Introduction

Typical Courses in Social Studies: U.S. History/World History/Civics/Economics (Coordinated with Social Studies for the Twenty-First Century: Chapter 7: “Teaching World/Global Studies” and Chapter 8: “Teaching U.S. Government and Civics”)

Reviewing Websites and Research

Civic Understanding and Engagement

Read and share a ‘working paper’ of findings of civic education research from one of the outstanding Centers for Civic Education.

“Improving Textbooks as a Way to Foster Civic Understanding and Engagement”

Marilyn Chambliss, Wendy Richardson, Judith Torney-Purta, and Britt Wilkenfeld1 University of Maryland College Park

CIRCLE WORKING PAPER 54 APRIL 2007

Improving Textbooks as a Way to Foster Civic Understanding and Engagement

Great Websites for History

Great Websites on World History

Among the best are World History Matters (www.worldhistorymatters.org), the History Channel (www.history.com), and the World History Association (www.thewha.org). For ancient to modern history, Fordham University offers a trove of documents and lesson plans (www.fordham.edu/halsall) that have three major components (ancient, medieval, and modern history), with songs and stories, music and cultural products for the classroom.

Great Websites for U.S./American Studies

For U.S. history and American studies there are many excellent websites, offered through the U.S. government, nonprofit foundations, and historical societies. Some outstanding sites are: the Gilder Lehrman Foundation for the Teaching of American History (www.gilderlehrman.org), George Mason University: the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and the Media (www.historymatters.gmu.edu), the American Historical Association website for teachers (www.historicalthinkingmatters.org), the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning: City University of New York Graduate Center (www.ahsp.cuny.edu), the American Historical Association (www.historians.org), and many more.

Great Websites for Civics/Government

For civics and government, some of the outstanding websites are linked to foundations for civic education like the Constitutional Rights Foundation (www.crf-usa.org), the U.S. Government Printing Office (www.gpo.gov), and the Center for Civic Education (www.civiced.org). Call or e-mail each for a copy of their monthly publications of lesson plans using historical and political examples.

Planning a Cartoon Lesson

Choosing Cartoons to Teach Elections

Directions:

Develop several lessons around cartoons past and present. To challenge yourself, choose two figures in history, e.g., a recent and a past U.S. president—perhaps President Obama and President Lincoln. Access two or more cartoons about each, particularly cartoons that have opposing or different views, positive and negative, of the two leaders. Compare how cartoonists communicate feelings and agendas through their art and their messages (if any words are used). Discuss the questions provided for guidance below (while adding some of your own queries):

Two Civil War Cartoons: “Storming the Castle” and “Letting the Cat Out of the Bag!!”

Choose two cartoons, like those below, on a current or past election-related topic for classroom instruction.

  1. Title: Storming the Castle. “Old Abe” on Guard.
  2. Creator(s): Currier & Ives.
  3. Related Names: Maurer, Louis, 1832–1932, artist.
  4. Date Created/Published: [New York : Currier & Ives], c.1860.
  5. Medium: 1 print on wove paper: lithograph; image 30 x 42 cm.

Summary: During the 1860 election campaign the “Wide Awakes,” a marching club composed of young Republican men, appeared in cities throughout the North. (See no. 1860-14.) They often wore uniforms consisting of visored caps and short capes, and carried lanterns. Here Republican presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln (left) is addressed as a “Wide-Awake,” and carries a lantern and a spear-like wooden rail. He rounds the corner of the White House foiling the attempts of three other candidates to enter surreptitiously. At far right incumbent James Buchanan tries to haul John C. Breckinridge in through the window. Buchanan complains, “I’ll do what I can to help you Breck, but my strength is failing and I’m afraid you’ll pull me out before I can pull you in.” Breckinridge despairs, “. . . I’m too weak to get up—and we shall be compelled to dissolve the Union.” His words reflect his and Buchanan’s supposed alliance with secessionist interests of the South. In the center Democrat Stephen A. Douglas tries to unlock the White House door, as Constitutional Union party candidate John Bell frets, “Hurry up Douglas! and get the door open, so that I can get in, for the watchman [i.e., Lincoln] is coming.” Douglas complains that none of the three keys he holds (labeled “Regular Nomination,” “Non Intervention,” and “Nebraska Bill”) will open the door, “. . . so I’d better be off, for old Abe is after me with a sharp stick.”

  1. Title: Letting the Cat Out of the Bag!!
  2. Creator(s): Currier & Ives.
  3. Related Names: Maurer, Louis, 1832–1932, artist.
  4. Date Created/Published: [New York: Currier & Ives], c.1860.
  5. Medium: 1 print on wove paper: lithograph; image 24 x 38 cm.
  6. Summary: A figurative portrayal of the rift within the Republican party resulting from the nomination of Abraham Lincoln for the presidency in 1860. Here New York senator and would-be nominee William H. Seward watches as the radical antislavery senator from Massachusetts Charles Sumner releases a snarling cat, the “Spirit of Discord,” from a “Republican Bag.” The cat bolts toward New York “Tribune” editor Horace Greeley and Lincoln, who wields a rail in his defense. Greeley exclaims, “What are you doing Sumner! you’ll spoil all! she aint to be let out until after Lincoln is elected,—” Lincoln, also alarmed, rejoins, “Oh Sumner! this is too bad!—I thought we had her safely bagged at Chicago [i.e., the Republican national convention at Chicago], now there will be the old scratch to pay, unless I can drive her back again with my rail!” Sumner replies, “It’s no use talking Gentlemen, I wasn’t mentioned at Chicago, and now I’m going to do something desperate, I can’t afford to have my head broken and be kept corked up four years for nothing!” The mention of his broken head refers to the widely publicized 1856 beating inflicted on Sumner by South Carolina congressman Preston S. Brooks. (See “Arguments of the Chivalry,” no. 1856-1.) Seward warns, “Gentlemen be cautious you don’t know how to manage that animal as well as I did, and I’m afraid that some of you will get “scratched.” Henry J. Raymond, editor of the “New York Times,” stands in background shouting, “Scat!—scat!—back with her, or our fat will all be in the fire.”
  7. Reproduction Number: LC-USZ62-12923 (b&w film copy neg.) LC-DIG-pga-04915 (digital file from original item)
  8. Rights Advisory: No known restrictions on publication.
  9. Call Number: PGA - Currier & Ives—Letting the cat... (B size) [P&P]

Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

Directions:

  1. Write your own set of questions to pose in the classroom.
  2. Prepare at least two activities for students based on the cartoons.
  3. Explain how you will judge poor, moderately good, and excellent work by students (assessment).

Questions:

  1. What symbols are used in each cartoon? What do these symbols stand for in daily life? What is a symbol? Give at least two examples.
  2. How do cartoonists make their points: exaggeration, satire, caricature? How do you know when something is exaggerated or made fun of, and why?
  3. Often words as well as images are used: How did the cartoonist choose words to label characters or objects in a cartoon? Why were labels used at all?
  4. How does a cartoonist compare past and present, or draw similarities and differences between people, places, and events, like elections? Do analogies work in the cartoon? In history?
  5. Ideals and realities often clash: How do cartoonists take advantage of the gap between real and ideal to make their points? What are irony, satire, hyperbole, and caricature?
  6. What is the main issue or issues in each cartoon? Can there be more than one issue? More than one interpretation? Why or why not?
  7. What is the cartoonist’s viewpoint? How can you decide?
  8. What would the opposite views be to your two cartoons?
  9. Is the cartoon persuasive? Why or why not?
  10. What might make the cartoon better, more persuasive, funnier, and sharper or nastier?

OK, Now, you add at least five new unexpected questions of your own about cartoon vocabulary, imagery, or intent.

Great Websites for Teaching and Researching Cartoons

For old cartoons and many other engravings, drawings, and photographs in American history, take time to explore the Library of Congress site (www.loc.gov), “Prints and Photographs Online Catalog” (PPOC) www.loc.gov/ppoc. Also explore political cartoons from recent times up to the present on these interesting and informative sites: Daryl Cagle's The Cartoon Post: Cartoons and Commentary (www.cagle.com) and (www.politicalcartoons.com), Townhall cartoons (www.townhall.com/political-cartoons), and Harper's Weekly Political Cartoons of the Past (www.harpweek.com).

Deciding What's Authentic

Developing Multiple Intelligences: Deciding What’s Authentic and What’s (Probably) NOT Authentic

Think about the pictures you look at in newspapers, history books, and journals. People use illustrations that are invented, and very often NOT authentic from the time they represent.

But how do you know? Ask some questions:

Are figures realistic or cartoonish, emotional or neutral, wearing clothing from the past or creatively dressed? Are objects, say ships, or things from the time? Can they be from the time? Would the old things be ruined or excavated and show wear while the invented are quite nicely put together and shiny?

Here are pictures of ancient ships: Which are authentic and which are not? How did you decide? For what reasons?

Vector illustration. Ancient Phoenician ship

Viking ship

More Questions:

Which picture is most likely to be authentic? Which picture is most ‘realistic’ in all probability: the Viking drawing or the Phoenician ship from ancient times? Why? Would there be photos of either available from that time (one thousand to four thousand years ago)?

By the way, are the ships alike or different? What might this tell us about ship design and ship building over the ages?

Recipes for Wild Social Studies: The Raw and the Cooked

Let’s look at a few original sources for ourselves and decide on their message, meaning, context, and purpose. A popular world history topic is the Industrial Revolution, so let’s take a look at old prints from the late 19th Century, a wild time, and let’s cook up our own answers.

Women in factory grinding metal pen nibs

Questions:

  1. What are the women doing? Why?
  2. Is the technology old or new?
  3. Can you date the picture approximately from its contents and style?
  4. Why are all the workers women? What are the men doing?
  5. Where do you think this might be taking place? Any clues? Could it be anywhere at all?
  6. What sort of time period is represented by this drawing. Is it a time of change or stability? How can you tell?
  7. How would you add up all the clues in the drawing to tell a story, predict a date, and draw conclusions about social and economic changes?

Steam locomotive—Stock Image

You invent questions of your own on the locomotive: Remember to ask about function, probable time and place, social and economic context, but add some new twist to make the lesson wilder, OK?

Ask what the picture symbolizes. Ask what the steam engine means to students and other people. Ask what time period was likely: Is this a new train or an old one, and how can you tell?

Ask how the steam locomotive changed the world, or did it? Has it changed our world? Do trains still run in cities, between places and states? Why? How has train travel changed life in the United States, the United Kingdom, and around the world?

Great Websites: U.S./American Studies

Let’s travel through time in American history. Test our ‘time sense’ by studying old photos from different times. Make a judgment of each photo, dating as exactly as you can. What ‘gives a time away’? What do we have to know about dress, style, pose, technology, and setting to date a picture?

Try your hand at dating the following set, all of which link to the theme of War and Peace in U.S. History.

World War One, Portrait of U.S. Enlisted Army Soldier

World War Two, Portrait of Soldier

Major General George B. McClellan—Stock Image

Questions:

  1. Is it easy or difficult to date soldiers’ pictures?
  2. What might make it harder or easier to decide on the time of each soldier’s service (which war he served in)?
  3. Does it matter if all are U.S. soldiers? Would it be easier to decide on the date and place of foreign soldiers? Why or why not?
  4. Would women in uniform be easier to place in time and space? Why or why not?

    World War Two, Vintage Military Portrait of Woman—Stock Image

  5. What clues help you to decide on time and setting? Which clues are confusing or problematic: e.g., dress, medals, pose, uniform, media (photos or prints)?
  6. How do you place pictures in historical context: have you decided on any general rules?

Adding the Other Social Sciences

Framing a Document: Multiple Perspectives/Recipes for Wild Social Studies: The Raw and the Cooked: Interpreting

Archeological Rock Art

A great way of stimulating discussion is to choose ‘raw’ material from archeological finds that invite anthropological and sociological inquiry, asking about cultural meaning. Images from Bronze Age Sweden invite hypotheses about prehistoric civilization, particularly ship design and shipbuilding, and also speculation about the probable function of tools, weapons, or other objects portrayed in rock art drawings that date back perhaps as much as eight thousand years. Invent a recipe of questions and ‘ingredients’ to promote inquiry into the rock art shown below. Note that the ship looks a great deal like a Viking ship, but was likely built thousands of years earlier. Ask what type of environment in the north would spur invention of seagoing ships. Fighting apparently also was common, or perhaps that is just so human it never ends!