History Can be Serious

         

"Go tell the Spartans, thou who passeth by,
That here in obedience to her laws we lie."
 

This stunningly fine post builds on earlier ones, such as this and this and

this and this.  It is an example of how my students will design

instruction--if I ever shut up long enough to teach them.

Here's the strategy.

1.      Using your own knowledge of history, the State standard course of study, your district’s course of study, and texts you are supposed to use, think of the strands of knowledge that you will weave together to help your students to GET and to retell the story.

Timeline of events
Persons
Groups (families, political parties)
Social institutions
Culture (values, beliefs)
Technology
Geography
Big ideas to be gained (lessons, big pictures).

2.      Let’s say that it’s time (along the time strand) in your history course  to teach about the Persian Wars.  You have resources that contain knowledge from the different strands. The resources are your own memory and notes, books and articles, the internet.

a.   Persons: Xerxes, Darius, Leonidas,  Miltiades, Pausanias, Mardonius,  Themistocles

b.   Groups:   Athenians, Spartans, Plataeans, hoplites

c.   Social institutions:  religion, military, tribal, political

d.   Technology:  weapons,  ships

e.   Geography and demography:  mountainous, plains, ocean,   
relative isolation of city states.

f.   Culture:  the role of gods in human affairs, duty, definition of
man, cohesion of city states/tribes and hoplite armies.

g.   Big ideas that guide and conclude instruction: 

      The need for certain virtues (bravery, steadfastness) for weapons to be effective; the roots of these virtues in Greek culture--revealed in poetry, grave markers, plays, speeches.

      The importance of totally defeating an enemy.

The importance of public support and participation.

      The effects of fighting to protect land, family, and culture on the bravery, ferocity, and tenacity of soldiers.

The relevance of these lessons for today’s war with the ideas and world-domination strategy of Islamic jihad.

 3.     Examine these resources. Identify and list what you want students to DO when you are done with the lessons.

         a.   Create a general objective. “Students describe the background, main stages/battles, and outcomes of the Persian Wars, including important persons, groups, technology, cultural  influences, and lessons."

         b.  Create a list of specific THINGS to be learned that are IN the  materials, and relevant to the general objective.

 4.     Arrange the list of THINGS to be learned into a LOGICAL and COHERENT sequence that tells a story.  Logical means that students must know some things before others.

5.      Create DO-objectives for each THING you want students to learn.

        “When given a map of Greece and Persia, and asked to trace the route of the Persian army during the second invasion, students draw a line from Persia west, across the Hellespont, south through Thermopylae..."

            "When asked to describe the panoply of the Greek hoplite, students list armor and weapons (hoplon, spear, cuirass...), describe the main features of each (size, weight, composition), and use in battle."

 

6.      Each objective you work on in the sequence would be a task or exercise  in the lessons.

7.      Now write scripts for exactly HOW you will get the knowledge (relevant to the objectives) across. The kind of script/communication depends on the form of knowledge you are teaching (verbal association, concept, rule, strategy). But the  general format is frame, model, lead, test/check, verification,  presentation of examples/nonexamples, acquisition test on all examples.

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Here are resources relevant to steps 1-3. They include expository text, pictures, and maps.

Selections from The Histories, Herodotus.

http://historynet.com/mhq/bldspartans/

http://monolith.dnsalias.org/~marsares/warfare/index.html#greeks

http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/GREECE/PERSIAN.HTM

http://campus.northpark.edu/history/WebChron/Mediterranean/PersianWars.html

http://campus.northpark.edu/history/WebChron/Mediterranean/Salamis.html

http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/persian/

http://lilt.ilstu.edu/drjclassics/lectures/history/PersianWars/persianwars.shtm

http://www.ualberta.ca/~csmackay/CLASS_110/Persian.Wars.html

http://www.metrum.org/perwars/

http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_time_persianwars.htm

http://www.ualberta.ca/~csmackay/CLASS_110/Arch.Greece.html

http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~warfare/Lectures/lect04.html

http://www.classics.und.ac.za/projects/democracy/armour.htm

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From these resources, identify "things" students will learn. Each of these is later turned into a specific do-objective.

List of Things to Learn/teach

1.     Whom did the Greeks fight?

2.     How many major land battles were there?

3.     Where was the first land battle?

4.     What was the date of the first land battle?

5.     Who was the Persian king during the first invasion?

6.     What did the Persian king expect to gain from the first invasion?

7.     Was Athens involved in the first battle?

8.     Was Sparta involved in the first invasion? Explain.

9.     What were the approximate numbers of troops on each side?

10.   In what formation did the Greek infantries fight? Explain its operating characteristics and effectiveness.

11.   What were Greek infantry called?

12.   What weapons did the Greek infantryman carry?

13.   What was the Greek shield called?

14.   What are four features of the Greek shield?

15    In addition to infantry, what other fighting forces did the Persians use?

16.   Describe combat methods of the Greeks.

17.   Who won the first major land battle?

18.   How far was the first battle field from Athens?

19.   Did the Persians have a navy involved in the first land battle?

20    What was the date of the second major land battle?

21.   Where was the second land battle?

22.   Who was the Persian king during the second invasion?

23.   What did the Persian king expect to gain from the second invasion?

24.   Was Sparta involved in the second land battle?

25.   Describe the Greek forces in the second land battle.

26.   What is the English translation for the location of the second land battle?

27.   What did the Greeks expect to gain by fighting the Persians at the location of the second land battle?

28.   What was the approximate number of troops on each side?

29.   Did the Greeks accomplish what they came to do in the second land battle?

30.   How were the Greeks defeated in the second land battle?

31.   In brief, what came next after the second land battle?

32.   What rules (as big ideas) are revealed (and can guide future study) in the Greek’s responses to the Persian invasions?

33.   Locate on a map the places of the three main land battles (Marathon, Thermoylae, Plataea) and the main sea battle (Salamis). 

34.   Trace on a map the route taken by the Persian invaders.

35.   Identify on a map the locations of Athens, Sparta, Lydia, Thebes, Plataea,  the Persian Empire, Persepolis.

36.   Describe the forces, tactics, and outcome of the battle at Plataea.

37.   Describe the forces, tactics, and outcome of the battle at Salamis.

38.   State the lessons (rules) about: the need for certain virtues (bravery, steadfastness) for weapons to be effective; the roots of those virtues in Greek culture; the importance of total defeat of an enemy; the necessity of public support and participation; the effects of fighting to protect land, family, and culture on the ferocity and tenacity of soldiers; the relevance of these lessons for today’s war with the ideas and world-domination strategy of Islamic jihad.  [The rules will be carried forward to other historical periods.]

==========================================================================================================

The knowledge items, above, were extracted from the resource materials in the order read.  They are NOT in a logical sequence; e.g., that tells a story.  So, the next task is to group the 38 items above into a logical and easily-graspable sequence of instructional chunks; for example:

1.  Map skills.

2.  History of Greece and Persia leading to the clash.

3.  Comparison of Greek and Persian institutions (political, military, religious), cultural values, and citizenship, and how these prepare soldiers and communities for war.

4.  Comparison of Greek and Persian armor and weapons, battle strategies, and military virtues.

5.  Examination of each of the Persian invasions and the major battles:  Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis, Plataea.

6.  Lessons of the Persian Wars.

===========================================================================================================

Teachers then transform each item to be taught in each chunk into a concrete DO objective; e.g., locating Marathon on a map, identifying generals at the battle at Marathon, describing features of Spartan culture that produce warrior virtues.

The teacher determines whether the knowledge to be taught is a verbal association (e.g., names, dates); concept (democracy, hoplite, panoply, virtue, phalanx); rule (superior weapons are useless in hoplite combat unless soldiers are brave enough to fight in the enemy's face); and strategies (locating cities on a map; writing a paper that synthesizes materials into a description of a war).

The teacher than writes a script using the communication format proper to the type of knowledge.

For example...

Boys and girls.  New concept.  panoply. [write panoply on the board]

Spell panoply.

Get ready to write the definition of panoply...

A panoply is the set of weapons and armor used by the Greek hoplite.  [hoplite has already been taught.]

I'll say that definition again...A panoply is the set of weapons and armor used by the Greek hoplite.

Everybody, what's the definition of panoply.

Now, get ready to make a list of weapons and armor in the panoply.
Weapons. [Show pictures of each one)
*Sword
*Spear
*Dagger

Armor
*Hoplon
*Cuirass
*Helmet
*Greaves

[Show several examples of each one. Point out essential sameness (e.g., the arm strap on the hoplon, or shield) and irrelevant differences (e.g., the differing images representing their city state that soldiers painted on the front of the hoplon)].

Then have students...
Recite the items in the panoply.
State the essential features (composition and use)

Next post--examples of students' work.

Comments

[Baker Mitchell]

Dear Professor Plum,

I thought some of your readers might be interested in the followng story that I posted to the Precision Teaching List Server about Saxon Math being taken over by Harcort Achieve.

I flew up from Houston and met with John Saxon in Norman, OK in the early 1990’s to discuss collaboration on a science series. He had a true burning hatred of the large publishers; and in talking about the trash they published, he would get so violently agitated that he could hardly talk. This emotional, visceral, total spite was surprising to me because I thought that he would have been very cool and calculating as a former Air Force pilot and math teacher.

With red face and veins popping, he made a strangling motion with his hands and vowed through clenched teeth that he would “grab those &^%$#&*% publishers and drag them of their hiding places in the weeds into the open and totally destroy them.”

He is rolling over in his grave knowing that one of them now controls his company. A shame.

John, you were and are a savior to millions of young people and teachers. Perhaps you helped train an army that can, one day, complete your mission.

So rest in peace, friend.

Baker Mitchell

The Roger Bacon Academy

[Baker Mitchell]

Strand (1) [American Heritage Dictionary - shamelessly copied]

NOUN: The land bordering a body of water; a beach.
VERB: Inflected forms: strand·ed, strand·ing, strands

TRANSITIVE VERB: 1. To drive or run ashore or aground. 2. To bring into or leave in a difficult or helpless position: The convoy was stranded in the desert. 3. Baseball To leave (a base runner) on base at the end of an inning. 4. Linguistics To separate (a grammatical element) from other elements in a construction, either by moving it out of the construction or moving the rest of the construction. In the sentence What are you aiming at, the preposition at has been stranded.
INTRANSITIVE VERB: 1. To be driven or run ashore or aground. 2. To be brought into or left in a difficult or helpless position.

strand (2) [American Heritage Dictionary - shamelessly copied]

NOUN: 1. A complex of fibers or filaments that have been twisted together to form a cable, rope, thread, or yarn. 2a. A single filament, such as a fiber or thread, of a woven or braided material. b. A wisp or tress of hair. 3. Something that is plaited or twisted as a ropelike length: a strand of pearls; a strand of DNA. 4. One of the elements woven together to make an intricate whole, such as the plot of a novel.
TRANSITIVE VERB: Inflected forms: strand·ed, strand·ing, strands
1. To make or form (a rope, for example) by twisting strands together. 2. To break a strand of (a rope, for example).

Professor, I don't think either of these uses adequately gives the novice instructional designer a clear idea of what you mean by the word.

I think (dangerous undertaking for an engineer, because we just like to look up the answer in a table, as in- Gravity-fed sewer line capacities: 8" = 15 gallons/minute; 4" = 3 gallons/minute, etc.) that you are implying some sort of taxonometric exercise at the beginning where one classifies the behavior changes to be produced in the learner by the teaching process.

If so, what are the features of the various classes? The phylum, genus, and species of each behavior, if you will (or even if you won't)?

What do you mean by a "strand?"

Help! Please don't leave us stranded, trussed up by our strands of ignorance!

This process of establishing the "strands" is the first step - if we screw this up we're doomed. Or does it matter? As in having an influence on the outcome, not as in "that sewer line sure can handle a lot of matter!"

Best Regards to you out in the Hill Country - Kerrville and San Marcos are lovely this time of year.

[Adrian]

Baker,

Look to definition 2, item 2a, to see what Plum means by strand.

[og]

Man, I wish you were my teacher, al those years ago.

[Baker Mitchell]

Hi, Adrian. Thanks for the opportunity to explain more fully.

It is Item 2 and the items a-g that give rise to my seeking a definition. Professor Plum mentions a Time strand and then itemizes a People strand. But the people are embedded in Time; or times could be embedded in People; and both in the Groups strand.

So we have knowledge such as, "The Athenian Aristotle taught Alexander, a Macedonian, in about 320 BC." How do we parse this single sentence out among the strands. Does some or all of it go into the Institutions strands (educational institution) or into the People strand under Aristotle, Alexander, or both or into the Time strand as an event occuring in 320BC or yada, yada, yada.

Without a definition of "strand" I'm not sure how to parse out the behaviors that I wish to observe from my learned student.

Or maybe I'm just too picky. Sorry.

Speaking of which, I'm sure that the Hill Country Professor is familiar with my favorite western song "You can Pick Your Friends and You can Pick Your Nose, but You Can't Wipe Your Friends Off On the Saddle Blanket!" A touching lament, indeed!

Anyway, maybe I'm missing something obvious, here.

Regards,

Baker

[instructivist]

I wonder what Prof. Plum thinks of these reading programs:

[From Phyllis Schlafly's column http://www.townhall.com/columnists/phyllisschlafly/ps20050117.shtml]

"Orlando school officials have decided to experiment with three new reading approaches: Scholastic's Read 180, which relies heavily students using computers and comes with a price tag of $439,000; McGraw-Hill's SRA Corrective Reading at $130,000; and Strategically Oriented Intensive Reading Instruction at $84,000."

On the consequences of illiteracy:

"Children who are not taught phonics grow up to be incompetent voters, like the Palm Beach County voters who spoiled their ballots in 2000 by over-voting for both Al Gore and the Libertarian third-party candidate. Never having been taught to sound out syllables, they saw "Libertarian" and thought they were selecting "Lieberman" for vice president."

It could also be that they read "liberal" instead of "libertarian". Ah, the joys of the psychotic guessing game.

[Tara]

To OG: I completely agree. I really need to go back and get my degree AGAIN under Prof. P. Am woefully undereducated.

Ok, did I read too quickly? Hill Country? Anyone here in Austin with me? If there's anyone headed down to the live music capitol of the world, time to get excited! Weather here is mild, mild, mild, and kids just started school, so many of the fun tourist-y and not-so-tourist-y spots are open. Perhaps I misunderstood; however, if anyone makes it my way, feel free to email me (you can just click on my name) and I'll be happy to provide you with fun stuff to do down this way. ;)

[plum]

Regarding the three reading programs cited by Instructivist, I can only speak about Corrective Reading. Great remedial program. Each 65 lessons moves kids more than a year in achievement. [See link SRA/Direct Instruction.] 180 grand seems like a lot, unless you're talking lots of schools. Even so, that's the start uo cost. After that you only need to buy cheap workbooks.

[Peter]

Great Post!