Regulation Through the Years: Women’s Rights DBQ

640px-Opened_Oral_Birth_ControlMy Social Studies Methods class at the University of Portland recently published a free multi-touch iBook – Exploring History: Vol III (free iTunes). It features thirteen 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 multi-touch iBook and pdf versions click here. To better publicize student work, I’m featuring each chapter in it’s own blog post. (Tenth of 13)

Regulation Through the Years By Chenoa Musillo Olson & Sarah Wieking
Download as PDF 5.9MB

Generative Question: Should people’s bodies be regulated by external authorities?
Critically read the following documents keeping in mind the evolving mentality and arguments of people regarding abortion and birth control. When reading each document think about the similarities and differences between each generation.  Also consider key questions:

  • What is the main argument being made?
  • Who is the intended audience?
  • How does each piece play into society? What is significant about the date in which it was published?
  • To what extent is regulation or deregulation being argued for?

 
Reflection – Chenoa Musillo Olson
Writing my chapter for the book has been an interesting exercise in finding sources and being selective in choosing sources accessible to my students. Collecting resources is every historians’ favorite pass time. Exposing students to primary documents is an exciting way to allow students to be historians. I also found that it is a skill that will need to be developed in students: to be able to read a document and discern the important parts. I would hope to use document based lessons as often as possible. I would also like to use primary documents as a means to learn how to analyze literature.
As far as turning it into a book, I found it to be a long, tedious process that ultimately produced a lesson that will be exciting to look back on.  The process of turning something into a book is a long process that requires a lot of time and tech savvy. I hope to use this as an assignment for my students in the future.
 
Reflection – Sarah Wieking
Designing a DBL was an intricate process. It spanned over several weeks and involved many steps. There were many struggles but also many rewarding moments that accompanied the process.
The first dilemma was in deciding on a topic. I cannot even remember the first topic that I selected because it was hardly intriguing. Then it was a working progress once my partner and I decided to create a lesson on abortion and birth control regulation throughout history.
The next issue was finding the documents. It was really a struggle to select the documents, advertisements, and laws that were appropriate for the topic and that would accomplish our goals. After that, sometimes we discovered the perfect document but then it was difficult to find the full document from a reliable source.
And finally there was the technological struggle. Once we found the documents and advertisements, deciding what we wanted students to accomplish was easy. However, ibooks author and tying it all together in a project was another story entirely. Adding a new page in the middle of my chapter was a huge hassle because it shifted all of the text out of order. It took a few hours to honestly even figure out how to work with the program and how to simply add documents, pictures, and texts.
However, in the end it looked really great and we were able to successfully get it done. It was a fun experience diving into one topic and asking potential students to find connections, make comparisons, and form arguments based on our selections. I mostly just hope that once I am a teacher it will be easier to find the primary documents I need.
 
Image credit: Oral birth control pills. by Bryan Calabro Wikipedia

Founding Fathers and Mothers: Comparing Declarations

Signing the declaration of their independenceMy Social Studies Methods class at the University of Portland recently published a free multi-touch iBook – Exploring History: Vol III (free iTunes). It features thirteen 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 multi-touch iBook and pdf versions click here. To better publicize student work, I’m featuring each chapter in it’s own blog post. (Ninth of 13)

The Declaration of Independence by David Deis
Download as PDF 1MB

Generative Question: How does one document influence other documents written later?

The Declaration of Independence is the founding document of the United States of America. This document has been a major influence on other events in American History. The Seneca Falls Convention was one of the founding events of the American Feminist movement. This event served to promote the early forms of feminism in America as well as give the movement a sense of legitimacy. In this lesson, students will compare the Declaration of Independence and the Seneca Falls Convention’s  ”Declaration of Sentiments.”

Reflection by David Deis

The creation of a DBL (Document Based Lesson) has been an interesting one. Originally, I looked at the task as if I was creating a DBQ (Document Based Question) such as one that would be found on the AP US History test. However, I soon realized that this is only one aspect of a DBL. For a DBL to work, the students must answer a general question through the use of very specific source material. This hindered my generation of ideas with which to create a DBL. I eventually did decide on a solid topic: The effects that a singular event can have on another event that occurs many decades later.

To answer this question, I am having students examine the Declaration of Independence as compared to the Declaration of Sentiments. For this I have having the students read sections of each work as well as images depicting the events in question. The compare and contrast elements of the assignment are meant to help he students come to a deeper understanding that little in history happens in a vacuum. Almost everything has had some sort of influence acted upon it.

I greatly enjoyed the creating of the Book because it allows for a degree of creativity. The use of the this digital medium allows for a more interactive version of a lesson. The use of scrolling texts widgets allows the writer/teacher to place large snippets of text in a condensed area. This allows for the reading to become less daunting than a solid block of static text and it allows the creator to add in additional material—such as images—onto the page. This makes it so the students don’t have to use only text but can use the text in context/conjunction with the images.

Image credit: Library of Congress
Signing the declaration of their independence / Ehrhart with acknowledgements.
Summary:Illustration shows a group of women at a convention presenting their declaration of independence, which states “When in the course of female events it becomes necessary for women to have the ballot they’re going to get it” for the signature of a woman, possibly meant to represent the late Susan B. Anthony, seated at a table in the foreground.
Contributor Names: Ehrhart, S. D. (Samuel D.), approximately 1862-1937, artist and Trumbull, John, 1756-1843, artist
Created / Published: N.Y. : J. Ottmann Lith. Co., Puck Bldg., 1911 June 28. 

Sequencing – An Essential Summarizing Skill

I’ve been experimenting with Dipity, a new website that allows you to build interactive timelines. Open a free account, create a new topic, and then upload text and images (from a file.) You can view your topic as an timeline or flipbook. You can even geocode your events and view the project as a map. You are allowed to set permissions for viewers and editing rights.  I created a sample timeline “How did the roles and rights of women change at the turn of the 20th century?”  Note: One drawback for classroom use – banner ads appear on the page and  I can’t vouch for what might show up.

Dipity allows you to configure the display of the topic and copy and paste the embed code into your page. You should be able to click the embedded image below.