Tips for Turning History Haters into Engaged Enthusiasts

My Best Tips for those History Haters

1) PLAY THE PART

Hmmm….be honest with yourself. Do you loathe SS? Do you think it’s boring? I’m that friend that is not going to tell you what you want to hear. I’m going to help you go Straight Outta Compton style and “Check yo’self before you wreck yo’self.” Well, let me state the obvious for you. Your attitude is contagious. So if your students seem bored or uninterested is that because you have a less than favorable opinion on the subject? Students of all ages have a keen ability to sniff out inauthentic teaching. Let me assure you that even though it breaks my heart I accept it. Not everyone is super passionate about blah blah this president, that treaty, that amendment, this document, some battle that happened ages ago.

I promise you teaching dividing decimals or verb tenses is not something I live and breathe for. However, at the time you wouldn’t know. Here’s my tip: Fake it and act like it’s your favorite subject like I do with Math. Find a way to make history more engaging for yourself and you might accidentally learn some cool stuff. For example, do you like the arts or music? Study art from the time period and research songs that would’ve been popular. Do you like fashion? Find out more about how people of the time period dressed. Do you love science? Learn more about inventions and new technology. What about math? There is so much math in history!! Study maps, analyze graphs, or create a timeline. Reading and/or movie buff? No-brainer. Historical fiction not PBS documentaries that I would watch. 

2) CONTENT TO SELF CONNECTION

Trace your own family history. I love that show Who Do You Think You Are? It’s amazing when people trace their roots and learn more about the eras during which their ancestors lived.  Making that connection makes history relevant. Meet Sam. He’s the guy in the blue uniform. Samuel Rogers is my great, great, great grandfather and he was part of the Union Army. You also can see my dad’s reflection in the picture haha. 2-for-1 special! How cool is it for me to be able to share this picture with my 5th graders when we study The Civil War?? You may not have pictures this old but you could still learn information, share letters, artifacts, and retell anecdotes and stories. Check out www.ancestry.com! Encourage your students to find out more about their family’s heritage. What a great community building activity to do a cultural identity/family tree project!

3) DON’T RELY ON A TEXTBOOK

I have good news for you. These days, history doesn’t involve just memorizing dates and important events. Thank goodness or I’d be terrible at it! So don’t worry if you’ve forgotten most of what you learned just for a test in high school. Let the books collect dust or use them as an encyclopedia like I do. If kids need more info or specific details during an activity I tell them to look in the book for it. Social Studies now is about analysis, making connections, cause and effect relationships, comparing and contrasting, critical thinking, and literacy. You have to supplement a text with close reading passages, primary sources, and document based questions. There are tons of great resources on Teachers Pay Teachers. I use passages and flippables from Elementary Lesson Plans. This Interactive Notebook set is amazing!

I plan to write more posts about Document Based Questions or DBQ’s. Here is a post about my Six Sensational Sites for S.S. and another one about Primary Sources! As a bonus,  here is one site I don’t mention in my post about great sites http://sheg.stanford.edu/. There are pages and pages of more but I’ve got more tips for you than “use the internet!”

I know what some of you are thinking. “I’ve been told I have to use the textbook.” Well let’s combat that with a plan. Maybe you have to cover the content included but you don’t have to use that as your primary means of instruction. Solely lecturing and using direct instruction is not best practices and you know it. So go to the table of contents and use that as your planning guide. Then close the teacher’s edition and find or make some awesome Power Points instead. And when you use them act like you are presenting a Broadway production. Be animated and alive, not monotone and “unenthused.”

4) INCLUDE CURRENT EVENTS

I voluntarily give http://www.flocabulary.com free PR all the time because I love the site so much. Did you know they have a Week in Rap section? And that they just added a Week in Rap Jr. for younger students?  They keep an archive of them, too. You could search for specific modern events and watch them kind of play out in real time.

There are even CCCS aligned activities that go with the clips. Can’t fit it in SS? Use them in Language Arts! The clips are like 3 minutes long so don’t tell me you don’t have time. Don’t you like how I’m in your head?? Have students make connections between Social Studies content and current events. There are multiple opportunities to make connections between The Civil Rights movement and stories in the news today. Trouble in the Middle East? It’s been going on for 1,000+ years. Is everything peachy-keen now? Absolutely not. Your content contains the cause. Network news features the effect nightly. https://www.flocabulary.com/subjects/week-in-rap/

5) RELATE CONTENT TO REAL LIFE

Try to find ways to relate content to your students’ everyday life. Here are a few examples I have used. Keep in mind I teach 10 and 11 year-olds so I have to break things down 5th grade style. I used the analogy of a football game for The Civil War. Stay with me. I told them to think about it like the North and South were 2 teams playing against each other in The Super Bowl. I did stress this was like a metaphor and not a real game more than once. The North’s team name was The Union and their nickname “Yankees.” They wore a blue jersey and their quarterback was Ulysses S. Grant. Their opponent is The Confederacy, whose nickname was The Rebels. Of course, their jersey would be gray and their quarterback Robert E. Lee.

I have to cover The Missouri Compromise and The Compromise of 1850. Do you think any of my kids were already familiar? Um, no. So cue my bedtime analogy. I had my kiddos think about the arguing with your parents over what time they should have to go to bed scenario. They say 12. Parents say 8. So they meet in the middle (brought in Pawn Stars haggling example, too) and decide on 10. Hmmm….guess what? Both sides still kinda want their own way even though they came to an agreement therefore leading to more conflict later.

Include a diverse range of ethnicity and religions in your study of the past. I included a station about women during the war this week. I also made sure to point out that one of the women they read about was Hispanic since many of my children are of Latino descent. She dressed as a man and fought in the war! How empowering for my girls. Here’s a link to a great article I found. Too many ads on the site so I plan to print it instead of just having them follow a link to read it. Spies of The Civil War

6) KICK UP YOUR LESSONS A NOTCH

Remember when Food Network showed Emeril Lagasse’s cooking shows around the clock? What was his catch phrase ladies and gents? BAM! You need to hook your kids with some pizzazz. And it doesn’t have to involve a bunch of money or time. It’s called the art of deception.

Technology is your best friend. I already mentioned Flocabulary. They have so many fabulous clips for Social Studies. I love music and use it every chance I can. It’s a paid subscription but so worth it. If you don’t want to pay for that, enter in Pinterest and YouTube. I have found engaging raps for just about every topic from The Civil War-Modern Day.  Mr. Betts’ Class comes out with a new history rap on YouTube weekly! Follow the link to my Pinterest if you need ideas for Social Studies! Half my boards are history related for obvious reasons. There’s just one example of  a great rap about the causes of The Civil War HERE.

Use real music, too! Here are a few examples: The Scarlet Tide for The Civil War,  The chorus of DMX’s Ruff Ryders’ Anthem for Spanish American War, and 99 Luft Balloons by Nena or The Russians by Sting for The Cold War. Have them analyze the lyrics for a close reading passage!

Make up fancy names for stuff and use cute fonts and color when possible on Power Points and especially drab worksheets. Call stuff a “mystery” or make a vocabulary word a “magic word of the day.” They buy it hook, line, and sinker! Have students do research on the internet but call it a “web quest” or scavenger hunt. It’s all semantics for what you already doing. Want to know more about this name game and more tricks? Read my Art of The Social Studies Teacher Hustle post

I use the “Mirror” component of Whole Brain Teaching all the time. Basically I just come up with hand motions to remember content. We did movements for The Bill of Rights last year. And there are so more games and fun websites for American history than you probably realize.  https://www.icivics.org/ even makes American government interactive!

WHOA. Before this turns into a novel, I am going to bring it to a close. If I tell you all my ideas now, you won’t come back! I do have several Social Studies related products in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. I’m always excited when they sell but sharing my love of SS is my agenda. If you need ideas, please click on the picture to join my Facebook group Social Studies Salute.

There are so many knowledgeable and helpful teachers in the group. It makes me happy to see people find relief and inspiration for teaching history! If you are already a member, keep posting questions and asking for help!

Thanks for reading! I can’t wait to hear your ideas, too!