Interact with history w/o writing essays?

[silver]

I have a writing phobic son. I don't want to make all history assignments be writing paragraphs or essays because he likes history and I think doing that would make him hate the subject. But I do want him to interact/engage with history beyond listening/reading about it. I know I could do oral discussions, but I'm not much of a history buff, so I don't even know how I would lead that. 

Any suggestions for resources or assignments for history that aren't writing heavy or just making a craft?

[Lori D.]

Get involved in a history recreation group?

Watch some history documentaries together, and discuss afterwards?

Use history resources that have built-in questions about the text or reading, and instead of having him write the answers, have him pick a few to answer orally and you "check" his answers via the teacher guide?

Make a timeline of key events/people? Lots of different ways you can do this. For example, when we were studying 20th Century World History, over the course of 3 weeks I had DSs fill in a 1-page "decade chart" with what they considered to be the 15 key people and events of the decade (so, 5 per week). I purposefully said no more than one carefully worded sentence for each, next to the date of the event that included names, a brief description of the person/event, and why it was important (what past thing it connected to, or what changed as a result of this, or how this was something brand new, or...)

[8filltheheart]

PowerPoint presentation?

[RootAnn]

35 minutes ago, 8FillTheHeart said:

PowerPoint presentation?

The key to this is to also teacher PowerPoint presentation skills. It is best to not put much text (thus, less "writing") on the slides, but to include tasteful pictures.

I'd have him actually make the presentation to the family. (He'll have to know the material to speak about the topics on the slides.) You'll probably want to teach how to organize his speech/material.

[theelfqueen]

I had my kids make index card entries in a timeline ... front of the card was a drawing or a found image ... back was a date, a title, and a couple of sentences about the event. We strung the cards near the ceiling of our homeschool room... a string held up with command hooks across the room, and cards held up with mini clothespins. 

They had other assignments (DBQs, papers, presentations, etc...) but this went with almost every reading or lecture for a couple of years and subjects. 

Edited November 24, 2018 by theelfqueen

[HomeAgain]

I'd suggest this book as a resource for you: Teaching What Really Happened: How To Get Students Excited About Doing History.

We use a variety of resources here.  One of the exercises my oldest did in middle school was to look over a text and highlight any words that showed bias.  It is remarkable what makes it into a textbook to show where the author is coming from and how they think about the event that occurred.  We called it history inception. 😄 Looking for the history within the history.  We also found a lot of worth in using primary resources found on Letters Of Note, Google Newspaper archives, and Reading Like A Historian.  It's one thing to read about the French Revolution, it's another to read Marie Antoinette's tear-stained letter to her sister the night before she was beheaded.
We also have these books to bring in science to history: Potentially Catastrophic Science, The Time Travelers' Handbook.  The first is chronological, the second jumps around. But I can pull up a quick science experiment or activity to parallel to what he's studying in history.  So, yes, this was happening, but in another part of the world, this was a contribution. 

[lmrich]

What does he like to do? 

He can create scenes with legos or draw something. Lots of kids like make to videos. Get him talking and engaged. 

[Kfamily]

All of the above suggestions are great ideas! 

We use narration prompts, but I thought some of those might work for you as well. Most of them require some writing, but not nearly as much as writing out paragraphs and essays. If he doesn't enjoy using a pencil at all (even for drawing and diagrams), then most of these can be adapted into oral discussions. Also, I would not expect him to use the more involved prompts after every reading. These could be used weekly or even bi-weekly. 

Have your student respond to an event by drawing/painting a picture of it, giving it a caption and then sharing it with you (or another family member or friend). He can describe the event being illustrated and what he hopes others might learn by studying it. 

Have your student respond to an event by comparing it to another event in history. He can create tables with one table showing the similarities and one showing the differences. Have him clearly label the tables and give this work a title.

Have your student respond to an event by drawing a series of small pictures (cartoon style), representing each major turn of the event and in chronological order. Have him orally share it with someone else when complete. 

Have your student respond to a significant person from the chapter or reading selection by dictating/typing  a letter to him/her or as if him/her, responding to whatever might have been happening to him/her in the chapter or reading selection. 

Have your student respond to a significant person from the chapter or reading selection by answering this question: "If you had been __, then what would you have done differently from him/her with ___ event? Why?"

Creating pictures with captions, charts and tables with titles, writing lists and including titles, drawing diagrams and maps and giving them labels are all examples of low-writing type prompts which shift the focus from writing and over to what the student thinks about what was just read-how he connected to it. But, they also are building writing skills at the same time, since they also require the student to organize their thoughts and begin to define what they want to say and how to say it.

If your student enjoys dramatizing, he can act out short scenes sometimes. He can do this with himself and props or small toys/Legos.

If you really need to keep his response short and low-fuss, then he can also start his work the day of the reading and then finish it the next day (since some prompts are more involved than others). For example, he might start his drawing after the reading and then finish it and describe it another day that same week. 

I hope this helps a little. 🙂 Best Wishes! 

 

[katilac]

What history spine do you use? Using a text with discussion prompts is probably the easiest way to accomplish this. You could also search "discussion questions treaty of versailles" and so on. 

Map work for sure. 

Search "hands on history for high school" and you'll get some sites to explore. 

I've gotten ideas for various classes by searching for syllabi, "world history high school syllabus" or "medieval history 11th grade. 

Get a primary sources book that has reproductions of the primary sources along with prompts, questions, and discussion points. You can do the questions and of course discussions together orally. I don't have any titles at hand, but just search Amazon for "primary sources history" and you will see plenty.  

 

[merylvdm]

I teach history classes and I don't use tests or essays. There are plenty of other ways to evaluate understanding. I do like to use a lot of primary resources and I have the student answer questions (written) but you could things like that as a discussion.

Here are other ideas:

• Create Facebook profiles of the main characters (Classtools.net has a nice template)
• Create tweets as if an event was happening now
• Make videos using Powtoons (animated)
• Make videos using Mysimpleshow (another animated tool)
• Create a picture ebook to explain a topic to younger children using Storyjumper
• Create a poster using Canva (eg war propaganda)
• Write a postcard from a historical event
• Build a battle scene from legos
• Write a song / rap (you could provide a tune)
• Make a website (National History Day - nhd.org - is a history contest so you could incorporate that. He could make a video instead of a website or even a posterboard or performance - they have categories for all)

[carrierocha]

My daughter loves to make things and I did that making models of history-related things really cements stuff. We are on ancients and doing biology so this year she has made a replica Tabernacle including hand making all the altars and pieces, a cell model from oven bake clay and plaster, a Trojan Horse fit on top of a wagon.

Dioramas are another option or clay maps showing the land where history happened.

I know you didn't want crafts, but just wanted to mention more complicated models go beyond "babyish" crafts like color sheets and the like.

 

[LMD]

The diana waring history curriculum has lots of interesting ideas along these lines. Some that I remember dd doing were embroidering a scene from William the conqueror's life in the style of the bayeaux tapestry, composing a song for the fall of Constantinople...

I'll pull it off my shelf and see what other ideas there are (dd loves these sorts of projects)

[Melissa in Australia]

we use Usborne internet linked History Encyclopedia. it has internet links for every page .these include  short videos, some games, artwork etc. 

[KrissiK]

One year my DD made a really fun timeline. It was simple, but it was big on the wall and she used an index card for each entry (person or event) and put the name, date, a few sentences about the subject and drew a little picture and stuck it on the wall. That was kind of fun.