ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how Amy met the challenge of teaching students to ask and answer historical questions. The “History Museum” project in Amy’s classroom is a perfect example of such an assignment: Students immensely enjoyed it, yet none of it came easily. They spent nearly a month working on the activities, and nearly every minute of that time involved painstaking efforts by Amy to help students use resources to find information, reach conclusions based on their observations, and transform notes into reports and presentations. Amy’s introduction to the History Museum project demonstrated several principles that are fundamental to developing students’ interest. All students need opportunities to make connections between new information and what they already know, in order to develop meaningful and enduring understandings. This is even more important for English language learners, who may struggle to find links between school history and their own ideas.
