EDU 6945 Crafting Historians in a Variety of Ways - Differentiation

EDU6945                    Crafting Historians in a Variety of Ways - Differentiation                     Ian Lewis

Social studies and history offer complex subject matter for many students and even some adults*. Not just chronology is at play, but a vast series of relationships and interactions, causes and effects, patterns, and trends are also at work. Additionally, the subject matter texts are linguistically complex. They are rife with content specific vocabulary - cultural, political, geographical, etc. in nature – and often incorporate compound sentences, concise yet artfully detailed with facts, and complex sentence fluency strategies in order to portray history as a narrative. Finally, historians read and write. Read and write. Read and write…And then do it again. Thus, students in social studies and history classrooms are already faced with course content that can be as ugly to slog through as the wars, plagues, disasters and such it portrays, in addition to the necessity to have developed and finely tuned literacy skills with which to comprehend, interpret, and analyze said texts. And this is where much differentiation should be inserted into instruction and learning activities, as the variety of students’ cultural, individual intellectual, and social development in any given classroom is highly variable; while varied, such differences (individual, group, and among the whole class) always should be considered in order to provide all students an engaging learning experience, while also engaging in culturally competent teaching, in the process of crafting students into potential historians, proficient in reading and writing about history.

Differentiation comes in a variety of forms, but all should be equally integrated throughout lesson plans for direct instruction and associated practice. Teachers need to recognize the specific skills their individual students and groups of students possess. Such specific skills may include culturally relevant information (e.g. A Muslim student may offer to bring his family Quran to share when studying the Islamic Empire of the middle ages), practical skills (e.g. A student may know how to embroider and could explain the process it would have required to detail an embroidered scene on a medieval tapestry presented as a graphic aid in the textbook), and scaffolded (theoretical) background knowledge provided during the course of the year (e.g. Students should be able to explain how Native Americans used different resources of different land regions because they previously learned five regions of Washington and the useful resources associated with each), all of which should be celebrated and utilized in general, not just in history courses. Additionally, deficits such as gaps in knowledge, low literacy level, and language development are often present and must be addressed.

Students with special education services, IEPs, and 504s, as well as ELLs, often require extra attention and specific differentiation, including many language supports that may be particularly useful in tackling the complexities of historic content and texts (Figure 1). While some students may not qualify for the legal modifications provided by 504 and IEP plans, regarding differentiation, some students and/or groups of students, such as students recently exited from special education or ELL services, struggling readers, and students with gaps in background knowledge must also be of utmost concern and the targets of differentiation approaches and strategies. Furthermore, while employing various means of differentiation through planned instruction and support activities, it is necessary to be able to adapt smoothly and incorporate lesson adjustments as needed throughout the course of delivery, especially taking into consideration differentiation strategies with key focus students/groups of students that may or may not serve them well. Based on the analysis and reflection of which strategies lead to success, teachers may further provide assistance when differentiating for individuals and groups of students by drawing on a multitude of strategies, some that may fit better in certain situations, and others more applicable elsewhere.

Figure 1: Cloze notes key, the blank version of which would be an example of language support provided as part of differentiation to special education, ELL, and select students with low literacy/reading comprehension.

* e.g. Even the President of the United States has been befuddled by the subject, such as when he mused on the Civil War, “People don’t realize, you know, the Civil War, if you think about it, why? People don’t ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?” – but discussions and critiques of such are for another time...another blog perhaps.