First Day Springfield June 5th 2009
Great First day as we had class at the Lincoln Library with Erin Bishop. I have always been fuzzy on what exactly constitutes primary sources. I had such a narrow view and thought it left mostly to scholars as it should be the exact piece left behind, and I guess I confess my ignorance as we do not occassion much to use primary sources in the elementary setting. Also, I had such a narrow view of primary sources as I did not think of all the other things like police reports, artifacts, songs, poems, and the like as primary sources. The activities were great and will utilize three of them in my classroom next year. The first is the indivudual reactions to photograhs in groups with different point of views, and then forming those reactions to the paragraphs into one group paragraph. The second was the poetry project where we reacted to a photo and wrote down reaction words to that photo and later developed those words into a poem. I think this is best with a partner and produce a combined poem. The third is the opinion poll where certain students (she suggested the verbal ones) react without talking to striong statements and the rest of the class (the usually non-verbal ones) defend the choices. This was a great way to elicit discussion and leave the normally vocal and hoggish students on he sidelines for a while. When a teacher plans to imediately utilize three ideas from a two hour morning session, that session was totally worthwhile. The computer session was helpful, but caotic as not all the computers worked properly. Wish they hac WiFi and all had access; however the sites will be used as part of my Civil Wa analysis project next year.
In addition, I may use the Marilyn Montrose activity or redo as a great way to introduce primary sources.
Byran Andreason was not so helpful. As teachers we know how to pare down and effectvely distill information to our students or we are probably not be on this trip. What I wanted was a more in-depth knowlede of Lincoln that a scholar could possibly give me. His PowerPoint on Lincoln in a historical context looked interesting to me , but he seemed fixiated on how he overcame the unreal demands of his boss to triumph and produce a great bullettin board. I really did not apprreciate the preview to the museum. I felt he imposed some of his beliefs that predjudiced me as I toured the museum in the afternoon. For example, I did not find that Lincoln’s cabinet was that divided on the Emancipation Proclamation. Some in the cabinet were, but he said all were oppossed. I also disagreed with Erin earlier stating that the letter from Lincoln to his step-brother was shocking. Let us figure if it was shocking to us, and let us figure out the reactions by the Lincoln’s cabinet.
I would have to say the museum was great. The pictures will be utilized next year in my class dicussion of Lincoln. In the “textbook” I use, it contains 30 chapters covering the Civil War of which 5 or 6 are specifically on Lincoln. That means 5 or 6 class sessions devoted to Lincoln. The pictures will add significntly to my presentation along with the video I purchased. Lincoln fascinates kids and I find the more I know about him and his life the more the kids are interested in this time and the Civil War.
Care to tell us any more about it, Mark?
Yes, but after visiting with Paul, Hutch, Wendy, Steven, and Brett at a great Irish Pub, it was all I could do to find my password, change my format and start my blog. I figured that after a good nights sleep, I would tackle the blog in the morning.
To be honest, I found Mr. Andreason’s discussion about the Lincoln-Douglas Senate campaign and outcome pretty interesting,though I would agree that his description of exhibition turf battles would be a great topic for a book–as long as he only planned on selling, oh, five whole copies. The primary source question is likely one that will continue to evolve as our perception of what constitutes a viable and acceptable news source takes on further changes as things like newspapers and investigative reporting fight for their survival.
Yes, that portion was interesting and my point was that I wanted more scholarly discussion on Lincoln’s life and not some battle won by oppossing some boss and their unreasonable demands.