I have neglected #sschat lately as I've been in a "STAAR" trance according to my coworkers, but now that's it's over, I'm trying to take a week or so and really reflect on the activities, lessons, and reviews I did with my classes.  One thing I know is that I'm tired.  Two Saturday sessions, tutoring after school every day, and reviewing and then reviewing some more took its toll on me, and I'm thinking on the kids too. 

   I mean my PreAP kids came to class the day after the test…

Richard Pipes, formerly the Baird Professor of History at Harvard University, wrote many books on Russian and Soviet history.  A Concise History of the Russian Revolution condenses the events leading up to, during, and immediately following that event into roughly four hundred pages of accessible, highly engaging narrative and analysis.  The book appears to have been written for a general audience, not academic specialists.  Pipes divides his analysis of the Revolution…

Jacques Barzun’s book, interpretive and critical rather than merely encyclopedic, traces the development of Western cultural and intellectual life from the European Renaissance to the late 20^th century.  He argues that the end of the twentieth century also brought the end of five hundred years of Western cultural life, a change he laments.  For Barzun, the sixteenth century represents the dawn of modern Western culture while the twentieth century represents the…

 My latest multi-touch iBook "Progress and Poverty in Industrial America," is now available for your iPad - FREE at iTunes. http://bit.ly/XRpTBI

Critical…

Hard work and the proper role of government took center stage in President Obama's 2013 State of the Union Address. For some historic perspective we might look back to WWII when another generation was asked to work hard and sacrifice on behalf of the war effort by a powerful national government that raised…

Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age by Modris Eksteins, a cultural historian, offers a fresh interpretation of the First World War.  He begins not with the war, but with a Russian ballet, Le Sacre du Printemps or The Rite of Spring, choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky with music by Igor Stravinsky.  When Le Sacre premiered in Paris in May, 1913, it caused the audience to riot because of its unconventionality.  Eksteins uses this story about…

If you are interested in learning more about North Korea, a politically isolated, Stalinist country ruled by the Kim dynasty since 1948, then consider these two books:  Bradley K. Martin’s Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty (2004) and Barbara Demick’s Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea (2010). 

Martin’s book runs nearly 900 pages and offers a detailed narrative of Kim-Il Sung’s rise to power.  Kim’s political ascent…

It’s one of my favorite seasons. Of course it’s the holidays, but it’s also time to teach one of my favorite topics in American History-the Road to Revolution. I love this era so much not only for its excitement and concentration of iconic historic figures and events, but also because it offers such a…

In The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1993), historian Gordon Wood challenges the idea that the American Revolution was only a political and intellectual movement for independence and the defense of individual rights.  He argues that it was the first time in modern world history when individuals attempted to build a society on the behavior and values of ordinary people.  Wood organizes his study into three sections:  Monarchy, Republicanism, and Democracy.  Each represented a…

My iBook is now on the iTunes Bookstore. "Why We Fight: WWII and the Art of Public Persuasion" I'm very pleased with the project.

A multi-touch iBook filled with poster art, rarely seen films and other WWII-era media. Gives the reader a chance to experience Washington's PR campaign to sell the war to…

Reflections on the Industrial Revolution Seminar and A Classroom Activity

Peter Wilson

St. Paul’s Episcopal High School

Mobile, AL

2012 NEH Seminar for School Teachers

Historical Interpretations of the Industrial Revolution in Britain

Having taught the Industrial Revolution for nearly fifteen years, I have come to believe that, aside from the widespread adoption of systematic farming around 8,000 BC, the Industrial Revolution was the most transformative…

I didn’t post anything last week because I was rushing to get my new book, HISTORY QUESTERS Colonies Trek ready to distribute in time to be used for your Colonial Unit. I’m thrilled to announce that the e-version is now available at…

 From The Social Studies Coach

I am working on a student and teacher’s manual to go along with my new novel, History Questers’ Colonies Trek, so I am fully immersed in the Colonial Period. I have created many engaging activities for…

Teaching About the 13 English Colonies

The Colonial Era is one of my favorite periods to teach. It is so dynamic, with so many forces at play. It formed the foundation on which all of the United States’ history and future is built. It is very important for us to help our students make…

This post is for my friends that begin their American History course with a Reconstruction Unit. I will share lesson ideas that I used during my years of teaching Part 2 of U.S. History and in my AP class. In my Part 2 U.S. History classes, it had been several years since students had…

It’s time to plan that first social studies unit. Some of us have the lesson plan pretty much handed to us by the state or district, and told not to veer off of it. Others are given standards as guidelines, but are left to our own creativity and students’ needs to determine how we will teach them. Some of us fall in between. If you are in the first group, you’re probably not looking for new ideas, but if you are in the later groups—this blog’s for you.

On this post I am going…

I just wrapped up two webinars with teachers participating in a Teaching American History (TAH) Grant workshop hosted at Davis School District, Utah. We held separate one-hour sessions for elementary and secondary teacher focusing on strategies for using documents to let your students be the historian in your classroom.

Here's a link to my slide share of…

I recently gave a webinar on getting started with the flipped classroom. Many teachers see the value in using "flipping" to redefine their classrooms. They recognize that the traditional classroom was filled with a lot of lower-order, information transmission that can be off loaded to "homework" via content-rich websites and videos. That frees up more classroom time as a center for student interaction, production and reflection. Here's a…

To prime the pump for our time together this coming Monday, here are our discussion points:

Q1: What tech tools (sites) do you use to help prepare for your instruction? How? Give an example.

Q2: What tech tools do you use to get students into content? How? Give an example.

Q3: Which tech tools allow your students rich collaboration and discussion? How? Give an example.

Q4: What tech tools allow your students to show what they know in creative ways? How?…

This is an excellent overview of industrialization's social impact in Britain.  Topics include work and leisure, living and health standards, religion and education, the poor laws, political protests, and crime.  Morgan gives lots of good information that could enhance a lecture or serve as the focus of a lesson.  He also gives clear and concise evaluations of historiographical debates and problems.  The book includes twenty-nine primary documents that could be adapted for classroom use. …