Tag: University of Portland

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Visions of Freedom: The American Revolution

Illustration for Phillis Wheatley Poems on Various Subjects
I assigned my preservice teachers at University of Portland the task of using Learnist to design a document based question that would eventually become part of a class-produced DBQ iBook collection. DBQ assignment here. More samples of student-designed DBQs here.

I’ve asked them to reflect on the assignment and invited them to guest post on my blog. Here is Visions of Freedom: The American Revolution – a DBQ designed by Collin Soderberg-Chase. This DBQ presents multiple “views of freedom” viewed through the “lenses” of differing perspectives held during American revolutionary era. The essential question examines what factors influence one’s vision of freedom.

See Collin’s chapter in our class-designed iBook – free at iTunes

You can find Collin’s posts on our class blog.

By the end of the DBQ, readers would have investigated views of freedom between the colonists and the British government, military officers and laymen, and slaves and freemen.

This DBQ explored slavery and the American Revolutionary War through various visions of freedom that existed during the mid- to late-1700s. The idea for this project came from the understanding that oftentimes only one voice is heard in history. That approach, however, does not take into account the full narrative of the time and provides a false reality of important historical events. As a result, the purpose of this project was to provide readers an opportunity to look at central documents in a different light, while at the same time offering a chance to explore documents that may not take a dominant role in many studies of the American Revolution. By the end of the DBQ, readers would have investigated views of freedom between the colonists and the British government, military officers and laymen, and slaves and freemen, building content depth and providing the means to explore many unfamiliar corners of this important event in American history.

Even though the main essential question revolved around what influences visions of freedom, there were many other generative questions that were incorporated into my project.

  • How does individual identity change during times of revolution?
  • How does the political atmosphere of a time change social understandings?
  • What are the motivating factors that lead one to revolt against authority?
  • How do people express their distrust and discontent towards authority?

Because these questions permit the reader to investigate multiple horizons of possibilities, this project fits perfectly into many course and state standard requirements.

In the end, I feel like this DBQ completed my goals to introduce different visions of freedom to the American Revolution story. What I really enjoyed about this process is that it forced me to think deeply about every document that I wanted to add to the project. In order for readers to successfully complete the DBQ, the documents and order needed to be coherent and accessible. This thinking exercise now can be easily translated into the classroom, which I foresee as a priceless skill when I begin to introduce students to primary documents.

Image credit: Illustration for Phillis Wheatley Poems on Various Subjects Wikipedia

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Visual Rhetoric of Women’s Suffrage

Official program woman suffrage procession. Washington, D. C. March 13, 1913I assigned my preservice teachers at University of Portland the task of using Learnist to design a document based question that would eventually become part of a class-produced DBQ iBook collection. DBQ assignment here. More samples of student-designed DBQs here.

I’ve asked them to reflect on the assignment and invited them to guest post on my blog. Here is Propaganda of the American Suffrage Movement, c. 1910-1920 – a DBQ designed by Heather Treanor and Cory Cassanova. This DBQ is meant to encourage students to think critically about the American suffrage movement propaganda. The generative questions are: “How do images express biases?” and “How are political, social, and economic factors presented?”

You can find Heather at LinkedIn and here’s her posts on our class blog. Here’s Cory’s posts on our class blog.

See Heather and Cory’s chapter in our class-designed iBook – free at iTunes.

Here’s Heather’s reflection on the project:

In our DBQ on women’s suffrage, we wanted the students to learn how image propaganda is used to make an argument or portray a side. Our generative questions were:

  1. What is the role of image media in the suffrage movement?
  2. How are pro-and anti-suffrage movements depicted in media?
  3. What are the biases that are found in image media?
  4. How are political, social, and economic factors portrayed in image media?

After doing this unit, the students should be able to look at a women’s suffrage image and answer the following questions (which connect back to the generative questions):

  1. What side is this image from? (Pro-suffrage or anti-suffrage?)
  2. What argument is the image making? How do you know?
  3. What does this image say about the society at the time this image was printed?

Each image asks the students to make a decision on the image’s argument and back up their answer with evidence.

Making the DBQ was a challenging assignment, mainly because we needed to find the best images that represented exactly the argument that we wanted. One of the problems was that, because there are so many images from the suffrage movement, there are often images that have different pictures but that make the same argument. We tried to be careful to choose images that did not just show a repeat of an argument, but that depicted a new suffrage position.

Our final project met all of the generative goals and objectives quite well. Each image asks the students to make a decision on the image’s argument and back up their answer with evidence, or it asks the students to compare the images to make a decision on how society had changed between the picture publications. The final DBQ is a great tool that can be used in conjunction with a social studies or communications class that is studying the suffrage movement in the United States. It can be found on the website Learnist, and soon on an iBook

Here’s Cory’s reflection on the project:

We discovered that if the students had only positive (pro-suffrage) propaganda to view, then the lesson loses some of its strength.

When we first started working on this DBQ we knew that we wanted to educate students on how to best analyze propaganda, understanding what each piece is trying to say, being able to discover how each piece goes about conveying its message, and what historical events are transpiring to bring about such pieces of work. At the beginning of this DBQ lesson there was talk of only showing pro-women’s suffrage propaganda, but we discovered that if the students had only positive propaganda to view, then the lesson loses some of its strength. As a result we had to make a slight change my overall lesson. Instead of using only pro-suffrage pieces, we would also use anti-suffrage pieces and  the students would compare, contrast, and analyze these pieces as a whole as well instead of independently.

I personally believe that the final project achieved all of my learning goals. My partner had a large amount of excellent material that we used and as a result we were able to create a DBQ that pushes students to both compare and contrast multiple pictures, as well as analyze individual pictures at a deep level.

The biggest lesson that I learned while working on this DBQ is that you have to be careful with what photographic material you use. Pictures are one of the most important parts of a DBQ and if the DBQ has poorly chosen pictures than the overall quality of it will suffer greatly. I also learned that you need to be careful when choosing a topic. While something such as the women’s suffrage movement is well documented through images and propaganda, there are other events that are either lacking sufficient pictures or lack any diversity in their imagery.

Image credit: Official program woman suffrage procession. Washington, D. C. March 13, 1913
Library of Congress: rbpe 20801600

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Image and Emotion / WWII Propaganda Posters

Buy more war bonds and stamps

I assigned my preservice teachers at University of Portland the task of using Learnist to design a document based question that would eventually become part of a class-produced DBQ iBook collection. DBQ assignment here. More samples of student-designed DBQs here.

I’ve asked them to reflect on the assignment and invited them to guest post on my blog. Here is Image and Emotion – WWII Propaganda Posters – a DBQ designed by Aram Glick.

You can find Aram at LinkedIn and here’s his posts on our class blog. See Aram’s chapter in our class-designed iBook – free at iTunes

Aram Glick reflects on what he learned from the experience:

When I began this project, I expected that choosing documents for a DBQ would be easy, while writing the text and questions to accompany them would require the greater effort.

As it turns out, the effort came in keeping myself terse. The fundamental question in this project was “what do you want the reader to do?” Once I decided that the reader would examine propaganda posters and analyze what emotional impact they had, it became clear that my main task would be curating the posters themselves. Too much text would only distract from the real focus of the DBQ. Thus, I tried to limit myself to minimal introductions to set the frame, and one or two open-ended questions.

It seems to me that simplicity is at the heart of the DBQ format. As long as the reader is oriented, the documents, visual or textual, should speak for themselves. I’ll keep this principle in mind not only when designing formal DBQs in the future, but when presenting primary documents to students in a classroom context.

There are many DBQs out there relating to World War II propaganda, but few ask the reader to look across cultures for parallel concerns.

I’m satisfied with the final project: its narrow focus has allowed it to stake out its own niche. There are many DBQs out there relating to World War II propaganda, but few ask the reader to look across cultures for parallel concerns. Still, this project only scratches the surface: the five propaganda themes I included are hardly the only possible points of comparison. I hope readers find this to be a source of ideas and inspiration for other projects.

Image credit: Buy more war bonds and stamps : winner R. Hoe & Co., Inc., Award – national war poster competition : Artists For Victory / MOMA
Contributors R. Hoe & Company
University of Minnesota Libraries, Manuscripts Division: msp02485

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1950s Red Scare – A Student Designed DBQ

Is this tomorrow america under communism

I assigned my preservice teachers at University of Portland the task of using Learnist to design a document based question that would eventually become part of a class-produced DBQ iBook collection. DBQ assignment here. More samples of student-designed DBQs here.

I’ve asked them to reflect on the assignment and invited them to guest post on my blog.
First up is Red Scare DBQ designed by Christina Steiner & Kristi Convissor.

See Christina and Kristi’s chapter in our class-designed iBook – free at iTunes

You can find Christina at LinkedIn and here’s her posts on our class blog.

Christina Steiner reflects on what she learned from the experience:

“A few weeks ago Kristi Convissor and I started creating a DBQ project. We first started with a general outline the DBQ would take. We asked ourselves “What do we want students to learn from the DBQ overall?” To answer that we came up with a generative question to help guide our designing processing and to help the students when they are using the DBQ. The generative question was: “How does a nation develop such an intense fear and enmity that it creates mass hysteria?”

“From there we narrowed it down to look specifically at the Red Scare in 1950s America. We wanted students to learn about Americans fear of communism during the time. We wanted students to not only be aware of the hysteria but to understand where that fear developed from. One of the goals of the DBQ was to get students to think about what kind of words, actions, depictions lead to fear and what kind of outlets are needed to create mass hysteria. If students understand that then they can see how the Red Scare came to encapsulate so much of the 1950s.The design of DBQs lends well to this kind of investigation.

One of the goals of the DBQ was to get students to think about what kind of words, actions, depictions lead to fear …

When creating the DBQ, we chose documents that helped answer the generative question. We had found some cool documents, but they side tracked too far from our question, so we cut them. Having the generative question kept us focused on the main point of the DBQ. In addition we also created follow-up question to each document, which helped us pick quality documents. If the document could only address one question then it probably was not the best source we could use. We made sure to use sources that could be asked several questions because they held a decent amount of information in them for students to discover.

Our DBQ took a media lens to the issue

The final project which can be found on Learnist and soon on an iBook, met our goals. Our DBQ allows students to see for themselves how America came to have such an intense fear of communism through films, articles, and posters. Our DBQ took a media lens to the issue, examining the creation of an enemy based on characterizations rather than on facts or true events.”

Kristi Convissor reflects on what she learned from the experience:
See Kristi’s posts on our class blog. 

Christina Steiner and I have been working on this project for several weeks. We started out with the idea that propaganda is meant to stir feelings in a certain direction, bad or good. Then we decided that we wanted students to recognize the use of propaganda throughout history. Our general question was “What do we want students to learn from the DBQ overall?” The generative question that we formed out of this starting idea was: “How does a nation develop such an intense fear of an enemy, creating mass hysteria?”

We thought that a good starting point to understand such hysteria would be the Red Scare in 1950′s America. We wanted students to learn about the paralyzing fear of communism that existed among Americans at that time. We wanted students to understand what caused such terror to develop. We wanted students to think about what words, images, actions, and depictions might cause fear and what is needed to cause mass hysteria. Student will then be able to understand the driving force of the Red Scare in 1950′s America. The DBQ slowly leads students to think in an investigative manner.

The DBQ slowly leads students to think in an investigative manner.

Christina and I chose documents that would help answer the generative question. We found A LOT of interesting documents and images, but we tried to stick to those that would answer that generative question. This kept us focused on the task at hand. We also ended each document or image with follow-up questions, to scaffold student understanding of propaganda. We wanted each document or image to provide a great deal of information that could lead to greater student discovery and interaction with each piece.

The final project can be found on Learnist and will soon be part of a larger iBook. Through this project, students will come to see and learn how America held such great fear of communism though images, books, comics, films, and posters. We looked specifically at media, examining the creation of enemies based on common perceptions rather than true events or facts.

Image Credit: Wikipedia
Cover to the propaganda comic book “Is This Tomorrow”‘
Date 1947
Source Catechetical Guild

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Learnist: Pinterest for Educators?

The Hirano family, left to right, George, Hisa, and Yasbei. Colorado River Relocation Center, Poston, Arizona., 1942 - 1945
Illustration from Learnist board: Incarceration of Japanese Americans During WWII

I was looking for an online content creation tool to use with my pre-service history teachers at the University of Portland. Our course blog. It had to be an education-friendly, social network that would allow them to post a variety of content, annotate it and provide tools to comment on each other’s work.

They were tasked with designing document based questions (DBQs) that included a variety of source material – text, letters, posters, video, audio. Each DBQ needed an engaging generative / essential question worth answering. It would utilize a series of documents with scaffolding questions designed to help the reader to answer the DBQ’s generative question. See full lesson here.

I considered a variety of social networking curation tools – Pinterest, ScoopIt, etc and posted the question to one of my Google groups. Features I was looking for included: ease of use, space for annotation, user comment, sharing and embedding options. Eventually I settled on Learnist. After reviewing the feedback and trying a few tools our, I settled on Learnist. From my perspective, it’s useful tool with a short learning curve. It lacks many formatting options, but that’s something I like. I’d rather have students focus on content than style.

Learnist proved to be a valuable tool for the students. They were able to post their work and gather feedback from their peers. Since Learnist can be embedded in a blog, they were able to use them as the foundation for guest posts on my blog. See student Learnists here.

Eventually students used the content as the foundation for our class publication of an iBook. 

Here’s a sample lesson that I created using Learnist Incarceration of Japanese Americans During WWII. I’ll be posting samples of student work soon.

Here’s some comments by my students on Learnist:

  • I enjoyed using Learnist. If anything, it’s a helpful cache of lessons to fall back on in the future. I know that I would like to teach a lesson on the Irish War of Independence, and Learnist provides a useful tool to use in the future. However, the format of Learnist does not lend itself easily to a stand-alone lesson. Rather, it provides the backdrop for a more in-depth and exhaustive lesson, a backdrop student can visualize and access from home. The aesthetics could be improved on the site, such as the use of a full screen document viewer, and more interactive visual presentations. ~ Peter
  • I’m with you, Peter. Learnist is a good idea, but they have a ways to go in terms of developing a user-friendly and aesthetically pleasing experience. Developing our lessons was fun though, and I could see myself using this in some capacity down the road ~ Damian
  • As for Learnist, I think it was a very cool idea, and I really enjoyed reading through some of the lessons that the other students created. ~ Cory
  • As for Learnist, I liked seeing others’ boards. I liked seeing how others were forming their follow-up questions and receiving help from my classmates. I think it is a cool site that I will use once I am a teacher, especially if my school is technologically savvy (fingers crossed!). ~ Christina
  • It was also interesting to see the different ways that other students used Learnist to get different outcomes. I’ll admit, however, that I don’t think I’ll be using this in my classroom anytime soon. It’s just a little bit too clunky for me, and I think that there are other ways that students can create DBQs that are a whole lot easier. ~ Heather
  • It was very interesting to see how everyone used Learnist for their DBQs. After browsing several of the projects, it became clear that people viewed the website in different ways. Now that I have finished my project with Learnist, it is hard to imagine using it in the classroom. Personally, there are just not enough formatting or board layout options to make the site useful for me. Whenever I use technology, the more that I can personalize my project the better. ~ Collin 

Image Credit: Their son was serving in the US Army fighting in Italy, while the Hirano family was incarcerated in the Colorado River Relocation Center, Poston, Arizona.
The Hirano family, left to right, George, Hisa, and Yasbei. Colorado River Relocation Center, Poston, Arizona. 1942 – 1945
Records of the War Relocation Authority
National Archives Identifier: 535989