Breaking Through Barriers To Language Acquisition
January NewsLetter 2011 – History Projects for the ELL classroom
January Newsletter, 2011
After a restful winter break, we are back on the job and ready to add to your teacher tool kit with tech loaded ready-to-go lessons in using historical documents with ELLs (and others who need SDAIE-like lesson deliveries). This month the site we have selected is one developed by Dr. Sam Wineburg (wineburg@stanford.edu), a Stanford University professor, several post-graduate students at SU, and San Francisco Unified educators.
READING LIKE AN HISTORIAN PROJECT presents a revolutionary way at turning students into historical thinkers and better readers as a result. ELLs are provided with the learning tools to navigate key events in history through their strongest skills – speaking and listening. For an overview of the program, go to the website that follows and click on the video clip in the center of the page. There you will hear students praise the program as well as see classes actively engaged in various activities which boost a clearer understanding of the WHY behind historical events as told by many sources offering different views on the same event. It is reading for a purpose at its best.
Notice the contrast between textbook driven material and this program. Which classroom is more supportive of the ELL and others who need a different approach to learning? One more item of interest is that this does not replace your curriculum in any way. It supplements it.
So where does the US history textbook come in? It is a starting point. Students quickly learn that the textbook is subjective. For example, we look at historical events deemed important by the writers and read about those events from a subjective point of view. In this program, students start there and then must look at other views of the same events (other historical documents). This approach presents a more accurate account of the importance (or lack of it) of key events. For example, students might read about Custer’s Last Stand in their books and then they look at the written account of the US Congress alongside one of a Sioux woman who lived through it. Students must, in turn, debate what really happened at the Battle of Little Big Horn. With active discussion, graphic organizers, teachers facilitated discussions, and thoughtful assignments that allow students to present views in a variety of ways, students are energized and therefore producing insightful work.
There are 75 complete lessons here along with a link for you to provide feedback on their success in your classes. You will find power points, webquests, lessons, graphic organizers, and original documents.
We hope you enjoy this site and find it as useful we did.
Happy New Year!
Denise, Marnie, and Cheryl
P.S. We have plans to add some new features to our website this year. We will give you the option to score favorite sites so that we may highlight them for readers (late January). We also plan on adding a video section (late February). Finally, we intend to spend most of January building a FACEBOOK page for us.
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