Connecting Literature to the Social Studies Classroom

The History Behind the Story

In this day-long session, teachers will investigate primary sources connected to picture books on Abenaki and early settlement history of the region. Brush up on your early settlement era knowledge, learn strategies for helping students investigate primary sources, and develop writing tasks directly connected to the Common Core. Teachers will leave with primary source packets connected to each picture book. The day will focus on three topics:

The Abenaki
In Malian's Song, by Marge Bruchac, a young Abenaki girl recounts the 1759 English attack on her village. This session will use maps and early documents to explore the relationships between the Abenaki and English settlers.

Early Settlement
Giants in the Land, by Diana Applebaum, tells the story of the giant pines used for masts for the Royal Navy in the days of early settlement. Tricking the Tallyman, by Jacqueline Davies, is set in 1790 and tells the story of the dilemmas of the tallyman who must deliver a count of the citizens of Tunbridge, Vermont. In this session we will look at town charters, maps, and the first United States Census to understand settlement issues in Vermont and New Hampshire.

Early Farming and Industrialization
Bobbin Girl, by Emily McCully, is the tale of a mill girl in 1830s Lowell, Massachusetts. Donald Hall's The Ox-Cart Man reveals the rhythms of the agricultural year and economy. This session will explore the lives of New Hampshire and Vermont children and their experiences on the farm and in the mills through letters, photographs, farmer's almanacs and other sources.

Cost: $150

Time: 8:30 am - 3:00 pm

Dates and Locations:

January 24, 2017: The Learning Collaborative, Dummerston, VT
January 30, 2017: Sugar River Development Center, Claremont, NH

REGISTER HERE

Teaching Village Life: Bibliography and Links

Teaching Village Life: Bibliography and Links

Bibliography

Background History Books

Jan Albers, Hands on the Land (2002)
Rebecca Brown, Editor, Where the Great River Rises (2009)

Richard Ewald, Proud to Live Here: In the Connecticut River Valley of Vermont and New Hampshire (2003)

David Foster, New England Forests through Time (2000) See also the online link

Children’s Books:

·       Charlie Needs a Cloak by Tomie dePaola

·       The Ox-Cart Man, by Donald Hall

·       Lyddie; Jip: His Story, by Katherine Paterson

Links

Background Information

Freedom and Unity
This exhibit provides good contextual information.

Landscape History of Central New England
This is the website for the book New England Forests Through Time

The Debit Economyof 1830s New England

Vermont History Explorer: Maps

Vermont History Explorer: Geography

New Hampshire History Slideshows

Maps

Old Maps
Here is where you can find copies of old maps such as the Beers Atlas maps

Village Quest

This standards-based unit is a series of eight lessons, whereby a class uses historical maps, field trips, primary and secondary resources, and interviews with community elders to create a Quest capturing "hidden stories" in their town. Suitable for 4th - 8th grade

Primary Sources

The Diaries of Sally and Pamela Brown1832-1838, ed. Blanche Bryant andGertrude Baker (Springfield, Vt.: The William L. Bryant Foundation, 1970).

Letters of Mary Paul, aVermont mill girl in Lowell

What is History?

What do young students know about history? Find out by first providing each student with an index card and asking them to complete the sentence, "History is...." Read the cards together and create a list of their ideas.

Virginia Lee Burton's, The Little House, is a picture book that works well to introduce the concept of history. It tells the story of a house built on a hill far out in the country. Eventually a road is built in front of a house and, bit by bit, the far away city expands to encompass the house. 

Read the book to the students then hand out to pairs of students photocopies of the major illustrations in the book. Create a picture viewer for each pair by cutting a 1" square in the center of a piece of paper. Have students slide their viewer over the picture and create a list of details in the picture.  Once finished, have students come up to the front of the room and put the pictures in order. Have someone narrate the story based on the pictures on the wall.

As a class discuss what they think the main ideas of the book might be. What specific details illustrate these ideas?

What information did they need to tell the story of the house? They needed to activate their prior knowledge of the story and they needed lots of details from the pictures. From a literacy perspective they have just worked on understanding the narrative structure of the book and summarizing the main idea. We have also just modeled how closely historians look at evidence.

For our larger question about what is history we now add to our list. Some new ideas about history might be: Chronology, change over time, landscape changes, technology changes landscape, historians tell stories, and historians use details to tell stories.

Now--go to your local antique mall and buy some old postcards, preferably postcards that have been mailed and have stamps and postmarks.  Using old postcards gives students the opportunity to actually handle "old stuff."  Create a graphic organizer that asks them to list what they see on the front of the postcard. They should be good at this because they just did it with The Little House. 

They should make a map of the back of the postcard. By doing this, they will notice everything from the address to the postmark to the publisher. Finish by having students list at least 3 questions.

Postcards like this force students to identify some of the first details any historian asks of a primary source--who wrote it? who was the audience? when was it written?

Share the postcards. If you're lucky, you've found a collection written/sent by the same person and that tells a bit of a story.

Now add more to their definitions of history. They might add that history is about real people and places, it can be personal, it is interpretive, and it is about asking questions.

If you're really lucky, you now have a crowd of kids who are desperate to be historians and to find out more!

Here's a book where you can find some answers to all those questions your students now have about postcards:

  Allen Davis, Postcards from Vermont: A Social History 1905 - 1945 (2002)

Some Sources for Teaching about Sharecropping

It can be hard to find accessible information for students to read about sharecropping.  Here an oral history, photograph, and sharecropping contract are combined to build an understanding of the system. 

In Osceola: Memories of a Sharecropper's Daughter, Osceola talks about "Daddy's Work."  It's a short piece that provides students with a picture of the types of work sharecropper's did, for whom, and how they were paid.  

Read "Daddy's Work" to the class and then in small groups have students re-read the passage and fill out charts with columns for "Daddy's Work," "For whom did he work?,"  and "How was he paid?"

Then use a sharecropping photo such as this Lewis Hine photo and visual thinking strategies to gather more information about sharecropping.  

Have students write three-word phrases that describe sharecropping.

Generate questions they might have about sharecropping.

Read out loud a sharecropping contract and have students follow along, underlining details that reveal more about sharecropping. Do a verbal document analysis on it--who wrote it, date, what it says.

Then fill out a worksheet that has students detail what the landowner gets and gives and what the sharecropper gets and gives.

Generate new three-word phrases that describe sharecropping.

Possible writing prompts might include:

•  Read the 13^th Amendment and the sharecropping contract.  Then discuss what freedom means.

•  Read the contract and look at the photo.  Imagine yourself as the child pictured.

•  Choose the name of someone in the contract.  What does freedom mean to you?

Published Oral Histories about Sharecropping

Alan Govenar, ed., Osceola: Memories of a Sharecropper's Daughter (2000)

Oral history of Osceola Mays, born in East Texas in 1909, the daughter of a sharecropper and the grand-daughter of slaves.

Eloise Greenfield and Lessie Jones Little, Childtimes (1979)

Three generations of black women remember their "childtimes."

Leon Walter Tillage, Leon's Story (2000)

Tillage, a black custodian in a Baltimore private school, reminisces about his childhood as a sharecropper's son in the South, and his youth as a civil-rights protester.

Sharecropping Links

From Slave to Sharecropper

PBS Site Bibliography

From Slavery to Sharecropping 

Lesson with background information and transcribed contract

Gilder Lehrman: Sharecropper Contract

Lots of background information, lessons, and primary sources

Here's Osceola providing an oration or plea for justice.

Gettysburg: The Graphic Novel

Starting with Civil War battle scenes that showcase the fury of battle with a terrifying immediacy and moving through to Lincoln’s address, author/illustrator Butzer brings home the sentiment behind the history-making cemetery dedication with a substance and reality that is very timely. Combining words from actual letters of the time with accessible and expressive art, he introduces young readers to the idea that they may owe something to those who sacrificed all they had for democracy. YA

Flow of History teachers arrived at book discussion either loving or hating this graphic novel. Some teachers had never read a graphic novel before. By the end of the session, just about everyone grew to appreciate how well the author was able to depict Gettysburg as a turning point in the war.

Another type of Pilgrim

In the Dummerston book group, we discussed ways to teach children about Thanksgiving that get beyond the Pilgrim story. Here are some picture books that might help.


Have you read Molly's Pilgrim? It's a beautiful story of a Russian Jewish child trying to fit into her new American classroom. When the teacher asks the children to create a "pilgrim" or "indian" for a Thanksgiving diorama, she and her Mother create their own idea of a "pilgrim".

How Many Days to America? is another favorite book which reminds us that people still seek refuge in America.






The immigrant community is not very visible in our part of Vermont, however many Cambodians have settled in the Burlington area. Two stunning, gruesome, and difficult books about this community are First They Killed My Father and Lucky Child by Loung Ung who escaped the Killing Fields and came to Vermont. These are adult reads.






Thank You Sarah,: The Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving tells the tale of Sarah Josepha Hale's 38-year quest to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. Ignored or refused by administration after administration, she persisted until at last, President Lincoln, possibly persuaded by her argument that it would help to reunite the union, declared the fourth Thursday in November as a national holiday in 1863.


What Thanksgiving books do you use with students?

The Escape of Oney Judge

The Escape of Oney Judge (pronounced "Ona") provides students with an exciting story about one of Martha Washington's slaves who escapes to Portsmouth, NH. It is an excellent accompaniment to the Washington Slave List or an alternative picture book to Chains.

The picture book opens up all sorts of discussion topics and questions for students.

• Why wouldn't Martha Washington free her slaves?
• How could a Founding Father have slaves?
• What were the fugitive slave laws during the time?
• How did the North respond to fugitive slaves at the time?

Oney's story is well-told on Wikipedia!

And here is a primary source to connect with the book:

Phillis Wheatley

What would your students say if asked to list what they knew about slavery? Typical answers might include:

*Slavery was in the South.

*They were not paid.

*Black people were enslaved.

*People were sold.

*Slavery was the cause of the Civil War.

*There is no slavery today.

*The Middle Passage was horrific.

If you were to then hand them this image of Phillis Wheatley, what might they observe?

*She’s writing a letter.

*She’s well dressed.

*She’s black.

*There is a book and a quill pen on the table.

*She’s not working, she looks to be in repose.

*She has the same name as the person to whom she is a servant

*She lives in Boston/the North.

Born in West Africa and purchased by the Boston Wheatley family, Phillis Wheatley complicates our ideas of slavery and of the American Revolution. Her book of poetry, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral and published in 1773, was the first book of poetry published by an African-American. Phillis was eventually freed by her owner. She continued writing and even corresponded with George Washington. Read more about her life at the Massachusetts Historical Society.

Her story has been told in picture book format, A Voice of Her Own, and in a YA novel, Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons. The Old South Meeting House has published a teacher's guide as well.

Flow of History is reading Laurie Halse Anderson's YA novel Chains which tells the story of young Isabel, another enslaved girl at the time of the American Revolution. In Chains, the author begins each chapter with a quote from a primary source. One of the first quotes is from Phillis Wheatley's poem, "To the Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth"

I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate

Was snatch'd from Afric's fancyied happy seat: ...

...That from a father seiz'd his babe belov'd:

Such, such my case. And can I then but pray

Others may neve feel tyrannic sway?

How might Isabel have identified with Phillis? Phillis's portrait gives some clues and offers an accessible primary source for readers of Chains.

The Book Pass as a Reading Tool

The Book Pass is a structured way to look at a collection of books in a limited amount of time as a way to evaluate literature. Set up stations with four seats each. At each station, place one set of books related to a book group theme. Hand out the Book Pass Review sheet. Have everyone sit down and grab a book. Browse the book for 2 minutes. Then in the next 30 seconds fill out the review sheet so you remember which book(s) you liked and why. Then pass your book to the left and repeat. This can be used as a pre-reading activity to help students choose a book for literature circle or reading.

Adapted from: Harvey Daniels & Nancy Steineke, ed., Mini-Lessons for Literature Circles (2004)

Exploration & Discovery
Jean Fritz, The Lost Colony of Roanoke (2004)
Melody Herr, Exploring the New World: An Interactive History Adventure (2008)
Karen Lange, 1607: A New Look at Jamestown (2007)
Betsy and Giulio Maestro, Exploration and Conquest: The Americas after Columbus (1994)
Scott O’Dell, The King’s Fifth (1966)
Jane Yolen, Encounter (1992)
Jane Yolen and Heidi Elisabet Yolen Stemple, Roanoke: The Lost Colony (2003)

Changes in the Land
Virginia Lee Burton, The Little House (1942)
Lynne Cherry, A River Ran Wild
David Foster, New England Forests Through Time (2000)
Richard Michelson, Tuttle’s Red Barn: The Story of America’s Oldest Family Farm (2007)

Slavery in the North
Laurie Halse Anderson, Chains (2008)
Kathryn Lasky, A Voice of Her Own: The Story of Phillis Wheatley, Slave Poet
Ann Rinaldi, Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons, 1996
Patricia Wall, Child Out of Place: A Story of New England (2004)

Lewis & Clark
Joseph Bruchac, Sacajawea (2000)
Alvin Josephy, Jr., ed., Lewis and Clark through Indian Eyes (2006)
Rosalyn Schanzer, How we Crossed the West: The Adventures of Lewis & Clark (1997)
Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve, Bad River Boys: A Meeting of the Lakota Sioux with Lewis and Clark

Book Pass Review Sheet

Title:

Author:

Relates to: __Exploration ­__Changes in the Land __Slavery in the North __ Lewis and Clark __ General Historical Thinking

Genre _____ Fiction _____Non Fiction ____Biography

_____ Picture Book _____ Chapter Book with Pictures _____Unillustrated Chapter Book

Reading Level ____Above Grade Level ____At Grade Level ____Below Grade Level ____Good Read Aloud

Illustrations ____None ____Historically Accurate _____ Good for Visual Thinking Strategies

Historical Accuracy _____ Endnotes and Bibliography Provided ______Stereotypes Avoided

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