Immigration and Migration and the Making of a Modern American City

Activities

Document Shuffle

This is a favorite activity of many Advanced Placement history teachers because it helps prepare them for the document-based question on the exam and allows for students to practice group inquiry. It is critical to practice this multiple times so that the students can improve in their reading, thinking, and discussing the documents. I plan to use this strategy for each of the three time periods I have chosen (1900, 1910, and 1920).

Students will be in groups of four or five (depending on class size) and will have a collection of documents on the table. I often try to make the document packet look like a dossier in order to create a sense of importance to looking at historical artifacts. The documents for this activity will include an article from the Foreign Language Press Survey, census records for the selected street in the Back of the Yards neighborhood, a photograph of people in the community, and an excerpt from a report on the conditions of the neighborhood. I also include a map of the neighborhood as a common document.

In the first round students take one minute with each document and record whatever sticks out to them in that time. After each student has looked at all of the documents, students are given two minutes to form connections between the documents, big ideas about the time period, and, most importantly, questions they have to help them better understand the documents. This round is followed by a reading on the time period with particular focus on industrial Chicago followed by a discussion about the connections between the reading and the documents.

The second round returns to the documents but each student focuses on one document alone for a longer period of time (5-10 minutes) with the intention of working to create an argument using the documents. Students report out what they have learned from their document. This early in the year I use guided questions to help students know what to look for when examining historical documents (i.e. date, source, context, etc).

Once each group creates an argument, students individually write a paragraph using evidence from the sources to defend their argument. Since they are writing for the same purpose, it allows students a much clearer way to peer edit and learn from each other. I often make copies of the paragraphs so that my feedback is read after the student read the feedback from their peers. Students then rewrite the paragraph based on the feedback they received. ²¹

Idea Building

This activity comes from the book, Academic Conversation, that I referenced in my strategy section. The purpose of this strategy is to "build on and challenge ideas in conversation." ²² This fits well with the content of the unit as a way for students to create early arguments and weigh the strengths and weaknesses of those arguments in dialogue. I also like this strategy because it uses manipulatives that help keep students engaged. A student will start by writing an idea on an idea card. Classmates then take other cards on the table and begin to respond to the ideas. The other cards include (but are not limited to) examples that supports the idea, importance of the idea, application of the idea, challenges to the idea, comparisons with the idea, and perspectives on the idea. Each of these cards begins with a sentence starter. Some examples provided in the book are: "I would add that…, To piggyback off your idea about…, Some people might say…, This is important because…, Yet some people might argue against this because…." ²³

See-Think-Wonder

This activity is used to analyze visual artifacts (photos, maps, paintings, etc) and was modeled by one of the teachers in my seminar who was trained at Harvard in the Making Thinking Visible protocols. While a relatively simple protocol, the challenge comes in having the patience and discipline to allow students the time to look closely. The basics of the strategy rely on three questions when students are looking at an image: "What do you see? What do you think is going on? What does it make you wonder?" ²⁴ As the book states, "this routine was designed to draw on students' close looking and intent observation as the foundation for greater insights, grounded interpretations, evidence-based theory building, and broad-reaching curiosity." ²⁵

The process, more thoroughly explained in the book, suggests 2-3 minutes of silent time while students examine the image. Follow the silent time by asking students what they see (this can be full class or in pairs and shared out). Be sure to give time for this part as students begin to look more deeply after hearing what other students are seeing in the image. If the class grows quiet, offer another "What else do you see?" before moving to the next part. The third part of the process is to ask students what they think is happening in the image or what the image makes them think. As the book states, "the goal here is to build up layers of tentative interpretation rather than merely naming the subject matter." ²⁶