Collaboratively Creating the Thinking Like a Historian Unit

 November 14 Reflection

Originally our team knew that we would be tasked with developing a new social studies unit, Thinking Like a Historian. We decided we would like to collaborate together to work on the unit, however, following a very recent discussion with Mary Kelly, we've become aware that we are actually being asked to develop three units simultaneously which is more ambitious and daunting than we expected. 

The idea is that our reading history unit, writing about history unit, AND social studies unit would all explore Indian Independence. The thinking is that the topic would be more relevant to our students than researching the American Revolution which is the emphasis for the reading and writing workshop units. 

After some discussion our team is feeling a bit overwhelmed by the thought of teaching a brand new, never been taught in grade 4 social studies unit, while also revamping the literacy units. One crux of our concerns involves access to ample reading materials at a wide range of levels for our students. Our understanding is that finding appropriate materials for both units could be a challenge, but more so for Indian Independence. Our main question is: "is there enough materials out there to support students' reading needs for a social studies AND reading unit?" 

Another concern for our team is how much overlap there may be between reading, writing, and social studies. Do we have enough resources to support all three units on the same topic?

Tomorrow we will meet with Mary Kelly, Lynn, and Elliot to plan and discuss these three units. Our initial goal of collaborating on one unit, has been expanded great and the team is feeling daunted during a busy time of year. 

Reflection November 22

It has been a week since our team met with Lynn, Mary Kelly, and Elliot to discuss our quarter three integrated units. The meeting was helpful in doing some digestion of these three units, what each is about, and how they may fit together. The meeting was very long and overwhelming but at least a first step in tackling the challenge of preparing for so many new units at one time. There was a lot of discussion around what the writing product might look like and the team agreed that an All About book would work best. 

Concerns were shared about the challenge of gathering age appropriate, accessible research materials as well as concerns around which events in the Indian freedom struggle may not be appropriate for grade 4 students. Some team members felt uncomfortable about the decision to do Indian Independence as being a DEIJ related decision and questioned the relevancy of Indian history to our student population beyond our students living here. Some big questions that surfaced amongst the team were: 

Will students connect with the topic and find it interesting?

How might we find resources that are accessible and high interest for our students?

How will the social studies and reading units be different?

How will the team be supported in gathering materials and planning these units simultaneously?

It is a busy challenging time of year for our team to consider this enormous task with report cards, math afternoon, and Vision Days consuming much of our time and energy along with the day to day demands of teaching. As a team leader, I am aware of a feeling of low morale and frustration amongst the team and it is a position that have been a struggle. Our team is very supportive, hard working, and usually positive and the task placed in front of us has us feeling overwhelmed. As a leader, I would love to raise morale and rally the team which is difficult when I myself am feeling daunted. Before and after the meeting, I've spent significant time searching through all sorts of materials--websites, books, videos, Google map tours, photos, etc. in hopes of finding some ideal materials that would work to engage and excite our learners. I know that the team and I would feel much better about the topic if we had some a bank of high interest, grade 4 appropriate materials. Unfortunately this task has been a real challenge, and I have yet to find many resources that would meet these needs.

Overall, I'm hopeful and have faith in our team that we can make this work. The reading and writing unit has been successful in past years, apparently, some but not many of those resources are accessible still. We are adding another layer of complexity by also teaching a social studies unit which will spread our resources more. Our next step is to meet with Elliot to try to begin mapping all three units. I've also contacted Babs in hopes of gathering more reading resources. One team member mentioned that they are already fearful of needing to work through the winter break which is something all of us would like to avoid. Hopefully, we can make considerable progress in December and avoid the need. 

Grade 4 Release time planning document

Reflection March 9

We are almost finished with our three units on Indian Independence. It feels as though the team has gone on a long journey from first learning the topic would span three units, to weeks and weeks of intensive planning, and living through the units with our students. I feel overall the units have been successful. Most students were more interested in Indian Independence than I thought they would be. The team spent a great deal of time and effort in curating the best videos, articles, and books we could possibly find. The reading resources were really challenging for most students. The articles were filled with many challenging words and the articles were dense. I asked ChatGPT to write articles at a Grade 4 level on some of the main subtopics of the unit. Those were somewhat more accessible but still challenging. Most students gravitated toward videos which were probably the most accessible resources. 

The read aloud Ahimsa helped to bring the period to life, but it is a very dense book which made it a slow, somewhat arduous read, and despite reading it several times a week, it was just impossible to finish. Overall, the kids seemed to like the book, but I wouldn't say they loved it. Next year, we hope to find a shorter replacement, perhaps Victory Song by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni which I believe is much shorter but still set during the Indian freedom struggle. 

I feel that our Social Studies unit was also fairly successful despite the projects seeming somewhat boring. Write a historian's oath? Make a timeline? Create a historical marker? I don't think any of those things are THAT engaging to the average fourth grader, but despite that, I think my students tried their best, worked well together, and still enjoyed the process. 

I did like that the research they did during reading, and the notes were extremely helpful in writing their  All About Indian Independence book. I think the chapter they enjoyed the most was the historical fiction chapter where they had to write about a character living through an important event. 

Overall, the students learned a great deal about the history of their host country(as did I!), and I think they enjoyed the experience, but I still have a lingering concern about whether or not asking them to read very challenging texts for weeks and weeks helped or hurt them as readers. One of Colleen Ackford's slides made me think of this unit. 

It made me wonder how many unrecongizeable words our readers were facing each day coupled with limited language comprehension. I hope that the reading unit and strategies will help them tackle difficult texts on the MAP test and F and P assessments and not hurt their growth as readers. 

The units were challenging to plan and teach but also satisfying. I am so thankful for the tremendous collaborative power of our team. We all worked so hard individually and collaboratively to make these 3 units the best we could for our kids. I really do think our hard work paid off. Hopefully it will be reflected in our upcoming assessments. 

Thinking Like a Historian SS Unit Slidedeck

Reading History Unit Slidedeck

Bringing History to Life Writing Slidedeck

G4 Debrief Notes on March 30 of Agenda