CREATED BY BILL FRIEDHEIM
Goal.
Developing skills in the construction of narrative and the interrogation of textual, visual and oral evidence. Promoting student-centered collaborative inquiry. Using search engines to build hypertext trails of knowledge.Activity. You will work with a partner and then share and discuss what you did with a larger group.
Step One (Ten Minutes). Working as an individual, examine the two photos. Then write a few paragraphs explaining what you see. Your writing can take the form of a story, poem or historical comment.
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Step Two (Ten Minutes). Share your writing with your partner. Collaborate on a list of what you observed in the two photos and what hypotheses you might draw from those observations and whatever prior knowledge you bring to the task. Then create a brainstorming list about what else you need to find out in order to explain and put the photos in some meaningful context.
Next, go to the Archives of the West/ Episode Seven website <http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/wpages/wpgs670/w670_001.htm>. Find and identify the images.
Step Three (Twenty Five Minutes). Create a division of labor with your partner for the following task. Gather information in secondary and primary sources in text, images and audio that help you situate and understand the two photos using the:
- Find and resource functions of WBA - The CD-ROM.
- Search function of the History Matters website <http://historymatters.gmu.edu/>
- (Optional) Find function in your browser (to search the Archives of the West/ Episode Seven website).
Then pick three documents — one text, one image, and one oral — that you think will best add context and meaning to your initial reaction to the photographs.
Step Four (Five Minutes). In a few sentences, sketch out how you might re-write your initial story, poem or historical analysis to add meaning to the photos.
Step Five (Forty Minutes). As a group, together with other teams assigned to this activity, share and discuss the following.
- Compare the documents you chose in step three as well as the thinking behind the choices. What did you learn? What else would you need to know? How would you find it?
- What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of the activity? How would you describe it pedagogy? What aspects of this assignment were particularly effective? What skills or modes of thinking does the activity support?
- Would this activity, or a variation of it, play in your classroom? If so, how would you reshape it for your students?
- Is this classroom exercise a good vehicle for using hypermedia to develop interdisciplinary student skills in inquiry, the exploration of primary sources, and the construction of historical/cultural meaning? Do the electronic materials engaged suit the assignment's pedagogy and methodological goals? What does this suggest about the kinds of inquiry assignments that would work best when using new media resources?
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