In Search of America's Past: Learning to Read History in Elementary SchoolBruce VanSledright shows how young students can benefit from an investigative, inquiry-based approach to the study of history, as called for by the national standards. Addressing important questions about the teaching and learning of history in today's diverse classrooms, this volume: -- Details the results of an innovative teacher-research project, using engaging storytelling to make the classroom "come alive" for the reader -- Provides examples and guidelines, developed from the author's own fifth-grade classroom, for teaching novices to engage in historical investigations (in contrast to memorizing details in a textbook) -- Offers strong evidence that children do have the intellectual capacity to judge the validity, reliability, and perspective of historical documents and images -- Wrestles with a number of issues facing history teachers who wish to embark on ambitious projects with their students that can take them against the grain of policy mandates (such as recall-based, high-stakes testing) |
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Contents
Whither History Education? | 1 |
Conducting Historical Investigations with FifthGraders | 24 |
History as an Interpretive Act The Problem of Indeterminate Evidence Trails | 36 |
The Wiles of Evidence Interpretation and Reinscription Investigating British Colonies in America | 53 |
Source Perspective Reliability and Subtext Investigating Causes of the American Revolution | 78 |
Acquiring Procedures and a Discourse for Investigating the Past | 105 |
Whither History Education Revisited | 138 |
Research Method | 157 |
Documents and Images Used in the Two Performance Tasks | 166 |
Documents Used for InClass Investigation of the Jamestown Starving Time | 173 |
| 179 | |
| 185 | |
About the Author | 189 |
Other editions - View all
In Search of America's Past: Learning to Read History in Elementary School Bruce VanSledright No preview available - 2002 |
Common terms and phrases
Afflerbach African American Alexandra Ameri American Revolution analyze approach arguments Asian American asked assessment began Boston Massacre Boston Tea Party British Candy challenges Chapter classroom colonial colonists construct Coral corroborate dilemma documents and images efforts eight endpoint epistemological essays evidence Excerpt experience fifth-graders fired grade Hakim heritage historians historical events historical investigators historical positionalities historical thinking history education history teachers idea initial interpretation intertextual investigate the past investigating history issue Jamestown Jamie Jeffrey Jeremy Lister John Smith Kendra learning history Lexington Green Lister London Gazette Martin Guerre minutemen narrative Native Americans newspaper noted novices pedagogical Percy performance task perspective Powhatans practicing history primary source Proctor questions reading reliability Research Log room 23 secondary sources sense soldiers Starving story strategies subtexts teaching history textbooks texts think historically thought tion understanding VanSledright wanted
Bibliographic information
| Title | In Search of America's Past: Learning to Read History in Elementary School |
| Author | Bruce VanSledright |
| Edition | illustrated |
| Publisher | Teachers College Press, 2002 |
| ISBN | 0807741922, 9780807741924 |
| Length | 189 pages |
| Subjects | › › Education / Teaching Methods & Materials / General |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |