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>> Rochelle: Hello. I'm Rochelle Cassella and this is "Tools for Schools," a series of staff development programs produced by the New York State Education Department's Broadcast Network. "Tools for Schools" programs are designed to help educators as they prepare students to meet the new learning standards. Today's program offers support to social studies teachers at all grade levels as they develop lessons focusing on documents.

The DBQ, the document-based question, is the newest item called for in the assessments at all levels, and we know teachers are looking for resources and lessons tied to those source documents. So today we'll visit a rural fourth grade blended inclusion class where students work on documents dealing with the Revolutionary War in preparation for the fifth grade assessment they'll take next fall. An eighth grade class in Queens uses documents from the Holocaust to study human rights issues, and a class of high school juniors in Brooklyn use political cartoons and documents from the Sacco and Vanzetti case to study stereotypes and immigration. We also make a stop at a museum in the State's Southern Tier to see how it is providing teachers there with support in the form of three-dimensional documents.

As in all our programs, we ask that as you view our classroom segments you look for evidence of our "Tools for Schools" at work. Those tools are the foundation for successful schools and students no matter where the school is located, how large or small it is, or how wealthy or financially strapped it may be. Those tools are: Responsive leadership, on-going staff development, engaging curriculum, flexible resources, the involvement of parents and community in the education process, and comprehensive planning.

We begin today with a very special interview with someone whose writings have withstood the test of time. I spoke with President Abraham Lincoln about the importance of studying historical documents. The president was in Saratoga Springs at the cottage of his colleague, Ulysses S. Grant.

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>> "Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

Now, as far as the Gettysburg Address is concerned, I suppose it's what you might call a work in progress. Folks might be somewhat surprised to learn that it's something that I'm actually still working on. It's never really finished, in my mind. It kind of took its first shape in October 1863 when I received at the White House an invitation to deliver a few brief, appropriate remarks at the dedication of the National Soldiers' Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. That's when I first started to think about what I wanted to say. I knew that I wouldn't have a lot of time to speak, that there would be music and other orations going on, so I had to be very, very precise and very, very careful in my comments. So I started writing down my thoughts.

"Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live."

Now, the way that I would usually write a speech is I would get an idea here or there or a sentence that would come into mind, and I would write it down on a slip of paper. Where that slip of paper would go would be right into my stovepipe hat. Once I had about 25 or 40 pieces of paper in my hat, then I could sit down at my desk in the White House, lay those slips of paper out, and sort of craft a semblance of a speech.

I don't recall that the Gettysburg address was created quite in that manner. Seems to me that I wrote out my first draft, looked at it, considered it over a period of four weeks or so, from the time I received my invitation to go to Gettysburg and deliver a few brief, appropriate remarks until the 19th when the speech was actually delivered.

I recall that I wasn't quite satisfied with a word here or a phrase there. I knew that I had precious little time to deliver that address, as it turned out, somewhat less than three minutes. I knew that my words had to be very, very carefully crafted; I had to choose each one very, very subtly to just get across the feelings that I had to inspire people who would hear that speech and who would later read it to understand why that terrible civil war was taking place and had to take place.

"We cannot dedicate; we cannot consecrate; we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here. But it can never forget what they did here."

But by the time I got on the train on the 18th of November 1863 to travel to Gettysburg, I pretty much had the shape of my speech intact. I did do a little revision work on the evening of November 18th at the house of Mr. Wills in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and I also did a little more revision work on the morning of the 19th. And now, to be completely honest, and I do believe it's important to be honest, I was even thinking about some changes in my speech while I was riding on horseback with my white gloves to the dedication ceremony itself. And I was even thinking about changing a word or two as I sat through Edward Everett's two-hour oration on the platform at Gettysburg that afternoon on the 19th. And I probably even changed a word or two as I delivered the address itself, even though it was a short address, only lasting about 2 minutes and 42 seconds.

I was satisfied with the Gettysburg Address. I'm very, very satisfied to hear how well it's held up over the many years since I delivered it.

"It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us: That from these honored dead, we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure."

You know, I never got all the education that I wanted to. I probably only got about a year's worth of public education back in Kentucky and Indiana, and actually I envy what I understand to be public education now, how children can go to school for so many years and learn so much and have the opportunity to study and reflect upon historical documents.

Think about what folks like myself had in mind when they were crafting those documents and what those documents might mean to them in their own current lives.

"That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth."

>> Rochelle: Even the president does rewriting. As we see in our classroom segments, the emphasis on DBQ's is resulting in a change in instruction. Representatives from the New York State Education Department now preview some of those changes, offer a DBQ checklist, and discuss some options for academic intervention.

George, the social studies assessments, how will they change what's going on inside classrooms?

>> George Gregory: Students are now writing more in social studies classes and they're writing across disciplines, so we have English language arts, social studies teachers, even art teachers working together planning instruction across the grades and also planning activities for students. So we'll see more of that happening in the future, with students writing more.

We're also seeing students working with documents -- artifacts from museums, maps, globes, diary accounts, letters which teachers bring into class for students to work with. We have teachers at all different levels and with all different types of students able to work with documents. What we're trying to do is encourage teachers to develop lessons that do what historian James Portland talks about when he says he wants students to learn about competing visions of history, competing angles, where students look at how history is viewed by historians from different points of view, from different frameworks. And as they grow and as they move from one grade to another, they're able to work with activities that do this.

>> Rochelle: Gary, one of the things that teachers are asking a lot is how do I -- what do I need to do to really help students prepare well for answering the document-based questions? Along with some of the things that George has mentioned, what other kind of things should teachers be doing?

>> Gary Warren: First they have to make sure students are familiar with the format of the question itself. They need to be reminded that all the documents and the scaffold of questions are there for a specific reason. They need to remind students to use as many documents as they can in their essay because that's why they're there. Remind students to read the question carefully and be sure to answer all aspects of the task. When they're actually being scored, they lose a lot of points if they're not addressing all aspects of the task, and they're going to end up with a much lower overall score.

They need to teach students to bring in outside information to the question. It must be there for the higher score points. That's a distinction that we make between the Grade 5 DBQ and the Grade 8 and the high school DBQ's. The Grade 5 DBQ doesn't really require students to use outside information to reach the higher score points, but on the Grade 8 test, the high school assessments, they must bring in that outside information to get there.

They need to teach students to support their statements with facts, examples, and details. That's the place that they still are falling down on getting good, high 4's and 5's on their DBQ's. They're just not providing the details, and most teachers will tell you that's where student writing sometimes falls short in social studies.

>> Rochelle: Jo Ann, one of the things that the assessments do, especially the fifth grade assessment, is help us determine which students may need some academic intervention services. What kinds of services in social studies would be available?

>> Jo Ann Larson: Academic intervention in the classroom means extra time, extra help for students. It means smaller student/teacher ratios. There are lots of varieties. There isn't a single cookie-cutter that will fit all students. Some youngsters will need more time than others. The "intensity" -- is the term that's used -- of the academic intervention varies tremendously.

Districts are beginning to report to us the kinds of academic interventions they're contemplating. Summer school is one version. I know one district is combining summer camp-type activities with academic intervention in Grade 8 and Grade 5, and that's had a lot of community support. Extended school day in some instances. Classes after school, before school, even on weekends in districts that are doing those. So there's a wide variety of activities going on.

>> Rochelle: Thank you.

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>> Rochelle: We'll hear more tips for creating successful DBQ lessons from our teachers later on in today's program. Now it's time to see our teachers at work. Livingston County is home to the small, rural Caledonia-Mumford Central School District, where good things come in small packages. Fourth grade teachers in Caledonia Elementary School have their students well on the way to dealing with document-based questions, even though the class won't face the social studies assessment until next November.

The lesson we're about to see blends both social studies and English language arts standards in a classroom of general ed and special education students. Students compare the Loyalists' and Patriots' points of view during the American Revolution based on several documents and the knowledge of the subject they have gained through literature-based readings, viewing documentaries and videos, and reviewing the music of the period.

>> Just come in and sit down. Wait patiently for a minute.

>> The classroom is made up of 21 students. Six of the students are classified. So it is a blended room. With the other students, it's quite a variety of some gifted, some average and some low-average students. So it's a very -- it's a nice mix. A typical classroom just has special ed students in there also.

>> You'll be working in book clubs to complete five short-answer essay questions about what do you think?

(Students answering)

>> The American Revolution.

>> This is a great unit on the Revolutionary War, of course, and the nice thing about this particular unit is that there are so many materials and so many ways to get the learning across.

>> Think about the Loyalists, and I want you to think about the Patriots. I want you to think about their different viewpoints, what the Loyalists thought during the war and before the war, what the Patriots thought during the war and before the war. Okay? Go ahead and think. Think to yourself right now.

>> A lot of our prep work was done with obviously the social studies textbook, and we read a lot of literature-based novels. One was on Ben Franklin. One was on -- it's called "Phoebe the Spy" which dealt a little bit with George Washington. And we read "Felicity Learns a Lesson," based on the American Girl doll series. We have also watched movies.

>> "Johnny Tremaine," and did we read that or watch it?

>> Watched it.

>> We watched the video "Johnny Tremaine," and that gave us a lot of information.

>> We watched yesterday on what all, both sides of the Patriots...

>> We watched an '80s special about both sides of the war. That was very good. Anything else? Mr. Yaekel did something up here with you on the overhead. What did he do? Who hasn't answered yet? Jordan?

>> No taxation without representation.

>> You know, we wanted to give a little bit of the Loyalists' point of view, too, and so we got some major songs, some of their pick-me-up songs when they were marching which described their point of view in there, with a little sarcasm, why the Patriots were at fault and what made them bad. This led up to today when they're taking a cumulative, you might want to say, practice test, based on the Loyalists' and Patriots' point of view.

>> So even though you're deciding the question together, you each have to put down the answer in your packet. Five short essay questions.

>> This document-based question deals with the Revolutionary War, as you can tell from your title, "Revolutionary War, Patriots and Loyalists." Are you ready to preview this together? Let's go to the first page.

>> A couple of documents -- the first three were quotes. I believe the first one was a Patriot point of view. The second one was a neutral person who didn't want to get involved in it, Mr. Wilkins, I believe, and the third quote was a Loyalist's point of view. Ready? Let's go.

"Decide whether John J. was a Loyalist or a Patriot."

>> You'll see quotes used in the language arts test and things like that, so it really -- it hit well with both curriculum subjects.

>> We're going to give each group a piece of tag board. Book Club One is going to put down the answer to question one and question...

>> All: Five.

>> The second part of it were two pictures. One was on the protesting of the Stamp Act, and the other one was on the Boston Massacre. So not only could the kids see the quotes, but they also get to see pictures and different things based on that.

>> You're doing this together and when it gets ready to do your speaking at the end, remember one spokesperson. This is nothing new. You'll do fine. You'll do great. Ready? Go!

>> We've always had them in cooperative groups this year from language arts. And in those cooperative groups, they did a lot of -- they worked together as a team filling out the DBQ.

>> You really can do with all those students in the mainstream. There's no reason to separate them, especially for this kind of activity.

>> It's not like he's a Patriot or a Loyalist.

>> He has facts from both sides.

>> Right, but don't intermingle them. Put all the facts to prove he's not a Patriot; then put all the facts why he's not a Loyalist; then conclude it.

>> The disability is taken care of because the stronger reader will read the literature for them, will read the quotes, and they are not offended because this has been going on. They can find their place as long as you give them practice long enough within a group.

Their writing disability, where they're seated, I always had a very strong writer next to a very weak writer. And there was no -- we never say, "Don't copy from that. This is group work, so if you're behind and having trouble, then look on his paper to complete the sentence. That's fine."

If people are shy, the students also know to push that student, to say, "Can I have your opinion?" You know, "Would you like to offer something?" They can do that.

Because we have the tape recorders there, it's not just a monitor. It can be, but if you have a student that is so disabled that they can't write at all, then you could just have them tell their answer on tape. That's a modification.

>> If you don't think it was a good reason, you discuss. If you think it is, you guys go ahead and discuss. Okay?

>> Our first process was all right, should we get the document-based pictures and things first or should we decide on the topic? We wanted to decide on the topic. We went through our teacher's edition of the textbook to see if there were some good pictures. We actually got a couple of quotes from there. Then Jayne and I went on the Internet and looked through the different sites that are there.

>> We had the English arts standards and the social studies out on the big table at my house on a whole day on a Saturday and seeing, you know, "Is this hitting it? Are we covering it? What part of this DBQ can we apply to this? What can we apply to this? Are we covering everything?" So we really dissected and made sure that we were covering as much as we can. You can't put them all in, but we did as many as possible.

>> The patriots didn't want the British to boss them around. They didn't want British soldiers in Boston.

>> Okay.

>> He is not a Loyalist because he will not fight against the Patriots.

>> William Franklin was a Loyalist. He went against his father in the war. The Patriots didn't care who they lost or how many people died.

>> Great Britain placed taxes on stamps, newspapers and letters. This is why the colonists had a just reason why to disagree with the tax.

>> Okay. So you think it was okay to protest because the taxes were not necessary, right? And they shouldn't have to pay for all that, right?

>> They get to present and show what they did. You know, after a great, hard day of work or a couple of hours worth of work, they can show, "Hey, this is what we came up with. We're proud of this." They have a feeling of ownership.

>> Well, we had some disagreements and the majority, we decided to do both to be fair for our group.

>> And that's being mature and that's being very good.

>> And our teachers say, "Well, you're training them for the test," like we do for the E.L.A. or for the State math or the State science. It's not so much you're training them; you're getting them used to different styles of test-taking.

>> So your opinion does count but only if what?

>> You back it up.

>> You back it up, and it's well written and you use knowledge that you have learned.

>> I really believe the more you do right as a teacher and as a group, the better off your students will be. That's not just lecturing but that's getting the kids involved in groups; that's showing different videotapes; that's going through notes; that's going through reading in the textbook; that's going through different literature novels. If you're doing all that stuff and all the prep work, really the DBQ will take care of itself in the end. I really believe it will be smooth.

>> First, I want everybody to give themselves a hand at the great job they did today. Whoo-hoo!

(Applause)

That's great. And of course there will be no --

>> All: Homework.

>> No homework tonight because of this.

(Applause)

>> Rochelle: Sound instructional practice at work. Mary McCabe-Wagner's class faces the eighth grade social studies assessment on June 6th and 8th. To help them get ready, Mary has been giving them assignments that reflect the scaffolding and document-based essay writing that they'll be called on to do on the assessment.

For Steven Juliano's eleventh grade class, it's the social studies Regents exam coming up. The scaffolding lesson we see him teach leads up to students writing a document-based essay for their homework assignment. As you watch these lessons, note that both teachers also use sound instructional practices, using such visuals as cartoons and videos, for example, and blending teacher lecture with having students participate in class, all to take into account the many ways in which our students learn.

>> Let's go, guys. Bell's going to ring! Hi, Steph.

>> We're doing World War II. We have really gone through how the allies came together, how the axis came together, the bombing of Pearl Harbor which finally got the United States involved.

One of the major themes that's being emphasized through the new social studies' standards is human rights, and it just seemed like a really good time for me to do this lesson on the Holocaust.

>> Read in a nice loud voice.

>> Students will underline documents dealing with the Holocaust. They will use their findings to write an essay on how human rights were violated and who bears the responsibility.

>> Excellent.

>> What I'm going to do is I'm going to have the LL on the board and elicit from children the LL and then ask them, based on the LL, "What do you think we're doing today?"

What is the activity we're going to? George?

>> DBQ.

>> Excellent. DBQ, which is what, Phoenicia?

>> A document-based question.

>> I am going to hand out a do's and don'ts sheet to remind them -- this class is prepared pretty well for document-based questions, but just a reminder for them to work with: This is what I want you to include; this is what I want you to leave out.

>> DBQ's do's and dont's. What is our first do in preparing a DBQ?

>> Stress the thesis statement and ... aspects of the argument you will present.

>> Good. Our next do, please.

>> Then I'm going to hand out the actual documents. I'm going to go over the historical context with them, and they're going to do the five C.R.Q.s, constructed response questions.

>> Remember that on June 6th you will have your multiple-choice questions and your C.R.Q.s, your constructed response questions.

>> One is a map showing bar-graphs: Prewar Jewish population and then postwar Jewish population. I liked that because it was visual. So even if the kids get caught up in the numbers --sometimes that intimidates them -- if they just look at the graph, it's right there, how much of the graph was shaded. And in some cases, it's so obvious the devastation that took place.

>> The whole box is total prewar population. The shaded area is the number that were killed. The question is what fraction of the Jewish population in Germany and Austria survived? And for those of you who hate math, like me, you say, "Fraction?! I can't do fractions!," don't worry about it. Just look at the picture. The visual should be enough for you to come up with a reasonable fraction on your own.

>> Another is an excerpt from a story called "Inga's Story" about the conditions of living in the camp and what the children, particularly from a child's point of view, felt they had to deal with and the things they had to suffer through.

>> What was another thing they had to do?

>> Another contest was to see how many bones show in your body.

>> Yes, how many bones. Who had the most bones showing. Whoever had the most showing bones would win the contest. Okay. Next question...

>> The newspaper report on the journey of the St. Louis, which was the ship that carried European Jews and was turned away by both the Cuban government and the American government. So it's an actual newspaper report.

Another document is actually a U.S. State Department memorandum notifying the State Department of the knowledge that Hitler planned on doing what he was going to do.

>> Very good question. Excellent question. I'm glad you asked it because I'm sure there's like three or four other people at least right now. What does annihilated mean?

>> I actually got the documents based on the questions they were asking me most, the things that they were most, you know, disturbed by or things they had the most questions about. Hiroshima was annihilated after the atom bomb was dropped. Nagasaki was annihilated. Gone, wiped out.

>> I found them in a variety of places actually. Several of them I found in a U.S. guide book that the State puts out. Several were in there. They were involved in a different kind of a lesson, so I pulled from there. I also went to the library and got one or two from the library.

I find that I went into a lot of lessons, a lot of lesson-planning with "Oh, they know this already," and I found by looking at the new standards, what they're looking for very often they're not prepared to do. I'm assuming things I shouldn't assume. I assume that they know in writing an essay that you have to have an introduction, a body and a conclusion. And some of my kids really didn't. To them, an essay was one big square, you know, four-by-four, perfectly...there was no introduction, no body, no conclusion, certainly no thesis statement. So I did a lot of work on writing skills before we actually started to tackle the document-based questions.

>> And you are going to complete the DBQ. The task at hand is this: Using the documents you have analyzed and your knowledge of social studies, write a well-developed essay that includes an introduction, support paragraphs and a conclusion. Did the United States government and/or citizens share any responsibility for the Holocaust? That's for you to decide.

>> In the last four to five years, the children I have been getting are so used to being spoon-fed information that they really lack the skills to analyze. It's not that they're not intelligent enough to, it's not that it's not there somewhere, but they don't know how to. How do I do this? What do you want me to do? They're so used to being spoon-fed, the holistic approach...

I'm really happy about these new standards because we're actually preparing these children to think critically and we're giving them the skills they need and the how-to and the why, and that makes me very happy.

>> We had been discussing the Palmer Raids which had to do with the Red Scare and the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917 and the impact Americans were feeling after World War I, all the problems of soldiers returning home, people unemployed, just a whole change of the atmosphere, the dynamics in the United States, the beginning of the Roaring '20s.

>> Yesterday when we left off, we did a comparison between democracy and communism.

>> I wanted them to get an historical flavor of what was going on because it's very difficult to understand what happens in a given period unless we immerse ourselves in that period and attempt to think as the people thought in that time period.

>> I'm going to put on a political cartoon. All right? The topic of the political cartoon is the Red Scare.

>> The presentation is going to be initially based on political cartoons from the time period. I'm going to ask them to analyze these political cartoons.

>> The title is very important. Why is the title important for a cartoon?

>> Because it gives you an idea of what the topic will be about or what the cartoon is referring to.

>> Excellent.

>> One cartoon will address the Red Scare and one cartoon will address immigration.

>> Now, obviously, this is a dock and you see citizens standing before this person making various motions, but... notice what their shadows actually look like.

>> One of the learning standards that I tend to address is vocabulary. One of the difficulties a lot of students have is not that they can't answer particular questions but they don't understand the vocabulary that's used.

>>... an opinion about a group or make this generalization? Jennifer?

>> Stereotyping.

>> Stereotyping, and that's one of the vocabulary words we have up there.

>> I stress vocabulary over and over again to develop their comprehension, to help them to build their confidence in actually being able to answer the questions. From there I hope to be able to get into a small discussion about each concept, to develop their understanding, to further develop their understanding about the concepts.

>> So he was looking for a proletariat revolution. So in terms of this particular cartoon...

>> I would characterize my students as basically just below or average students in terms of academic performance. One thing I like to do with students who are on the borderline is try to get them actively engaged in the classroom. At times they don't like to participate but what you have to do is you have to call on those students to get their responses to questions, to show them they can do it themselves.

>> The population range is just -- it's a leader, whatever, a king or something, and that's it.

>> I'm also going to have them role-play. I have roughly about four excerpts of witness testimony, and I'm going to give four students roles and have them play those witnesses in class. The whole purpose of this is to get their reaction, to actually listening to actual testimony and recording at least what in their own mind, what they're feeling.

>> He was bareheaded and I would say that he weighed probably 140 pounds. He had a gray shirt on. His hair was blown back and he needed a shave.

>> One of the criteria for passing the Regents is that you analyze original documents and answer questions and write thematic essays on specific topics. So it's absolutely essential that they get this exposure. At times I don't think students understand a concept and suddenly they come out with a comment that is so crystal-clear that you have to say -- in your mind, you take two steps back and say, "Wow! They really understand it!" I think that's very gratifying.

>> They couldn't be sure but I felt that he was guilty.

>> Okay. Excellent.

>> Rochelle: When New York State adopted its new learning standards in social studies, staff at the Roberson Museum and Science Center in Binghamton asked area school teachers how the museum could support them as they taught students the new skills. The answer: Help us find resources to aid instruction in the document-based questions. The Roberson staff responded by providing some three-dimensional documents beyond any teacher's dreams.

>> Social studies traditionally has been a very two-dimensional study where kids are looking at textbooks and interpreting history through documents that are photocopied and not exactly exciting for them. And we wanted to find a way to make social studies a little more interactive and exciting. Bringing them into the museum and letting them interact with our documents and artifacts and exhibits allows them to learn in a more active way.

>> I hope you're ready for a really fun day. We have some great activities for you to be doing. We're starting off here in the local history gallery, and we're going to work on a DBQ on immigration.

>> When they come in to the local history gallery, they were given a clipboard with a packet. That packet on the front was giving them some directions, some basic goals and tasks, some context for what was going on in the early 1900's to place them historically and allow the children to have a historical background on what was going on.

>> By 1920 in this area in Broome County, there was over 14,000 immigrants living here. That's a lot of immigrants.

>> They're given a task box which keeps them focused and the end goal of the essay, so the document-based question. They're then given a series of five questions and it starts off with document one.

>> This is an artifact which also happens to be a book... We're trying to be very careful with it. Why?

>> Because it's very, very old.

>> It's very, very old. Could we find out how old?

>> Yeah.

>> We might be able to by doing what?

>> Finding the copyright.

>> Our document one was a book. This was a Czechoslovakian bible that an immigrant might have brought to this country in the late 1800's. They're given ten minutes to look at that book. They can thumb through the pages, try and find out what that book is. They are not told that it's a bible.

>> It could be a Czechoslovakian bible.

>> It could be, couldn't it? Is that an answer to this question?

>> My grandfather has one.

>> Your grandfather is Slovakian?

>> Yes.

>> Possible answer, right?

>> Yeah.

>> They had to identify what that book was, and then the other question they were asked following that was bringing that book as an immigrant, would that perhaps give you any indication why that immigrant fled their country, and trying to get them to think about the ideas of religious persecution and leaving and push-and-pull factors of maybe finding religious freedom in this country.

>> So sometimes when you go to something new, you want to bring something old that links you with the past. So the bible and all these kinds of things that are personal items are links between their past and their future.

>> There is a trunk, an example of a trunk that might have been brought to this country by a Czechoslovakian immigrant in the late 1800's.

>> They got to go through an immigrant's trunk which was filled with imitation artifacts an immigrant might have brought to this country. That included spices, chocolate molds, sewing tools, photographs, and clothing. They were allowed to go through that and pull the articles out of that box and look through the immigrant trunk.

>> Clothing items give you the impression that this immigrant did not want to assimilate.

>> Well, it could show they didn't want to assimilate because maybe they wanted to dress like they did in their foreign country, but you could also argue that these were used for certain occasions and not always.

>> This document should be telling us a little bit about what? Why don't you look at the document, read the document here and see what you can get out of it and see if we can answer the questions about our DBQ here.

>> A poster for housing, and it was land that was for sale here in Binghamton in the early 1900's and it was being advertised to desirable people and that they would be keeping out objectionable people, and it got the kids to start thinking about interpretations of what those words might mean.

>> Every lot is a real garden spot. When we first came to America, one of the critical things we've got to do is plant your own food. In the spring, you can plant a garden. This is going to reduce how you have to pay out money, right?

>>... construction worker while Maria, his wife, went to work for Dunne and McCarthy Cement....

>> The children were also given a large photograph of an immigrant family with dialogue, and that was something that is a part of our local history collection. They got to look at that and answer a series of questions.

>> Why would they come to New York State and Broome County?

>> Why do you think?

(Students answering)

>> Okay. And you can put that in your own words.

>> Looks like a chart. Can you tell, does it have any sort of label on it that might indicate what it is?

(Students answering)

>> And what year was this?

>> The census record is another document that they got to take a look at yesterday, and that was an example of a 1910 census, and it was just blown up and laminated so the children could actually touch that without the threat of ruining anything.

>> Have you guys ever heard of a census?

>> Yep, it's once a year or --

>> Every ten years, there's a census. So there was just one in the year 2000.

>> They are given magnifying glasses, which they really enjoy using, so they can take a look at the language that the immigrants spoke, what kind of jobs they were in, the size of their family, the age at the time the census was taken.

>> What does that tell us was the reason for coming here?

>> Money.

>> To get money so they could...

>> Do you think they might have had good jobs where they were from?

>> No.

>> If you have a good job, are you going to want to leave a country?

>> The goals and objectives of our immigrant DBQ were to get the kids to start to question push-and-pull factors of immigration, to start to look at the reasons why people will leave their country and the reasons why they would come to our country, to get them to realize that Broome County and New York State are both very diverse, that we live in a country that's full of many immigrants and that they can start to begin to question the ideas of the melting pot theory versus multiculturalism, and it really gets them to start thinking about immigration.

>> It's a very deliberate strategy, I think, that we have designed here at the museum to come up with relationships between all our programming and all our exhibits and the Pennsylvania and New York standards. We're looking at this as museum people who need to be aware of our primary customer or audience-base, which is the kids, the teachers, and the schools around us.

We have about 15 teachers who are giving of their time to come here a few times a year and sit down with us for a whole afternoon and share those needs and those interests and those priorities. The DBQ's are certainly one key area we want to work on. That would come to us not only from elementary teachers, since that's an experience they face with the fifth grade social studies exam, but we're hearing it from the secondary teachers as well.

>> We have also done a document-based question designed around the Roberson Mansion. It's one of our greatest attributes as a museum that we do have this great feature to use. It allows the children to actually come in and be a part of something that was historical. They took a look yesterday at a tea set that the Roberson family had purchased. They also got to take a look through the servants' quarters and could compare and contrast the design of servants' quarters as compared to the rest of the elaboration of the mansion.

>> You can stand down here or up here, wherever you want to look at them.

>> It's very religious.

>> Our goal in doing the DBQ based on the mansion was to get the children to start thinking about social studies issues and class issues. We had taken them first through the DBQ on immigration and spent a lot of time discussing class with immigrants and how they were treated as undesirable for being purchasers of land in the Binghamton area, and we brought them down to see the mansion so they could compare that with the way that other people were living during the same time period.

Since we are in the design phase, what we're planning on doing is having pre- and postvisit material that will be sent out to teachers before and after they bring their children to the museum. The previsit material would go through -- it would include a DBQ packet so the teachers would become aware of what their children would be doing. It would include background information and possible lesson plans that that teacher might want to use. So, for example, with the immigration DBQ, that teacher would be given background information on immigration in New York State during the late-1800's and early 1900's and suggested lessons that she could do before she brought her class to the museum, and that would give the class a better preparation and a better background once they came here.

>> And what I want to know from you guys is how you think this went? Do you think this was more fun than doing a DBQ at school?

>> Yeah!

>> Following the visit, the teacher could be provided with postvisit material which again would give follow-up information for the children. It would extend the lesson that they learned here with further lessons. I have incorporated so far ideas with extending this into a math lesson, supplemental activities for language arts and pulling in science and tying it all together with just the general theme of that DBQ, so the teacher, no matter what grade level, can tie it in with other subject areas. When I go through and design them, I usually have staff at the museum go through and check for accuracy, make sure that they could answer the questions. I make sure the vocabulary is on track with the grade level I'm giving the DBQ to. But when they come in and they really start to look through the documents, they really start to question things and they ask these great questions and they pull these thoughts out that are really amazing.

>> We were actually touching documents, and we were in the document.

>> You were. Exactly!

>> It was exciting to see all the beautiful stuff like that.

>> Rochelle: We're in the document indeed! That sums it right up. In fact, putting students in the middle of history is something that the museum does with its assembly line program, something second and fourth graders experience together, and because it's never too early to get students thinking about document-based questions, there's the History Mystery of the Month program that the museum staffers bring into a Binghamton second grade class.

>> What we're going to make in here today is boxes. We're going to be box makers. Way back, what they would do is one person would make the whole box from start to finish. With the assembly line, one person would just do one little part of that process.

>> The assembly line experience here is one piece of a local history program that classroom teachers have actually signed up for a number of years. While the students are here, they come into this one room which is set up deliberately to be a sort of a microcosm of an assembly line structure.

>> Manager of box bottoms right here. Here's the tracer. What do you think the cutter does?

>> Cuts.

>> You are going to be a builder.

>> This is your actual box top. You see how we just fold it up like this and this? The taper has to tape the box together. You can be in charge of all the labels, stamping, cutting and gluing. I'll get you the glue.

>> The idea is to give kids a little bit of the reality of what assembly line situations were in the earlier phases of the Industrial Revolution, the connection being that a number of major companies at one time had assembly line industrial functions here in the Binghamton area.

>> My job is the hardest!

>> Ten minutes left, guys.

>> Come on!

>> Good thing I've got backup.

>> Our plan is to build a lot more reality into that. We have a couple of people who are working with funding from the Roger Kresge Foundation. These two women are working on ideas to build into the assembly line experience a lot more reality in terms of, let's say, background noise; a backdrop artistically, in terms of stage setting, that would suggest a factory environment; something in terms of smells that might be associated with a factory situation.

>> We just had an order for five more.

>> Five more?

>> Five more. But we still only have like two more minutes. We've got to do it!

>> I need some more paper!

>> Three more to go. Three more to go.

>> It's never going to end.

>> That's right. The job never ends. Twelve hours a day, seven days a week.

>> Interviewing some people who worked on assembly lines in the past and who can give us point-blank, realistic insight on what it's like to work in that environment.

>> Nine, ten, eleven, twelve...

>> Okay. Everybody stop. Give yourselves a little round of applause.

(Applause)

>> What our plan is there, that the assembly line experience would be an immersion experience for kids, and then within that notion, see if we can come up with a DBQ format engineered around an experience while kids are here.

>> So what did you guys think about our little factory experience? What did you think?

>> I thought it was a lot of hard work.

>> I bet for some people it seemed like their job would never end, like the cutter job!

>> You're a cutter, huh?

>> Yeah.

>> It's hard work. My hands would crack off. I would be dead by the time I went home.

>> Okay.

>> After like the boxes are made, doesn't the manager get like some reward like coffee and doughnuts?

>> Jen, are we packing up one or two things here this morning?

>> Just one. I was thinking of something kind of small. Do you have any ideas? They haven't gotten this yet. Let's go with this one. Let me get some bubble wrap.

>> The Mystery of the Month Club is a project which the museum sends a package out to the school each month.

>> Boys and girls, Jennifer is here from the museum today and she brought one of the objects from the museum to show to us. Okay? So let's open the object and see what's here.

>> Inside it will contain an object which is normally something that's quite old. And it's something that the students will be able to pass around safely.

>> Make sure you really see like how it moves and what it's made out of. Does it look like some other object that we have seen before? Be thinking about some of the questions that you might want to ask when we start.

>> It's something that they won't be able to immediately identify. It will take them some time to kind of question and go through a process of questioning to figure out what the object is.

>> Does it cut stuff?

>> Well, does it cut stuff? Yes.

>> Can you cut paper and it give you a shape, like a square shape?

>> No.

>> Is it out in markets today?

>> No. Good question.

>> Also within the package, we include a context clue that helps the students to figure out what the object is if they can't come up with it on their own.

>> This is the clue.

>> We also include a teacher guide that helps the teachers -- lets them know what the object is, what the context clue is and tells about the project.

>> You lay something across here and then you squeeze it. We wrote that down. Put something in the square part and squeeze it. Yes?

>> Does it cut open bags?

>> No.

>> What about this little horn book? This would be something little kids would use.

>> Dale and I went to some antique shops in Binghamton and we picked out some objects whose identity was kind of obscure. Actually, most of the objects I didn't even know what they were.

>> How about this?

>> Do you think it's a little bit too big for them to pass around? We tried to figure out would students be able to figure this object out? Is it too easy? Is it too difficult for them? We kind of looked at the grade level to see what object would be good for a certain grade level.

>> Is it commonly used in art projects?

>> No.

>> I was definitely amazed at what the kids were asking about the objects. Their ideas were just incredible to me. I wouldn't have even thought of the ideas that they said.

>> Does it squish rocks to make paint?

>> No.

>> Does it trim these?

>> Yes, it does. It trims the wick on the candles.

>> The object that we used at the Roosevelt Elementary School this morning was a candle wick trimmer that would create a more effective flame for the candle as well as making it not smoky.

>> In the old days when they had to light their houses with only candles, they had to use these every day.

>> What we're hoping from the Mystery of the Month Club is that students will begin to be curious about their history.

>> How could they get too long when --

>> Because apparently -- maybe the wicks were made out of different things than they are today and instead of falling off like the candles do today, maybe they had to be trimmed.

>> Give them an interest in social history and give them an idea of what daily life was actually like and be able to see the objects that were in use at that time, rather than just reading from a textbook. They could actually get a feel for what the objects did and actually handle them.

>> Rochelle: If you would like to partner with a museum or historical association in your own area, Dale says you shouldn't wait for them to call you. Teachers can make the initial contact with some ideas they might have for how the museum can support classroom instruction or to set up a brainstorming session between the two of you.

What other suggestions do our teachers have for making your document-based lessons successful? Here's our "Tool Tips."

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>> Think about the Loyalists and I want you to think about the Patriots.

>> Define first really what -- before you even teach the Revolutionary War, what you feel is really important, or a different topic, what you think you really want the students to get out of it.

>> Try and come up with questions that really they can answer. Don't expect a child in one class to be able to answer or analyze at the same level a child in another class might be able to do.

>> One of the key points is you're not doing this in September. You have to know your students individually very well first.

(Music)

>> Use their experience, okay? And it's very important that you recognize one fact. You use their experience, but what you don't need from them, you don't use. You use only what becomes effective with your own teaching style.

>> BOCES has a lot of resources. There's a group of people that met last summer at the local BOCES and developed some DBQ's themselves. We would like to use one of theirs.

>> Before you even start teaching it, you know, what do you want the kids to really master? What's a good topic that will show different viewpoints, and then finally, I would say plan it out either by yourself or with other people and take things that have been used by other people. I mean if somebody has a great, you know, document that would fit well in it, you know, take it. Ask them and take it.

>> What is our first do in preparing a DBQ?

>> Stress the thesis statement.

>> Try on the children a variety of different things. Don't give them all text; don't give them all pictures; don't give them all political cartoons. Try and mix it.

>> It's nice to have different opinions. It's nice to have -- there will be more than one answer. So if at all possible to find a topic about a general topic, like we had Loyalist/Patriots with the Revolutionary War, to show the different viewpoints.

>> Depending on the class, I may finish much more quicker than I had anticipated, or I may need to slow down, all right? And I still need to complete my lesson and I still need to have their interest the entire class.

>> So it takes a lot of preparation if you really want to do it right because you really do have to take into consideration the class, the makeup of the class and what their skills are.

>> It's essential if your program is going to be successful on any of the standards, the DBQ's, the E.L.A., that you have complete administrative support.

>> Life is always changing anyway, but we just think it doesn't. We're in -- we think everything stays static, but it doesn't.

(Music)

>> Rochelle: That's all the time we have for our discussion today but you can keep the conversation going. How? By joining us on-line. Starting this evening at 7 p.m., the teachers featured in our school videos and Dale Ketchum at the Roberson Museum will be on-line to answer any questions you might have or just to share some experiences. To join the discussion go to www.imaginetomorrow.com. Look for the "Tools for Schools" NYSED Broadcast Network logo. When you click on that, find the "Tools for Schools" folder, click again, and then follow the directions for navigation.

If you would like a copy of today's program or an additional Facilitator's Guide, please contact Suzanne Carroll at Questar's offices in Albany: 518-477-6749 by telephone; 518-477-4311 by fax, or E-mail Suzanne at scarroll@questar.org.

Remember also that you can download copies of the Facilitator's Guide from the Broadcast Network web site. That address is www.emsc.nysed.gov/ciai/satellite.html.

You'll have to download the Facilitator's Guides to begin with because we had a little trouble with printing and they may not be to you in time for the program. But we promise that as soon as we possibly can, we'll send them out to you. In the meantime, use the web site.

And while you're there, be sure to complete the Broadcast Network's on-line survey. It will take just a few moments but your comments will help us immensely as we develop future programs.

Speaking of future programs, you'll find a list of the topics we'll be covering during the 2001/2002 school year on the web site as well, because while today marks the last of our regular "Tools for Schools" programs for the 2000/2001 school year, we at the Broadcast Network already are working on a full schedule for next year, and we hope that you'll be back with us starting in October.

You might want to share with your math teacher friends the fact that we'll be training fourth and eighth grade teachers on how to score this year's math assessments. Dates for that training: May 22nd for the eighth grade, May 23rd for the fourth grade. The live training will be conducted by representatives of Measurement Incorporated who helped New York State develop the assessment, and Jacqueline Marcano of the State Education Department's Math Office will also be on hand to answer any policy questions you might have. Teachers will be able to E-mail, fax or telephone in any questions, but you'll have to be at a registered satellite downlink site to do so. We have about 60 sites registered so far so please check with your school media specialist to find a registered site nearest to you.

My thanks today to the teachers and classes at the Caledonia Elementary School, Elizabeth Blackwell Junior High and Maxwell Vocational High who let us into their classrooms and shared their lessons. Thanks also to Laura Whitney's class of fifth graders from C. Fred Johnson Middle School in Johnson City for the great job they did during the museum tour, and to Emilie Blabac's second graders for solving the History Mystery of the Month.

For assistance with our segment on Abraham Lincoln, the Broadcast Network would like to thank Bev Clark of the Friends of Grant Cottage, and to Phil Jessen for his excellent portrayal of President Lincoln.

And my very special thanks to John Quinn, Major Capers and Mike Yates of the New York State Education Department for their ongoing support of the Broadcast Network Project.

Enjoy your summer, everyone. We'll see you back next fall.

(Music)