Founding Fathers: From Revolution to Government

My Social Studies Methods class at the University of Portland recently published a free multi-touch iBook – Exploring History: Vol IV. It features eight engaging questions and historic documents that empower students to be the historian in the classroom. For more info on our project and free download of a pdf or multi-touch iBook version click here.

To better publicize student work, I’m featuring each chapter in it’s own blog post. See more in the series here

From Revolution to Government by Valerie Schiller

Valerie frames here lesson with two essential questions: How did the debates of colonial America shape the Constitution? Do these issues still affect American government and its citizens today?

Image credit: The First Continental Congress illustration at the US Capitol

Holy Propaganda, Batman: Comics Go to War

My Social Studies Methods class at the University of Portland recently published a free multi-touch iBook – Exploring History: Vol IV. It features eight engaging questions and historic documents that empower students to be the historian in the classroom. For more info on our project and free download of a pdf or multi-touch iBook version click here.

To better publicize student work, I’m featuring each chapter in it’s own blog post. See more in the series here

Holy Propaganda Batman! by Karina Ramirez Velazquez

Karina introduce her lesson:

Welcome Historians! This book will help us understand World War II through the lens of comic book covers. I will give a brief introduction on the start of the Golden Age of comic books, and after an introduction of the start of the World War II (1939) and how that influence comic books. The essential question for this book is: What can early comic book covers tell us about World War II? The target audience for this book is ninth grade high schoolers. The historical skills that will be studied are sourcing, contextualization, corroborating, and close reading. The final project will be creating your own comic book cover or meme against or for the U.S. involvement during WWII.

Image credit: Four Favorites “Right in Der Fuehrer’s Face” Wikipedia

Envision the Moon: From Verne and Méliès to NASA

My Social Studies Methods class at the University of Portland recently published a free multi-touch iBook – Exploring History: Vol IV. It features eight engaging questions and historic documents that empower students to be the historian in the classroom. For more info on our project and free download of a pdf or multi-touch iBook version click here.

To better publicize student work, I’m featuring each chapter in it’s own blog post. See more in the series here

Imagination, Innovation & Space Exploration by Molly Pettit

Molly introduces her lesson with an essential question: What is the relationship between imagination and innovation within the context of space travel?

Imagination and innovation are two key forces that drive history. The stories are everywhere – the phones in our pockets, the computers on our desks, the cars we drive, the medicine we take when we’re sick, even the indoor plumbing we use in our homes.
This chapter will examine how imagination and innovation have influenced space travel throughout history. Using historical thinking skills such as contextualization and close reading to examine text and media sources to unravel the relationship between imagination and innovation, students will analyze how both influenced one of the biggest dreams of the 20th century, and fueled ambitions for the future.


Image credit: By Georges Méliès [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Hollywood History: What really happened to Anastasia?

Anastasie of Russia of Russia - no date

My Social Studies Methods class at the University of Portland recently published a free multi-touch iBook – Exploring History: Vol IV. It features eight engaging questions and historic documents that empower students to be the historian in the classroom. For more info on our project and free download of a pdf or multi-touch iBook version click here.

To better publicize student work, I’m featuring each chapter in it’s own blog post. See more in the series here

The Real Romanovs: How media affects people’s perception of events by Kelly Marx

Kelly introduces her lesson with a generative question:How does media affect people’s perception of events?

Anastasia Nikolaevna was the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, the last sovereign of Imperial Russia. After the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, the Tzar and his family were murdered. Persistent rumors of her possible escape circulated the globe and provoked many books and films. This lesson will examine the differences between the movie “Anastasia” (1997) and what actually happened to the Romanovs and the Tsarina.

Image credit: “Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia”
Library of Congress LC-DIG-ggbain-05700

What do Historians do when the Written Record is Missing?

Image: Fire of Troy

My Social Studies Methods class at the University of Portland recently published a free multi-touch iBook – Exploring History: Vol IV. It features eight engaging questions and historic documents that empower students to be the historian in the classroom. For more info on our project and free download of a pdf or multi-touch iBook version click here.

To better publicize student work, I’m featuring each chapter in it’s own blog post. See more in the series here

Mysterious Bronze Age Collapse by Sam Hick-Savage

Sam introduces his lesson this way:

Over the course of a century many of the great civilizations of the Eastern Mediterranean vanished. Literacy nearly vanished. Even today, many textbooks shift their focus away from the Mediterranean and never mention this cataclysm that shows that civilization is fragile. The lack of a written record should not be seen as a reason to skip over this event, but rather as an opportunity. This is an invitation to you as a student to be a historian. Review the records. Theorize about what may have happened. Free from the constraints of a clear narrative and neatly arranged facts, your goal is not to memorize each fact, but to use the evidence to form your own opinion.


Image credit: By Kerstiaen de Keuninck (Coninck) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons