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When Work is Done
Charlotte Bruce and Helen Stephan
The main vehicle for this lesson is the web site "When Work is Done". After completing the introductory lesson using photographs as primary sources, students compile their own albums based on a thesis statement about life in the 20th century.
Overview
Objectives
Virginia Standards of Learning 11.17
The student will develop skills for historical analysis, including the ability to:
analyze documents, records, and data (such as artifacts, diaries, letters,
photographs, journals, newspapers, historical accounts, etc.);
evaluate the authenticity, authority, and credibility of sources;
formulate historical questions and defend findings based on inquiry and interpretations;
develop perspectives of time and place, including the construction of various time lines of events, periods, and personalities in American history; and
communicate findings orally, in brief analytical essays, and in a comprehensive
paper.
Information Literacy Standards
The student who is information literate: accesses information efficiently
and effectively and evaluates information critically and competently.
Essential Understanding
Photographs as primary sources can help formulate thesis statements and suggest research avenues.
Essential Questions What can we know for sure from looking at a photograph?
What can we infer by looking at a photograph?
What questions arise from looking at these photographs?
What other material do we need to use to answer these questions?
Performance Task
Working in groups of five, students will develop albums that reflect a thesis about leisure time in the United States between 1900 and 1950.
Time Required Initial lesson - One and one-half block periods (140 minutes)
Performance assessment - At least 4 block periods (360 minutes
for research plus out-of-school time for album creation).
Recommended
Grade Level
Eleventh grade
Curriculum Fit
U.S. history, advanced placement U.S. history
Resources Needed
Exhibit A - Taking
Time Out for a Friendly game
Teacher
Guide to Photo Analysis
Album
Pictures Reference Page
Staff
Directions
Resources
Page
Album
Guidelines
Album
Rubric
Album
Grading Sheet
Oral
Report Guidelines
Oral
Report Sheet
Task Analysis
Content Knowledge
Time period 1900-1950
Regional differences and similarities
Practice of discrimination based on gender and race
Socioeconomic classes of time period
Leisure time activities of time period
Skills
Use of the internet
Analyze primary sources
Analyze the effect of race, gender, socioeconomic status on leisure
time activities
Construct historical questions
Formulate a thesis based on primary source information
Instructional Strategies
Class discussion- analyze a photograph
Use of photograph to help formulate a thesis
Model performance task with an exemplar – web site album
Cooperative group activity – thesis-based album
Procedure
Step 1: Introduction
Distribute Exhibit A: Taking Time Out For A Friendly Game to all students for a whole class activity. See Teacher Guide for more information.
Ask students in groups to brainstorm about what they see in the photograph.
Ask each group to write down what they actually know from looking at this photograph. Compare answers.
Ask each group to write down what they can infer from the photograph.
Compare answers.
Ask them to record questions the photograph suggests.
Now ask what kinds of further research they would have to do to answer these questions.
Review questions and photograph for possible thesis ideas.
Step 2: Examining the Album
Divide students into pairs. Hand out Staff Directions to each group.
Using a computer lab, the library, or a classroom presentation station, go to the web site, "When Work Is Done".
Tell the groups that the photograph album labeled "Card Playing" was found in a museum drawer. We do not know why it was put together. The students' task is to:
find a connection among the pictures; and
write the description that would go with this album if it were put on display in a museum. The description should be in the form of a thesis statement.
To accomplish this task, students should answer the questions on the Staff Directions worksheet as they examine each photograph.
When the groups have finished looking at the album, tell them to look through the worksheet and find any patterns. Using these patterns, ask them to write a thesis about "Card Playing in The United States", along with the observations they made that support the thesis. Then groups should list questions that may have come from their examination of the photos.
Each group will present its findings and thesis for class discussion. Call attention to similarities and differences that students have discovered.
Ask them what further research would be needed to prove this thesis.
Step 3: Creating an Album
Create groups of five students
Distribute Album Guidelines
Each group is responsible for creating one album in the museum’s collection
on
Leisure Time Activities in the 20th Century
Each group is to research leisure activities during the 20th Century,
prepare an album, and write a rationale for the album. Pictures may come
from the Library of Congress American
Memory collections (http://memory.loc.gov), other web sites, or their
own personal histories. Students should refer to the bibliography in Resources.
Each group must decide on an overriding theme or thesis.
Each group should discuss what pieces of evidence they will need to illustrate their ideas.
Finished albums will receive a group grade.
Evaluation and Extension
Evaluation
Cooperative activity will allow for different styles of albums and choice of subject material within time period. See Album Rubric and Album Grading Sheet for sample evaluation tools.
Extension
Teachers may extend the activity by changing the time period or topic.
Albums could be done as web pages.
Album thesis could become the basis for a traditional research paper.
Once albums are completed, groups could give an oral report that brings their album to life. See Oral Report Guidelines and Oral Report Grading Sheet for suggestions.
This lesson plan has been taken (with slight modifications) from a public domain page at the Library of Congress.