In “Navigating the Politically Charged Classroom,” Bonnie Lewis, Kathy Swan, and Ryan Crowley describe high school social studies classes in which students have productive discussions rather than overly simplistic, politically charged ones. They surface four strategies that led to teachers’ success:

1. Text selection: The teachers assigned texts–often primary sources-that focused on a particular historical moment rather than on broad sweeps of time.
2. Sequencing the activities: The teachers provided time for students to examine texts independently before discussing them with peers.
3. Discussions rather than pro/con debates: Rather than arguing to prove who was the best debater, students discussed how particular texts affected their thinking.
4. Writing prompts that focus students back to moments in the text: Students responded to questions that referenced the text rather than larger abstract questions.

While most teachers would agree that these are helpful strategies, they typically can’t employ them. Two-thirds of US high school students cannot read complex primary sources independently. If they don’t have the reading skills required for suggestions one and two above, they will not be able to have the sorts of the discussions called for in suggestion three or write the textual analysis called for in suggestion four. 

So, how can English teachers help prepare students for high school-level work in history class? 

I’ve written before about the Riveting Results program that develops all students' ability to read complex text. Being able to actually read the primary sources they encounter in their high school history class is the first step to being able to study high school-level history. 

But today, I want to discuss Lewis’, Swan’s, and Crowley’s suggestions three (discussions) and four (analytical writing) that are essential to enable students to explore historical issues with both passion and clarity. 

Even if they are good readers, most students are unprepared to participate in thoughtful discussion. Social media has taught them that discussions have a winner and a loser, and the winner is often the person who lists facts rapid-fire and concludes with a catchy one-liner. There is not a lot on social media about participating in discussions to listen and learn. 

In English class, however, students can discover a more satisfying alternative. After all, when they learn about history through the eyes of an irresistible character, the last thing they want to do is reduce their hero's experience to a list and a catchphrase. 

When they explore a sympathetic character or a real life person in a piece of beautiful literature, students can take time appreciating the author’s craft; they find it rewarding to reread carefully to better understand what the author is trying to say about a person’s motivations and impact. 

When the text rewards rereading, discussion activities can build on students’ natural curiosity to work with one another to determine what has actually happened and why. These discussions about rich literature give students essential practice in listening, rereading and rethinking; soon, they notice how their discussions allow their ideas to develop and change. 

Students who have had nuanced, text-based discussions find it easier to respond to a writing prompt that also asks them to develop an idea based on a specific moment in the text. Teachers often think that students prefer to write about big questions about discrimination or freedom or family or creativity. 

But in fact, as Lewis, Swan and Crowley discuss in the article referenced at the top of this blog, students write better historical pieces when they are referencing specific moments in a text than when they are addressing big issues. They may develop bigger ideas from that focus on the text—or they may simply gain more insight into what an important author really means to say. 

English teachers can provide essential practice in this way of writing. Let’s see how this approach plays out when a 9th grader writes about a particular moment in Langston Hughes’ autobiography The Big Sea, and discovers something important about Hughes’ struggle for opportunity in early 20th century America.

Early in her ninth grade English class’ study of The Big Sea, Angela is assigned the following prompt: “Explain what caused Hughes, who loved books, to throw his books into the sea.”  The prompt refers to Hughes’ first night working on a cargo ship, when, after dropping out of college, he explains what caused him to discard his most prized possessions. Hughes writes,

It was like throwing a million bricks out of my heart—for it wasn't only the books that I wanted to throw away, but everything unpleasant and miserable out of my past: the memory of my father, the poverty and uncertainties of my mother's life, the stupidities of color-prejudice, black in a white world, the fear of not finding a job, the bewilderment of no one to talk to about things that trouble you, the feeling of always being controlled by others—by parents, by employers, by some outer necessity not your own.

Angela could have explained Hughes’ action simply as a response to the racial climate in the 20th century United States. Instead, she develops a more subtle explanation because she has read and reread Hughes’ story of his early life. She writes,

It goes to show that he threw the books overboard because they represented all the judgment and the feeling of not having control.

Here, Angela considers the impact of Hughes’ difficult relationship with his father, building an argument that Hughes’ action is a response to a complex hunger for “control.”

In English class, Angela has discovered that studying history engages her insight into human behavior as well as her understanding of larger historical forces. She sees it as a flexible and helpful intellectual framework rather than a tool for reducing complex events to a series of talking points. 

In short, she is ready for her history class.