Jessica L. Cormier
In 2015, the Connecticut State Department of Education (CSDE) updated their frameworks to present a new standard course progression in middle and high school social studies. According to this new progression, ninth grade students study the dawn of the Industrial age to the present in Modern World History, tenth grade students study United States History from the 1870s to the present, and eleventh and twelfth grade students study what it means to be an American citizen in a half-year Civics course.
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This suggested series of courses is followed by the majority of New Haven public high schools, including Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School.
Therefore, based on this new social studies framework, high school students no longer have the opportunity to learn about slavery in both ancient history and American history. Especially in an urban high school setting, this serves as a major disservice to the majority of students who wish to learn more about the history of their ancestors. Within New Haven public schools overall, African American students make up 42% and Hispanic students make up 41% of student enrollment.
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Within Cooperative Arts and Humanities (Co-Op) High school more specifically, 48% of students are African Americans and 29% are Hispanic.
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Although these students may learn some history of slavery in middle school, there is a certain level of detail and reality which simply cannot be comprehended by students between the ages of 11 and 13 years old.
At Co-Op High School, however, the History Department offers the half-year course
History Through Film
, often taken by juniors and seniors in the second half of the year following the half-year Civics course. Because this course does not follow specified requirements from the CSDE, teachers have much more autonomy to focus on unique and often neglected historical topics not typically covered by the required Modern World, US, and Civics courses. This course is the perfect opportunity for many social studies teachers within Co-Op to address the issues of slavery and resistance with a more mature crowd. As high school juniors and seniors, many students wish to learn the realities of their ancestral background within the United States, and therefore connect with the opportunity to view and discuss both the primary source historical details and film-based representations of the oftentimes personal topics of slavery and resistance.
In addition, between the years 2010 and 2015, the city of New Haven experienced the largest increase in English Learner (or EL) students in the state of Connecticut.
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Based on the State of Connecticut Department of Education, EL students, “lack sufficient mastery of English to assure equal educational opportunity in the regular school program.”
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While EL students often receive specialized support outside of the classroom, many still struggle with reading comprehension, especially on a historical level. Some teachers do attempt to incorporate EL teaching strategies into their lessons. However, many EL students resist teachers’ efforts to help, as they feel singled out in front of their peers. In addition, many teachers simply do not have enough time to devote proper attention and resources to properly addressing the needs of EL students.
By incorporating visual supports directly into lessons, teachers can discretely and efficiently support EL students while also teaching to the entire class. EL students and native-English-speaking students alike can therefore benefit from this opportunity to view visual adaptations of primary sources. Students can listen to the words/sentiments of the historical documents being spoken aloud, oftentimes in a much less complicated cadence as compared to its original Latin to English translation. In addition, students can absorb and analyze the body language of actors as well as how they interact with the scenery and environment of the film into order to better understand the meaning of a primary source. The inclusion of film into historical study therefore serves as an excellent supplement to reading comprehension of primary source documents, especially within the New Haven Public School system.
Objectives
Through study in this curricular unit, students will be able to:
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Identify primary versus secondary source documents.
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Analyze the difference between primary and secondary source documents in terms of historical function, use, and reliability.
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Read and interpret primary source documents pertaining to the ancient Roman world.
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Interpret a film as a primary source account revealing historical information about the time period in which it was created.