Before I head off to Ottawa on Sunday, my family has planned a trip to Edmonton. This road trip has given me considerable time, a few distractions,(I saw a beautiful coyote trotting through a wheat field) to continue with my readings.

I finished:

"'They Thought the World Was Flat?' Applying the Principles of How People Learn in Teaching High School History", by Robert B. Bain

I was well worth the read. The main gist of the chapter is strategies of how to teach students to critically analyze historical text, and in so doing, differentiate between "history-as-event" and "history-as-account". Although the main example Bain uses deals with Christopher Columbus, the principle of encouraging teachers to  press their students to "document their understanding, and to explain the evidence they are using to draw conclusions or to accept one historical account over another" (p.194) are adaptable to content in any history classroom. He has a number of suggested classroom activities and great questions to create meaningful discussion.

So far all of the readings have been interesting and valuable.

Bye for now... off shopping!

Jen