Lesson 3: Inquiry, Student Engagement, & Primary Sources

Primary Sources to Enhance History

Warm Up

Have a piece of paper ready and something write with...

. Now write down these words:

Multiple Choice / Examination / Questioning

Analysis / Fill in the Blank / True-False

Wonder / Reply / Thinking

Circle all the ones that are inquiry related...

Hopefully you were able to circle all the words that need active thinking and problem solving.

Examination, Questioning, Analysis, Wonder, and Thinking.

The others are mainly just taking information to remember and not applying it to any skill or problem solving.

In this lesson, we are going to focus on the importance of inquiry learning and how we can use speeches/ primary sources in an inquiry based lesson.

Discussion/Lecture

Anytime a teacher plans a lesson, their technically is a problem... Students don't have certain information, but need it for the course. This is something hard for many to be motivated about. Mainly because there is nothing "in it" for the students. It is rare the majority of the students see the benefits in the long run. Instead, what they see is this work and work in front of them with almost no end in sight. Plus, they tend to feel as if everything, including the result is out of their hands.

Halt! There is light at the end of this tunnel though. All of this can completely change if an educator is able to adjust and adapt the way they teach. Do a 180 degree flip and it makes everything much more efficient and enhances your lessons tenfold. What do I mean by flipping your teaching?

Let the students be in control! Inquiry is all based on that concept that the students are in control. Inquiry is defined as "seeking or request for truth, information, or knowledge" (dictionary.com). We need to do just that. Seek for a truth, some knowledge, some information. We aren't doing that by just giving students fill in the blanks or true vs false statements. If you are lost, how do you know your lost? Because you have a problem now, you need to SOLVE it.

That is the basis for inquiry learning, and to use it in the classroom is the basis of life. As exclaimed by Luke Touhill in 2014 that, "Young children love to ask questions. It’s one of the ways in which they make sense of the world and their place in it. Questions are also a powerful tool for educators to promote children’s thinking and learning" (Inquiry Based Learning). So we need to present these students with a question that is relative and interesting. Something that is debatable. A question that does not require for one to just regurgitate some facts, but to investigate and possibly find multiple ways to answer it.

Let's have this same approach of inquiry, and use primary sources like speeches in history.

Guided Practice/Wrap Up

Think of some highly debatable questions people still ask today about history...

- Were the Confederate States more legally allowed to rebel during the American Civil War than the American Colonies during the American Revolution?

- Was the Emancipation a move based off of ethics and morality or a military strategic move?

- Were the participants in the Boston Tea Party terrorists or freedom fighters?

- Was the US's involvement in WW1 justifiable?

- Could the dropping of the Atomic Bomb been avoided near the end of WW2?

All of these are extremely debatable questions that would require students to weigh all perspectives before making a claim. And in each one of these cases, there are multiple "sides" and perspectives that were affected by the outcome of some these incidents.

Your Task/ Students' Task -

. Choose a question to investigate

. Find a speech given on each topic, from all possible perspectives (Minimum two)

. What is your opinion, and why?