Click here for social studies R.A.F.T. ideas.
|
|
|
| |
Don't know what a RAFT is?
Click here to learn about R.A.F.T.s at WritingFix.
 |
|
|
|
Copyright 2008 - WritingFix and the Northern Nevada Writing Project- All Rights Reserved
|
|
