Writing a Better Textbook

The big idea of this project is to problematize the students’ Social Studies textbook. Rather than accept the text as the undisputed source of knowledge and truth, I want my students to think critically about what has been excluded, included and how it’s been presented. While they are daunted by the work involved, most of my students are deeply engaged in this project because they are creating something original that has an authentic purpose. This project requires a focus on the historical thinking concepts of evidence and interpretation and historical significance and I start with mini-lessons on both using various examples from the textbook Crossroads: A Meeting of Nations which is also the book they will be re-writing for this project. I introduce these concepts as follows:

1.      Introducing Historical Significance 
I ask students to think of the three most significant events in their lives to date. I then ask them why they chose these events. Based on their explanations, we tease out criteria for historical significance such as prominence at the time and depth, breadth and longevity of concepts; prominence at the time.

1.      Evidence and Interpretation
I present students with the following scenario:
200 years from now your great-great-great-great-great-great granddaughter has to write a report in her Socials class about her ancestor from Surrey (you). She has to give a sense of how the family lived day to day and what school was like. How might she find out?
In the ensuing discussion, we tease out the various ways historians piece together the past acting like detectives. We discuss primary and secondary sources and I share various examples. Students practice identifying different kinds of sources based on a historical question. They practice judging the adequacy of secondary sources based on the criteria of comprehensive account, credible sources, reasonable conclusions and balanced perspectives.  Finally they practice assessing the credibility of primary accounts based on the criteria of adequate access to information, no conflict of interest, internal consistency and consistency with other information.
 
2.      Research
Now I distribute a nine page photocopied package that includes student instructions, rubrics and a graphic organizer for information gathering. It also includes a sheet to help them evaluate the Crossroads textbook account based on accuracy, completeness, historical significance and fairmindedness and a graphic organizer to complete when they are reading each other’s’ “textbooks” at the end of the process. I explain the first step by modeling the process of reading a Crossroads textbook section on the Inuit (a group they are not studying for this project) and summarizing it effectively and then ask students to read my sample notes on the Inuit. Students go on to read and summarize the Crossroads in their graphic organizer. Once finished, they informally present their work to me so I can check for understanding by ensuring that what they wrote in is in their own words, complete and that they understand it. Next, students consult various other sources including Canada Revisited, Canada’s Native People, The Canadian Encyclopedia (online). They are also encouraged to interview one of our Aboriginal support workers. At this stage they are looking to corroborate or contradict what they learned in Crossroads and find additional historically significant information. Once they have consulted a total of at least five sources they see me again to check for understanding.
 
3.      Writing and Editing
Students are now ready to join the other students who have researched the same topic. Each group of 7-10 students appoints an editor in chief and works together to divide their textbook entry into sections to be completed by individuals or pairs. Once these are written, edited and paired with an appropriate visual they are sent to the editor in chief who puts them all together in a cohesive document. This document is shared with the group via google docs and the group collaboratively edits four times, once for each row in the rubric Assessing Your Drafts. This draft is submitted for teacher feedback and then goes through at least one more stage of revision. The group collaboratively completes the final rubric Assessing Your Group’s Final Submission and individually completes Assessing Your Individual Contributions. Each student also submits his/her graphic organizers which provide evidence of their overall understanding.

4.      Learning from Each Other
Students now work individually or in pairs to read each other’s “textbooks” completing a graphic organizer like the one they already completed for their own topic. This leads to the Essence of Aboriginal Culture project where students bring together all of their understanding of the similarities and differences among the various Aboriginal Peoples in Canada before the Europeans arrived.

5.      Final Thoughts
The key for this project to work is thoughtful scaffolding. Depending on when in the year I do this project, I teach additional mini-lessons on effective collaboration, analyzing primary and secondary sources, pre-reading the textbook, summarizing, paragraph writing, citing sources and plagiarism. Because my inner city students have vast differences in their learning needs, beyond those lessons I do a lot of one on one or small group coaching on those core competencies and on helping them really understand historical significance and evidence and interpretation.

 

Writing a Better Textbook

Stefan Stipp

9

Surrey, British Columbia

Applying a variety of skills students re-write a section of their textbook about Aboriginal Peoples.

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