Teach Students how to Analyze Sources and Give Them a Peek inside their Teacher’s Soul
What does “Doing History” look like in a classroom? Here is a fun activity teachers can use to introduce students to the skill of analyzing primary sources.
Author Archive for: JudyC
Entries by Judy Dodge Cummings
Doing History
Is history a noun or a verb? How a teacher answers this question can be seen in what goes on in his or her classroom. If you want to develop the minds of youth who are capable of thinking critically about the relationship between the past and the present, then don’t teach history to students. Instead teach students to do history.
Teaching School Desegregation through the Story of Sylvia Mendez
Picture books are powerful teaching tools, not just for elementary kids but for older readers as well. I have taught, read, and written about American history for decades, but it took a picture book to introduce me to the Mendez family and their fight for school integration. Separate is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez & Her Family’s Fight for Desegregation by Duncan Tonatiuh explores a legal case I’d wager is not taught in many history classes. It should be.
The Patriotic Blues
I come from a family of eight kids. When we get together we sing, usually parodies aimed at one sibling or another. But when I was about nine years old, my sister Liz (2 years older) and I composed a song that stemmed from a deep love of country. In the true American tradition, we wrote a protest song. We have our parents to thank for that.
Human Flesh -The Cure for What Ails You
Feeling a little under the weather? I’ve got just the thing. I’m currently writing four books in a series with very tight deadlines so I have not had time to post on my blog. However, I had to take a minute out to share this. The current book I’m writing is about grave robberies. In my research, I stumbled across this tasty tidbit (pun intended).
Myth Buster: What Caused the Civil War?
Myths and misconceptions exist about what caused the Civil War. In 2015, the 150th anniversary of the start of the war, the Pew Research Center conducted a poll to explore Americans’ beliefs about this pivotal conflict. The results indicated that 48% of Americans believe the southern states seceded because of states’ rights and 38% of people believe the South seceded over slavery. But what does the historical evidence show?