Bringing the Lewis and Clark Expedition to Life

 

            “Far too frequently, many students find history to be boring, rate it as their least favorite subject, or perceive it as irrelevant,” say Scott Waring (University of Central Florida) and Cicely Scheiner-Fisher (Seminole County Schools instructional specialist) in this Middle School Journal article. But they believe that even tech-savvy adolescents will love history if teachers use primary-source documents and focus on how events affected ordinary people. Waring’s and Scheiner-Fisher’s article is a detailed example of how this played out in a unit on the Lewis and Clark expedition. The big question for the unit: What was it like for Lewis and Clark to travel west? Here is the seven-step SOURCES framework they used:

            • Scrutinize the primary source material. From the Library of Congress collection, Waring and Scheiner-Fisher chose Thomas Jefferson’s letter of instructions for the expedition as the best document (see http://tinyurl.com/7b7wbg6). To scaffold students’ close reading of this document, they used a primary source analysis sheet produced by the Library of Congress.

            • Organize thoughts. Students watched a video providing background, including the fact that Jefferson’s letter went through multiple drafts and incorporated feedback from a number of experts and political figures.

            • Understand the context. Students learned about the historical background of the expedition and Jefferson’s goals.

            • Read between the lines. Using this information, students re-read the primary document with new understanding.

            • Corroborate and refute. At this point, students were asked to examine other primary documents on the Library of Congress website to learn more about the expedition:

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/lewisandclark/lewis-landc.html.

            • Establish a plausible narrative. Students were assigned the following performance task: pretend you are a member of the expedition and write a journal on how it unfolded.

            • Summarize final thoughts. Students were asked to pull together what they learned and what questions still lingered.

 

“Using SOURCES to Allow Digital Natives to Explore the Lewis and Clark Expedition” by Scott Waring and Cicely Scheiner-Fisher in Middle School Journal, March 2014 (Vol. 45, #4, p. 3-11); www.amle.org; the authors can be reached at Scott.Waring@ucf.edu and Cicely_Fisher@scps.us. The full article is rich with details and suggested websites.