In Search of America's Past: Learning to Read History in Elementary SchoolTeachers College Press, 2002 M04 12 - 189 pages Bruce 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strong evidence that children do have the intellectual capacity to judge the validity, reliability, and perspective of historical documents and images -- Wrestles with a number of issues facing history teachers who wish to embark on ambitious projects with their students that can take them against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) |
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 |
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In Search of America's Past: Learning to Read History in Elementary School Bruce VanSledright No preview available - 2002 |