Critical Literacy for Young Children

This lesson was a good lesson for young students in the lower elementary grades. The lesson began by giving background information about the student teacher who conducted it and she said something that stuck with me. This lesson was about how young children can investigate to learn about history and the past. The teacher before the lesson, mentioned that young children are able to do this if teachers took that leap and I thought she made an extremely good point. Not only can middle school and high school students do this and understand what they are discovering but so can young children. I think it was important for her to mention that because teachers may feel like younger kids are not capable to understand historical topics and make connections, but from this lesson, the students were able to understand. They were also able to relate what they were finding in the non fiction books thing that related to them in their lives and also make connections that things back then were also way different. I thought the lesson was a great one to get students to make connections between the different parts of social studies. If I get put into a lower grade, I would love to try something like this in my classroom. I thought, based on the article, the investigative approach was very effective.

Junior Detectives

I really enjoyed reading this lesson. I thought it was great at having students explore different types of history through primary sources themselves, which helped to make the subject less bias. I really like how the lesson included 3 different primary sources from the perspectives of 3 different types of people, such as the white child laborers, Rosa Parks and also the Japanese Americans during Pearl Harbor. I think it is important for kids to understand that everything they have come across is not alway accurate or right. By doing this lesson, students are able to look at the primary sources and really analyze them and critically think about what the person was thinking and how they may have really felt in the pictures. I think the idea of being "detectives" excites kids and also gives them a sense of seriousness by connecting them to real detectives.

Young People's History

        This article was a very interesting read. It was amazing to see how different we were  taught about Christopher Columbus in school, compared to what really happened. The way that Christopher Columbus was portrayed to me in school was a hero who came over and discovered America, and showed Native Americans different things and traded with them. We were also taught that Native Americans willing did these things when it was not true at all. Christopher Columbus was violent and introduced slavery in America and Spain. I chose this political cartoon to represent the reading because it shows to Native Americans questioning why both Osama Bin Laden and Columbus are not both being treated as terrorist. As Americans we think of Bin Laden as one but not Columbus because he was a European who "did this great deed." Which was discovering America and doing all of these great things for Native Americans.