History in Our Everyday Lives

CONTENTS OF CURRICULUM UNIT 15.03.07

  1. Unit Guide
  1. Introduction
  2. Rationale
  3. The Bones of the Unit: Enduring Understandings, Essential Questions, Objectives, and Assessments
  4. Public History: An Overview
  5. Historical Context: The Development of Landscaped Urban Parks
  6. Aural Storytelling and Podcasts
  7. Teaching Strategies
  8. Key Activities
  9. Common Core Standards
  10. Bibliography
  11. Notes

Telling Stories: Place, Space, and Memory in Chicago's Parks

Elizabeth M. Miller

Published September 2015

Tools for this Unit:

The Bones of the Unit: Enduring Understandings, Essential Questions, Objectives, and Assessments

I started thinking of this unit like I do all others-- with big ideas-- and then I whittled down to the minutia of assessments. The Common Core advises that 70 per cent of a student’s reading be nonfiction in nature. As a teacher of English literature, I recognize that my content is just one fifth of a student’s core subjects; but imperative in the Common Core mandate is the idea that I, too, will teach a student to read nonfiction critically. I like to expand the idea of all things as text. This meshes nicely with the way public historians consider public history: all history is textual and can be looked at through a critical lens. Therefore, one of the most important things my students can understand in an any English class I teach is that all structures, not just the printed word, can be analyzed as texts.

The second enduring understanding underlying this unit and all units I teach is aligned to critical thinking. I want my students to reflect on their educational experiences and, as important as being able to remember any literary term or specific date in history, be able to draw upon those experiences to think critically and participate in our democratic society. Lastly, I want my students to be able to communicate clearly across a variety of mediums and for a variety of purposes-- something they will be able to practice through this unit. My approach to teaching English-- and my interpretation of the Common Core State Standards-- is one that is very much interdisciplinary. Public history, it should be noted, is also an interdisciplinary practice.

Those enduring understandings, in turn, inform the essential questions. What makes a place? is the first question I would like my students to consider. When they think about purpose or intention of a place, they are also examining something easily translatable into their study of English literature. I also want my students to consider these questions: How and why did the space come to be? and What will the space become? In that way, they will think about change over time-- something also translatable to a Common-Core aligned study of literature or nonfiction standards around the integration of knowledge and ideas. Since presentation and communication are components of this unit, students will know how to construct and edit narratives that are both subjective (opinion-based) and objective (fact-based) and how to publish those narratives digitally as podcasts. They will also end up knowing more about their city’s history, urban parks, and the national and international histories of parks.

The final product and summative assessment for this unit is the publishing of student-created podcasts. There will be multiple formative assessments along the way to measure whether or not students are developing the necessary reading, writing, analytical, and technological skills necessary to produce this content.

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