History
teachers work very hard to help students understand that events are experienced
differently by different groups of people. An action that is success for one
group may be bitter disappointment for another group. For students it can be a
struggle to take a different perspective. Yet this skill is essential to broadening
our understanding of the past.
For
teachers, the development of a lesson that helps students do this and is easy
to assess is a challenge. One of my favorite activities for perspective taking
is called What were they thinking?. In this activity, students examine an event
or speech and then imagine how a group or person would react to the event. They
imagine and create the facial expression of a person after this event and write
first person expressions of reactions to these events. Creating these faces and
writing the “I” statements are an engaging and relatable activity for students.
After a decade or more of reality television, students understand that people
are going to show their feelings in words and actions. They have certainly
discussed what someone was thinking after a major event in their lives or on
television.
I do
this activity with high school students after studying the French and Indian
War and the Treaty of Paris, 1763. Students choose to express the reaction of
the Native Americans, Colonists, or the British. I provide a blank face upon
which they draw the facial expression and write “I” statements to express the
point of view they choose. This is a great writing and historical thinking
activity. My students are focused and thoughtful in their interpretation of the
events.
While I
do this with events in the past every year, it is an activity that can be used
with current events. Students can read the speeches like the State of the Union
delivered tonight and think about how different groups might react. You can ask
students to choose from a short list of groups and identify how they would feel
about the issues discussed. They would create a face that expressed the
reaction of their group and write “I” statements reacting to the speech including a specific number of quotes. Here is
an example of how to structure the task.
Task: Read the State of the Union address and show how one
of the groups below would react to the speech. You should show their reaction on
the face provided and write at least 5 “I” statements that explain their reaction
and what they were thinking. You must
include at least 2 quotes from the speech.
Groups: Women, Small Business Owner, Immigrant, Teacher, Democrat, Republican, Elected
Official
