Strategies
The students at my school struggle with analyzing and reading primary sources in History. This is due to the lack of reading skills that arises with the achievement gap between students from low and high socioeconomic backgrounds. The students also have very limited experiences due to their lack of exposure to varying ideas and places. Most stories in textbooks and primary documents are foreign to them which cause their interest level to be almost nonexistent.
The students in my class learn a lot more when they are engaged and can use the skills that they possess. The most important skill they have is their emotional understanding of life and the world in which they live. My students have a great ability to understand situations by analyzing people and their actions. My goal is to use this skill to analyze images, sketches, portraits, and photographs while providing the proper historical context to create higher retention of knowledge. Also, I want the students to be able to operate on the higher levels of thinking according to Bloom's Taxonomy.
The primary focus of analysis will be images, sketches, portraits, and photographs that tell the history of black people in America with a very specific focus on Richmond, Virginia. The students will read primary sources after analyzing images to help create higher retention. They will also read these documents to place the images in the proper historical context. The images create a visual picture that will promote deeper understanding of the primary sources.
The students will use a graphic organizer to analyze images. I created this graphic organizer to set a standard for the level of thinking I want the students to demonstrate. The graphic organizer is called P.A.P.S.I. (People, Actions, Place, Source, and Image Summary). The acronym focuses on the 4 main categories to examine to create a summary of the image.
The first letter in the acronym P stands for people. The student will analyze the people in the image and form opinions on them by answering several basic questions. These questions are: Who is in the picture? What are their unique physical characteristics? (clothing, size, gender, race) What do these characteristics say about the persons in picture? Who is in charge? What is power based on? Who gives that person or group power?
The second letter in the acronym A stands for Action. The student will analyze the actions taking place in the image and form opinions on them by answering several basic questions. These questions are: What is happening in the picture? What relationships/interactions are taking place? How do people communicate? What do What social structures of society are being represented by the actions in the picture? (race, class, gender, family relations) Are there social classes? How do they live? Are there inequalities? How is social structure being altered or challenged in this picture? Did your reading reveal any social or cultural norms?
The third letter in the acronym P stands for Place. The student will analyze the physical geography in the image and form opinions on them by answering several basic questions. These questions are: Where is the picture taking place? Where do you think the picture takes place? What are the unique physical characteristics? (natural vs human structures) What do the physical characteristics say about society? What role does geography play in the picture?
The fourth letter in the acronym S stands for Source. The student will analyze the origin of the image by examining the creator of the image and form opinions on them by answering several basic questions. These questions are: Who was the intended audience? When was the document created or circulated? Who created the document? and how do you know? What position or title did he or she hold? And how do you know? What biases might he or she have? And how can these biases influence the document? Whose voice is not represented in the document? Why do you think that voice was left out?
The last letter in the acronym I stand for Image Summary. The student will create a summary of the image by using the questions answered to form a final complete thought of the image. The questions answered in the final summary are: Why do you think this image was created? What specific evidence in the image helps you know why it was created? What does the image convey about life in the United States at the time it was created? What questions does the image raise? What questions do u have for the author of this image? Where would you find more information on this image?
This unit will take five days of class stretched over a two month period. The students will create a ten page visual journey of black life in Richmond, Virginia in the Churchill neighborhood throughout the 19 th century. Each entry in the journal will have a picture as well as a page summary of image and how it relates to black life in Richmond in the 19 th century. The students will be allowed to up to five of the images used in class but they must also find or create five new images of their own.
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