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TEACHINGTEACHING HARDHARD HISTORYHISTORY TEACHING AMERICAN SLAVERY THROUGH INQUIRY Teaching Hard History TEACHING AMERICAN SLAVERY THROUGH INQUIRY TEACHING TOLERANCE History is not the past. It is the present. We carry our history with us. We are our history. —james baldwin, “black english: a dishonest argument” Teaching About American Slavery Through Inquiry KATHY SWAN, UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY JOHN LEE, NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY S. G. GRANT, BINGHAMTON UNIVERSITY little to prepare them for the more ambitious The Teaching Tolerance publication A outcomes of a strong social studies education Framework for Teaching American Slavery1 rep- that include questioning interpretations of the resents an important starting place for defining past and using that analysis to shape our under- the key themes and curricular content for teach- standing of the present. ing about American history and the fundamental But helping teachers instruct through roles that slavery and white supremacy have inquiry is no simple task. Since John Dewey played in shaping the nation. The framework began writing at the turn of the 20th century,2 will help teachers construct a coherent narra- educators have been touting the benefits of tive about how slavery and white supremacy inquiry-based instructional practices and the are inescapably and intricately woven into the potential of inquiry to create an engaged, dem- American story. By focusing on the key concepts ocratic citizenry.3 Although advocacy around that span our nation’s history, A Framework for inquiry abounds, inquiry as a standard teaching Teaching American Slavery demonstrates that practice has remained a murky ideal for many slavery should not just appear as a single topic teachers. It is not that teachers oppose teaching in a unit on the Civil War. Instead, it should per- through inquiry. Instead, they typically do not meate our understanding of how the country was know what inquiry looks like or how they can formed and how the original sin of American use it to cover the large swaths of content that slavery echoes today. are often represented in standards documents.4 By design, even the best of standards docu- Published in 2013, The College, Career, and ments—like this framework—are a necessary Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies but insufficient step in affecting classroom State Standards (National Council for the Social practice. Standards represent the what and Studies) outlines a structure for teaching social sometimes the why of teaching historical or studies content through inquiry. Central to the social studies content, but standards rarely C3 Framework is the Inquiry Arc, a set of inter- answer the question of how to teach a particular connected and mutually supportive ideas that concept or idea. In order for content standards frames the ways teachers and their students to come alive for social studies students, teach- engage with social studies content. The Inquiry ers need to animate content through dynamic Arc features four dimensions: and engaging instruction—and, in social stud- • Developing questions and plan- ies, we focus that instruction around inquiry. If ning inquiries. history students merely memorize a canonical list of names, dates and events, we have done • Applying disciplinary concepts and tools. 1 Southern Poverty Law Center, A Framework for Teaching American Slavery. 2 Dewey, Democracy and Education. 3 Bruner, The Process; Hess and Posselt, “How High School Students Experience and Learn,” 283-314; Parker, “Their Minds Must Be Improved,” 1-6; Schwab, The Practical. 4 Grant and Gradwell, Teaching History with Big Ideas; Swan & Hofer, “Examining Student-Created Documentaries,” 133-75. TOLERANCE.ORG/HARDHISTORY 3 • Evaluating sources and using evidence. materials that honors teachers’ knowledge and expertise, avoids over-prescription and focuses • Communicating conclusions and tak- on the key elements envisioned in the Inquiry ing action. Arc of the C3 Framework. Unique to the IDM is the blueprintTM, a one-page presentation of Through these dimensions, the C3 the questions, tasks and sources that define an Framework articulates a clear process for inquiry.5 The blueprint offers a visual snapshot supporting students to inquire about the past, of an entire inquiry such that the individual analyze and argue about its meaning and ulti- components and the relationship among the mately apply that knowledge to the challenges components can all be seen at once. Blueprints that face our world today. focus on the following elements necessary to The work of guiding students through the support students as they address a compel- Inquiry Arc is more complex than it may ini- ling question using disciplinary sources in a tially seem, so on the heels of the publication thoughtful and informed fashion: of the C3 Framework, we immediately went to • Standards (anchor the content of work on the Inquiry Design Model. This cur- the inquiry) ricular approach to standards implementation animates content standards and integrates the • Compelling questions (frame the inquiry) four dimensions of the C3 Inquiry Arc. Using A Framework for Teaching American Slavery • Staging the compelling question tasks (cre- as the content anchor, the C3 Framework as ate interest in the inquiry) the disciplinary skill anchor and the IDM as the structure, we hope to model for teachers • Supporting questions (develop the an inquiry-based approach to guiding students key content) through the “hard history” of American slavery. Our hope is that, in doing so, we are able to • Formative performance tasks (demonstrate make inquiry visible for teachers and to demon- emerging understandings) strate how inquiry-based curriculum can, in turn, enact standards. In the final section of • Featured sources (provide opportunities to this article, we return to focus on A Framework generate curiosity, build knowledge and con- for Teaching American Slavery and discuss why struct arguments) important topics like slavery are well suited for inquiry-based practice. • Summative performance tasks (demon- strate evidence-based arguments) Enacting A Framework for Teaching American Slavery through the Inquiry Design Model • Summative extensions (offer assess- The Inquiry Design Model (IDM) is a dis- ment flexibility) tinctive approach to creating instructional • Taking informed action exer- cises (promote opportunities for TEACHING HARD HISTORY CONNECTION civic engagement) The* sections of A Framework for Teaching American Slavery titled “What key content should my students know?” and “How can I teach We’ll illustrate the IDM struc- this?” are designed to support teachers interested in applying the ture by unpacking a sample IDM. Key content can serve to anchor the inquiry. The “How can I inquiry on emancipation (see teach this?” section, along with the Teaching Hard History text library, Figure 1). In this inquiry, high guides teachers toward a range of primary and secondary source 5 Grant, Swan, and Lee, Inquiry-Based Practice in documents from which they can select their featured sources. Social Studies Education. 4 TEACHING TOLERANCE // TEACHING HARD HISTORY // TEACHING AMERICAN SLAVERY THROUGH INQUIRY school students examine a historical debate Figure 1: The Emancipation Blueprint around the freeing of enslaved people using historical sources and contemporary schol- arship. The inquiry is rooted in the content objectives laid out within A Framework for Teaching American Slavery, focusing on the following content objective: 17E: The Emancipation Proclamation was the result of several factors: Lincoln’s oppo- sition to slavery, the changing sentiment in the North about the necessity of ending slav- ery as a way to end the war, the valor of the African-American soldiers who fought for freedom and the self-emancipation of hun- dreds of thousands of enslaved Southerners who had already fled to Union lines. In the sections that follow, we unpack the three defining elements of inquiry—questions, tasks and sources.6 We highlight the compelling and supporting questions that frame and orga- nize this inquiry; the formative and summative assessment tasks that provide opportunities for students to demonstrate and apply their under- standings; and the disciplinary sources that allow students to practice disciplinary think- ing and reasoning. Questions As Socrates demonstrated, questions matter. In Plato’s Protagoras, Socrates claims, “my way toward truth is to ask the right questions.”7 Answers are important, but a well-framed question can excite the mind and give real and speak to the big ideas of history and the social genuine meaning to the study of any social sciences. For example, the compelling ques- issue. The C3 Inquiry Arc and the IDM feature tion—Does it matter who ended slavery?—asks compelling questions as a way to drive social students to grapple with historical significance studies inquiry. and causality generally and the end of slavery In crafting compelling questions, the key is specifically. Historians continue to tease out hitting the sweet spot between being intellectually rigorous and being personally relevant TEACHING HARD HISTORY CONNECTION to students. Intellectually This* IDM is drawn from the key content expansion of A Framework for rigorous questions reflect an Teaching American Slavery Summary Objective 17: Students will examine enduring issue, concern or the evolving Union policies concerning slavery and African-American debate in social studies and military service and understand that the free black and