Transnationalism - A new Historiographical View

I was fortunate to be able to attend the Organization of American Historians New York City conference in March, 2008. I participated in many excellent workshops and roundtable discussions. The majority of the presenters and participants, in my estimation, were college professors and/or secondary level administrators. I truly enjoyed the level of academic dialogue. Sessions I attended included “Rethinking Race in the American West”, “The Grand Canyon in History”, “Islam in the United States”, “Improving Early American History Instruction” and “State of the Field: History Teaching and Learning”. Considering the range of topics, it was interesting that one term kept popping up in discussions --- transnationalism. I must confess that I was unfamiliar with the term. Apparently, it is a buzz word in the higher echelons of historical thinking and teaching. Transnationalism is part of the growing argument in American History to gravitate towards a more international or global history.

As this is my last blog for the year, I can’t resist tying this into the Book Discussion Group. In our first meeting Dean Bergeron introduced us to the Turner Thesis, which argues that the “Frontier Experience” makes American exceptional. During the year, we had fun discussing/debating this theory while applying it to all the titles we read.

This new trend toward transnationalism completely opposes the idea of American Exceptionalism. I spoke at length with one of the professors, who recommended a book titled: Rethinking American History in a Global Age, edited by Thomas Bender, who is a major proponent for internationalizing the study of American History. This type of approach would have a huge impact upon historiography. The implications regarding European contact in the Americas would be overwhelming. Transnationalism promotes multiracial history and the study of what happens when cultures collide, which culture dominates, and who maintains material resources and whose voice is heard in history. Having read Hampton Sides’ Blood and Thunder, in our Book Discussion Group, I can see an argument for transnationalism; Sides illustrates how the American West was a cultural crossroads between the Americans, the Mexicans, and the Native Americans, and we know whose historical voice has been heard for the last two centuries.

I haven’t yet read Rethinking American History in a Global Age, but it’s on my summer list. I am intrigued by many aspects of this theory. I have always been a proponent of Human History, incorporating a global view with multicultural contributions.

For a sampling of Bender's ideas and the idea of Transnationalism:

http://books.google.com/books?id=GDXXGjR9fgAC&dq=Bender++%2B+%22rethinking+american+history%22&pg=PP1&ots=qxtiqcEZ2g&sig=uPO9zMocbJnVxQl7hHSwbBfvRYQ&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPP1,M1

Historiography in the High School Classroom

My historiography professor introduced me to a valuable source in teaching historiography to high school students that is worth sharing. Kyle Ward's History in the Making: An Absorbing Look at how American History has Changed in the Telling Over the Last 200 Years, (NY: New Press, 2006), illustrates the changes in history presented in textbooks over intervals of time. The topics are numerous and begin with Columbus, through Reconstruction, to the conflict in the Middle East. This source provided the opportunity for my classes to move beyond the importance of content and explore the importance of the historian and the impact of the political and social atmosphere in which the history was written. As one of the American Historical Association's historical thinking benchmarks utilized by Teaching American History, studying historiography with high school students takes their thinking one step further in acknowledging and analyzing the developing and differing interpretations in history.

I chose to utilize the chapter on Reconstruction in my US History I classroom. Before starting, I needed to introduce the concept of historiography. I told the students that they were going to read seven brief histories of reconstruction that were written between the years 1878 and 1995. Putting the onus on them, I asked them why they thought I would create such an assignment, given that they just read about reconstruction in their textbook that was published in 2007. What did they think that I expected them to learn? The common response of, "how history has changed over the years," set up a class discussion on how and why history changes, if history is based on facts and truth. Students were able to recognize the factors that influence history, specifically, the time period and background influences of the historian. The assignment, as it was probably their first introduction to historiography, was simple, I asked students to keep track of the content, what new information was added to the history of reconstruction throughout the different publications and to keep track of the historians' bias.

I was surprised by how involved and seriously students took this assignment. Not only did it reinforce the content, students generated questions about bias and perspective regarding the impact of race in this particular vein of history. The only improvement I would make would be to thoroughly address the concept of bias, how to identify it, and what could cause it.

MCAS, TAH reflection, and it's already June-oh my!

First off, I want to say that totally agree with Dan. TAH has definitely improved my teaching of American History as an elementary school teacher. I was really fortunate to be one of a small group of elementary school teachers who have a degree in content. I was a History major in college and that has been a huge asset to me as an intermediate elementary school teacher.

My concentration as a history major was in two broad areas; Ancient History and Post World War I and II Eastern Europe. Guess what I teach to fifth graders? Early American History! I've had to do a lot of self-exploration to inform my teaching of this topic. After 8 years, I think I've become a pretty good expert (at least in the eyes of my 70 ten and eleven year olds), but TAH has opened my eyes up to a lot of different things.

What I was curious to talk about with all of you is MCAS. It now seems like a blur, but just a couple weeks ago, I was up to my neck in all that stress. Fifth graders take a total of 9 sessions of MCAS. Awful! We take three in March, and six in May.

I am very curious to hear about the high school and middle school tests. I'm not entirely sure what grades they are in anymore- 7th? 11th? What are people's reactions to this push to a more of a "primary source" based test? I thought the fifth grade test was a mixed bag. I thought the material I had to cover in fifth grade, only 32 ridiculously detailed standards, wasn't too bad. I still find it hard to watch kids answer very specific questions. What I would call, "button, button, who's got the button". It can be heart wrenching to watch as students say that Lord Baltimore was the founder of Rhode Island, when you very specifically taught the difference between Roger Williams and the insignificant Lord Baltimore. Many of the questions aren't difficult, but lean towards more of what I would describe to be "common sense" type questions, and these to prove to be daunting for fifth graders. Why did most of the colonists in the colonies speak English? Some of my kids think it is because the Indians spoke English. No joke- that was one of the answers and I watched kids pick it. I think I shouldn't be allowed to proctor this test for my own mental welfare.

What do you all think? Do you find it painful to watch MCAS? Are we teaching too much- too much breadth and not enough depth? What can we expect our kids to learn and retain?

TAH Grant Has Greatly Improved My Teaching

With the closing of year two of the TAH Grant, I thought that I would reflect on some of the tools and techniques I’ve gained from the grant, and how they’ve improved my teaching of American history at the high school level.

I am a tremendous fan of the TAH Grant. I have gained extremely useful teaching skills, enriched my breadth of knowledge of American history, and incorporated these new found skills into almost every day of my teaching.

In an earlier blog, I wrote about my use of a series of primary sources, which are published by the Teaching American History Professional Development Project, a Partnership of the Fall River Public Schools and Bristol Community College. This collection still is a part of my teaching at least twice a week. With them, I’ve been able to give my students the opportunity to explore documents from American history and analyze them.

In a later blog, I took the opportunity to highlight my incorporation of Windows Movie Maker into my high school classroom. This exciting addition to my teaching has greatly improved the research and presentation aspects of my lessons, and my assessment of my students’ learning. With Windows Movie Maker training I was not only able to create movies for my students to view, but more importantly, my students were able to research and create their own movies. If you are interested in movie making with your students please see my earlier blog on the subject or email me a question at danhanlon@lhs.lowell.k12.ma.us.

This year, we were educated in a simple way to create websites through “Freshpond.net”. This organization has taken the requirement of learning to become a web designer out of web design. This means that a teacher, with all that we have to do, can create a web page with little effort that is easy to design and navigate.

Using my Freshpond.net account, I’ve created a very basic page. In fact I call it my “Basics” page. On it, I’ve been posting assignments and other class information for my students to use for class. As this system worked well, I succeeded in kicking the page up a notch. Using a secondary skill that I obtained from the grant, I’ve been taking audio CDs of our text and “ripping” then into files that can be put on the web. Now, as I give assignments, I can also assign my students to listen to the reading as well. This has been a great help to my students who have IEPs, and especially useful to my very many bilingual students.

Lastly, but certainly not least, there are the books that I’ve read and discussed with the book group. Although I haven’t been able to purchase a class set of my favorites, I have used many of the titles in my classes. Mostly, so that the readings match well with what I am covering at the time, I’ve copied excerpts from chapters and made them available to the class. Because the writing of these books is of high quality, and the writing perspective is different from both our textbook and primary sources, students have found them a refreshing, informative and interesting assignment. Interestingly, I’ve found that following an assigned excerpt from one of these titles; my classes have much more lively and thoughtful class discussions. Proving when everyone enjoys what they have read, they learn a great deal, and become anxious to share what they’ve learned.

In all, the TAH grant has given me many tools to expand my breadth of knowledge in American history, produce intriguing lessons, and provide my students with primary sources that are succinct and approachable. I am greatly looking forward to participating in the grant next year.

Kit Carson Strikes Again!

When I picked up the books for this year's book discussion group, I knew I would love 2 immediately. Call it my macabre taste, but I knew that Fall River Outrage: Life, Murder, and Outrage in Early Industrial New England and Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West would be my favorites. While I am excited to apply the Fall River text to next year, I had a great opportunity to utilize the Blood and Thunder text this year.

Here's what I did, feel free to use all or part!

Divide the class into 3 groups- Dine, Mexican Americans, and the Federal Government.

Each group gets this background explanation:"This activity centers around a debate over the ancestral land of the Dine, or Navajo, in present day New Mexico. The area was gained by the United States after the Mexican American War, and currently is controlled by the Dine people. They are primarily sheep herders, the blankets they weave are prized possessions, often worth a lot of money. There are Mexican Americans who have lived on the borders of the Dine's territory who have been plagued by Dine attacks for decades, since the area was still a part of Mexico. The Dine attack the Mexican Americans to add to their own population by taking captives, or to replace sheep that have been taken or slaughtered by outsiders. There are also American citizens and new immigrants who wish to settle the area. Not only is the land beautiful, the Dine have amended and irrigated the soil for crops which make it ideal ranch/farm land. "

Have the Mexican American group write a petition to the Federal government that outlines their grievances and what they wish the government to do about it.

Have the Federal Government group write a treaty proposal to the Dine that outlines the grievances of their citizens.

Have the Dine group read the passage in Blood and Thunder that outlines the problems that the Dine have with signing treaties (they don't understand the authority of the Fed. government, they think that the white men might be witches, they don't understand the language, etc.)

Have the Dine respond to the other groups with this information in mind (they will come up with some interesting responses!)

I capped this off with a discussion, then had the students predict what the final outcome would be. Next, we watched Kit Carson, American Experience- a PBS documentary that overviews Carson's actions in the Canyon de Chelly and the 'Long Walk'. It is available at online at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carson/ and the chapters that apply are 6 and 7.

Kit Carson Strikes Again!

When I picked up the books for this year's book discussion group, I knew I would love 2 immediately. Call it my macarbe taste, but I knew that Fall River Outrage: Life, Murder, and Outrage in Early Industrial New England and Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West would be my favorites. While I am excited to apply the Fall River text to next year, I had a great oppurtunity to utilize the Blood and Thunder text this year. Here's what I did, feel free to use all or part!

Divide the class into 3 groups- Dine, Mexican Americans, and the Federal Government.

Each group gets this background explaination:

"This activity centers around a debate over the ancestral land of the Dine, or Navajo, in present day New Mexico. The area was gained by the United States after the Mexican American War, and currently is controlled by the Dine people. They are primarily sheep herders, the blankets they weave are prized possessions, often worth a lot of money. There are Mexican Americans who have lived on the borders of the Dine’s territory who have been plagued by Dine attacks for decades, since the area was still a part of Mexico. The Dine attack the Mexican Americans to add to their own population by taking captives, or to replace sheep that have been taken or slaughtered by outsiders. There are also American citizens and new immigrants who wish to settle the area. Not only is the land beautiful, the Dine have amended and irrigated the soil for crops which make it ideal ranch/farm land. "

Have the Mexican American group write a petition to the Federal government that outlines thier greviences and what they wish the government to do about it.

Have the Federal Government group write a treaty proposal to the Dine that outlines the grievences of thier citizens.

Have the Dine group read the passage in Blood and Thunder that outlines the problems that the Dine have with signing treaties (they don't understand the authority of the Fed. government, they think that the white men might be witches, they don't understand the language, etc.)

Have the Dine respond to the other groups with this information in mind (they will come up with some interesting responses!)

I capped this off with a discussion, then had the students predict what the final outcome would be. Next, we watched Kit Carson, American Experience- a PBS documentanry that overviews Carson's actions in the Canyon de Chelly and the 'Long Walk'. It is available at online at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carson/ and the chapters that apply are 6 and 7.