Reflections and Improving Practice
-Is there any significant section of the artifact/evidence that demonstrates a positive improvement in a student’s ability to demonstrate historical imagination or empathy?
On average, students were willing to attempt re-enactment and role-play. I believe that the letter format and the RAFT instruction reminded students to adopt a role and write to a specifically defined historical audience. Unlike the Trial of Socrates paper, there was less confusion about the use of creative writing as opposed to academic writing.
Students also seemed committed to creating unique characters. Giving the students the choice to pick their own appeared to lead to greater engagement and commitment to the historical character. There were however, varying levels of commitment. While some students created a complex back-story (like Mathew’s sample), others merely stated their role so they could continue with demonstrating their knowledge of the content (like Lucy’s sample).
-Reflections and room for improvement
After reviewing student work, I identified two main themes; the impact of allowing students to choose the historical role and the advantages/disadvantages of accessing students’ funds of knowledge.
I could see a clear difference between this assignment, where students were allowed to choose their historical role, and the trial of Socrates assignment, where students were asked to defend a position that they were assigned. The choice element allowed students to be more creative. I gave them historical parameters for their character but they were able to develop their character as much (or as little) as they wanted too. This created various levels of commitment to a historical role. We can observe this most clearly when examining the differences between Lucy and Mathew’s paper. Clearly, I cannot expect every student to expand on his or her historical role as Mathew did. However, I would like to correct students who merely identify their role and then move on so they can tackle the required content. How do I encourage students to maintain that commitment to their character throughout the assignment? In the future, I may want to emphasize that with each sentence, students should consider their historical role.
There are also analytical downsides to allowing students to choose their historical role. I struggle with analyzing whether or not students are adopting a historical perspective that is distinct from their own perspective. I had difficulty assessing whether students did have a different point of view or whether they merely claimed a role at the beginning of the letter and merely give their own opinions on the horror of slavery for the rest of the assignment.
When analyzing the three samples, another theme manifested, the advantages and disadvantages of students accessing their funds of knowledge. At the time of this lesson, we had not yet to studied Europe in-depth. We were approaching the slave trade from the African perspective in the Africa unit. I gave a quick background on the causes of imperialism but not an extensive look at the lives and motivations of Europeans engaged in the exploration and exploitation of other continents. So naturally students who had additional funds of knowledge, were able to really succeed in this assignment. For example, Mathew, a white male from an academic family, was able to pull on a lot of prior knowledge. His adopted character was an extremely realistic role for the historical context. Maria, was also able to access her previous knowledge; she included her knowledge of the catholic faith and Spain’s religious heritage. She was able to consider the motivations of an ex-slave trader from Spain. Lucy, on the other hand, had very little previous knowledge. Once an ELL student from China, Lucy has very little background knowledge on Europe or Catholicism. This impacted her ability to adopt a creative role, and fill in gaps in the historical sources. Therefore, her paper was ultimately a basic description of the sources provided in class. So role-play assignments that give students an option to choose a role, benefit those students with previous background knowledge. It could give students with a middle-class background an advantage. But it also has the potential for students of varying backgrounds to draw on their authentic funds of knowledge.
On average, students were willing to attempt re-enactment and role-play. I believe that the letter format and the RAFT instruction reminded students to adopt a role and write to a specifically defined historical audience. Unlike the Trial of Socrates paper, there was less confusion about the use of creative writing as opposed to academic writing.
Students also seemed committed to creating unique characters. Giving the students the choice to pick their own appeared to lead to greater engagement and commitment to the historical character. There were however, varying levels of commitment. While some students created a complex back-story (like Mathew’s sample), others merely stated their role so they could continue with demonstrating their knowledge of the content (like Lucy’s sample).
-Reflections and room for improvement
After reviewing student work, I identified two main themes; the impact of allowing students to choose the historical role and the advantages/disadvantages of accessing students’ funds of knowledge.
I could see a clear difference between this assignment, where students were allowed to choose their historical role, and the trial of Socrates assignment, where students were asked to defend a position that they were assigned. The choice element allowed students to be more creative. I gave them historical parameters for their character but they were able to develop their character as much (or as little) as they wanted too. This created various levels of commitment to a historical role. We can observe this most clearly when examining the differences between Lucy and Mathew’s paper. Clearly, I cannot expect every student to expand on his or her historical role as Mathew did. However, I would like to correct students who merely identify their role and then move on so they can tackle the required content. How do I encourage students to maintain that commitment to their character throughout the assignment? In the future, I may want to emphasize that with each sentence, students should consider their historical role.
There are also analytical downsides to allowing students to choose their historical role. I struggle with analyzing whether or not students are adopting a historical perspective that is distinct from their own perspective. I had difficulty assessing whether students did have a different point of view or whether they merely claimed a role at the beginning of the letter and merely give their own opinions on the horror of slavery for the rest of the assignment.
When analyzing the three samples, another theme manifested, the advantages and disadvantages of students accessing their funds of knowledge. At the time of this lesson, we had not yet to studied Europe in-depth. We were approaching the slave trade from the African perspective in the Africa unit. I gave a quick background on the causes of imperialism but not an extensive look at the lives and motivations of Europeans engaged in the exploration and exploitation of other continents. So naturally students who had additional funds of knowledge, were able to really succeed in this assignment. For example, Mathew, a white male from an academic family, was able to pull on a lot of prior knowledge. His adopted character was an extremely realistic role for the historical context. Maria, was also able to access her previous knowledge; she included her knowledge of the catholic faith and Spain’s religious heritage. She was able to consider the motivations of an ex-slave trader from Spain. Lucy, on the other hand, had very little previous knowledge. Once an ELL student from China, Lucy has very little background knowledge on Europe or Catholicism. This impacted her ability to adopt a creative role, and fill in gaps in the historical sources. Therefore, her paper was ultimately a basic description of the sources provided in class. So role-play assignments that give students an option to choose a role, benefit those students with previous background knowledge. It could give students with a middle-class background an advantage. But it also has the potential for students of varying backgrounds to draw on their authentic funds of knowledge.