Conceptual Annotation & Thinking Like a Historian...

Hi Everyone,

      So, we have all seen and tried Text Coding as well as Annotating text.  Text Coding is using symbols in a piece of text you are reading in order to make it easier to review that text later.  Text Coding organizes our thoughts in a specific way that makes sense to us.  Annotating text is simply interacting with text and writing notes along the way IN THE TEXT.  You have all done this.  Now is the time to step it up a bit.

      Conceptual Annotation brings these two nonfiction reading strategies together.  It makes meaning out of text which, in turn, allows us to use text in our WRITING, OUR PROJECTS, and CONVERSATIONS in class.  So here we go... 

These are the concepts we all know and love:
TE = Through Their Eyes
TP = Turning Points
CE = Cause & Effect
CC/CH = Change & Continuity
UP = Using the Past

These will be the concepts that we will use to mark up our texts as well.  Let's roll up our sleeves and get to it. 

From the cluttered mind of C, Teacher
School District of Waukesha
Waukesha STEM Academy

Using the Part: Slavery

HOWDY Y'ALL!!

      Camel Day is here to stay!!  Drawing lessons from the past can be a powerful way to make sense of the present and to inform decisions about the future.  One can use the past for less immediate purposes.  Historians use their understanding of one historical event to raise questions about another historical event.  USING THE PAST RESPONSIBLY REQUIRES FINDING THE USEABLE PAST.  We must be able to discriminate between those events and aspects that are relevant to the event under study. 
Olaudah Equiano: African Slave (Primary Source)


From the cluttered mind of C, Teacher
School District of Waukesha
Waukesha STEM Academy

Another Look at Slavery: Change & Continuity/Using The Past...

Happy Monday Y'all,

      Doing history is not the same thing as learning about history. TLH brings history to life in a way that goes deeper than rote memorization of dates and facts. Or, as Emily Rhodes put it, "dates and dead people". 

      As your teacher I would like to let you in on what my vision and goal is for TLH and Project WICR.  I want to teach you how to DO HISTORY. EXPERIENCE HISTORY. FEEL & SENSE HISTORY.  I do not want you to just learn about history so that one day when you are older you look back and say, "Oh yeah, I think my 8th grade teacher told us about that once." 

      I was thinking this weekend about what we are doing here during our CORES and STEaM time when I had a thought.  I asked the question, What's more important, that the kids are taught or that the kids learn?  The answer I came up with is this...  You're here to learn, not just necessarily to be taught!! This thought completely shifted my WORLDVIEW.  You will learn and remember by DOING HISTORY not just hearing me tell you about it. 
Read.  Write.  Think.  Remember.  Question.  Synthesize. 

    Tim & Moby: Slavery

Tim & Moby: Underground Railroad

Media in History

I can identify main ideas, analyze supporting details, and evaluate inferences within discipline specific readings

Content in History

I can apply content in order to evaluate relationships of people and ideas and draw conclusions.

Sincerely,
C
P.S. I hear and I forget.
I see and I remember.
I DO AND I UNDERSTAND.
Do your best and forget the rest!

Sent from my iPhone