Students stepped into the chaos of Rome’s collapsing Republic, making decisions that balanced legitimacy between elites and commoners. Each crisis forced them to weigh tradition, charisma, and law, sometimes with a roll of the dice. The simulation brought Weber’s theories to life, turning abstract political concepts into lived experience and reflection.
Thematic History
Courageous Deletions: Surviving the Interminable Avalanche of Historical Content
The content of history curriculum is constantly growing and teachers have less and less time to teach it. Teachers need strategies to guide content selection, make courageous deletions, and unlock the potential of history education. This includes involving student choice and inquiry into the process.
Thematic Unit Design in US History
My unit design process for a thematic course involves overcoming several challenges: content and skill selection, assessment design, and leaving space for inquiry, scaffolding, and differentiation. A healthy dose of backwards design alongside the four non-negotiables of my own process end up making things work.
Introducing Causation in AP World History
Teaching both content and skill is a constant challenge, especially in AP World History. Rethinking old lesson plans helped me come up with a new plan for teaching Topic 1.1 that introduced causation, argumentation, and thesis writing. It worked well.
Teaching US History Thematically
Rather than try to teach everything, a thematic approach allows me to focus on the key concepts, essential questions, and enduring understandings that are central to understanding the development of the United States. These serve as a magnetic poles around which students can make sense of the content that is taught. I would argue this helps instruct historical significance while also preventing students from getting lost in a cacophony of historical details.
Breaking the “Content Trap”
Historical content is cool, interesting, surprising, scary, humbling, inspiring, and funny; sometimes all of those things. But, learning or memorizing content is not in itself and education. It does not train the brain to think critically, analyze, investigate, nor infer. It is the best part of the journey of historical education, but should not also be final destination for students.