Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Joslyn Hunscher-Young
July 2016
Research Purpose
As I sit amidst a whirlwind of reports about possible plagiarism in public speeches in a world where
Pokmon are being seen and collected on street corners, I am reminded of why I must teach, and
specifically why I must figure out how to more effectively teach the critical thinking skills involved
in sourcing. It essential that what we enable young people to question, interrogate, and critically
examine all that they find in their real and virtual worlds so that they can determine what to
investigate, trust, and act upon in their own lives. This need is real and it is one that deserves
attention and focus now, which is why I hope to examine my own teaching of the skill of sourcing
to ninth grade students.
In addition to this overarching need for sourcing, as many excellent teacher research projects before
mine, this purpose connects to my own reflection on my practice. At the end of last year, my
department met and decided that we need to focus on this particular skill with our students. We
have always taught it, but recognized that students still need more support, instruction, and practice
with writing source evaluations - a task they must ultimately also perform on their International
Baccalaureate (IB) exams since we are an IB school. Furthermore, for many of students, the source
evaluation often turns into a stressful word vomit where they write everything they possibly can
about a source, its origins, purposes, values, and limitations without ever clearly addressing why it is
useful for them as a researcher. In thinking about my own teaching of this skill last year, I realized
that my students struggled to make connections between the origins and/or purposes of a source
and its possible values or limitations. They also had trouble articulating why a source would be
useful to them and why a source should be used even with its biases. I know that I can do a better
job of creating a learning environment that avoids these pitfalls and encourages students skill
development, which is why I am doing this investigation.
Definitions
Before moving on, the following terms must be defined as they will be important for understanding
this research project:
Historical Thinking:
a set of skills used by historians for reading, writing, and thinking to
participate in the discipline that includes sourcing, contextualization, and corroboration
(Monte-Sano, De La Paz, Felton, 2014)
Historical thinking includes sourcing, contextualizing, close reading, using background knowledge, reading the
silences, and corroborating (Wineburg, 2010). It also examines multiple perspectives, analyzes primary sources,
and looks at the claim-evidence connection (Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, 2016).
Sourcing:
critically examining a source for its origins, purposes, values, and limitations in order
to better understand the source and its messages
Sourcing has been described as the ability to think about a document's author and its creation (Wineburg,
2010), interrogate historical texts by recognizing authors and their biases (Monte-Sano, et al., 2014), and
consider its origins to help us make sense of it Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, 2016).
Assumptions
As a teacher, I am always trying to find ways to make things better for my students, so I am
assuming that my students will learn more and benefit from the teaching strategies that I am
proposing to try in this research project. I assume that my students will learn more from the
modeling I use, the opportunities to use peer response while thinking and writing historically, and
targeted mini-lessons to focus on these historical thinking and writing strategies through modeling
and analyzing model texts.
I may also have some students who are reluctant to share their work with other students or with
particular groups of students. This may be a trust issue from past experiences, but it for some it may
also be a challenge to some religious expectations about genders interacting and sharing. Similarly,
there may be some reluctance to shift viewpoints or interpretations of particular texts, like religious
texts, because of other identities or beliefs that limit the ability to view the text as a historical artifact
rather than a type of religious gospel.
Research Question
What happens to ninth grade students historical thinking skill of sourcing as demonstrated in their
writing when the teacher models historical thinking and peer groups critically respond to each
other's ideas and writing while using mentor texts?
Sub-Questions
Will students annotate sources more often? With more detail? With more notes about the
specific historical aspects (origins, purposes, values, limitations) we look for in source
evaluations?
What will their annotations look like at the beginning, middle, and end of the year?
Will students mimic the thinking and/or annotating styles I model?
Will students mimic the argument and/or writing styles of the model texts?
Will students feel comfortable in their peer response groups? Will they be comfortable
socially? Will they be comfortable sharing their writing and thinking?
Will students find the modeling and/or peer response groups helpful in developing their
thinking and writing?
Data Collection & Analysis Plan
Included below is an outline of the types of data I hope to collect for this project as well as my plans
for analyzing them throughout the year.
Name
Description of Data
Analysis Plan
Artifacts of
Student Work
Documentation
of Lessons
Reflective Field
Notes &
Research Memos
Student
Interviews
Tasks
Identify at least 3 model texts to use
Create 3 different student assessments (short answer prompt, readings, and
source evaluation prompt with research question)
Administer first student assessment to 9th grade class sections
Grade/Record 9th assessments (group 1)
Week 1 Field Notes & Memo
Week 2 Field Notes & Memo
Write Source Evaluation I Lesson Plan
Make peer response groups
September
2016
October 2016
November
2016
December
2016
January 2016
February 2016
March 2016