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A MULTICULTURAL APPROACH TO AUTHENTIC LEARNING USING ARTIFACTS

Banny Ackerman
Wayne Elementary School

As classroom teachers, we constantly strive to deliver a standards-based meaningful academic program to our students. Many educators support the idea of authentic learning to enhance their teaching. By authentic learning I mean using primary sources and artifacts from actual time periods and simulations of actual events to make learning more personal and meaningful to students. By providing opportunities to make connections across cultural lines and encouraging introspection and self-reflection we challenge our students to increase their awareness of themselves.

I include sample lessons from my fourth grade curriculum, which encourage authentic learning through the use of artifacts and real life experiences.   The first lesson is a science activity that examines civil war artifacts and encourages students to use their imaginations and sound knowledge base to develop a creative story about the time period. The second lesson, "I am From...," provides an opportunity for students to think independently about themselves and reflect on their own cultural heritage and interests. The third lesson requires students to analyze commemorative postage stamps honoring people and then create their own stamp to honor a special person who has made a difference in their lives. The fourth lesson is a math project which gives students an opportunity to reflect on their T.V. viewing and calculate the number of hours that they have watched T.V. in their lifetime. These activities have been collected and adapted from various teacher workshops, internet sites and curriculum materials. 

A "BAG" OF ARTIFACTS (Science)

I use this activity during a month-long study of the Civil War time period. This lesson can be extended beyond this historical topic. I have used a similar "bag" of artifacts lesson for a science fiction/space unit, a creative writing project, a cultural regions study and state reporting.

OBJECTIVE:

To provide students with an opportunity to make connections across cultural lines by engaging them to examine and develop a story about authentic artifacts from the 1860’s in an inquiry-based lesson

MATERIALS:

1. six brown bags or small baskets containing a sample of artifacts

2. suggested items to use for artifacts (this is a partial list of the objects that I have collected): shells, fur, charred wood, pieces of old newspaper, coins, copies of money from the time period (purchased from an historical bookstore at a national park), cut-up bits of cloth (blue, brown, gray pieces of leather, part of an old letter or book, a bullet (not lead) from a Civil War museum store, feathers, chicken bones, old utensils, a small piece from a pewter plate, a piece of white cloth with red paint or red food coloring to resemble a bandage, a piece of a laced handkerchief, a key or piece of some sort of fastener and button

PROCEDURES:

1. Place different artifacts (6-8 items) in each of the bags.

2. Students are grouped into teams of 4 to 5 students.

3. Explain that you have collected some interesting items found in a forest near a town or battlefield dating back to the 1860’s. Ask the students to examine the artifacts carefully reminding them that their job as an archeologist/scientist is to problem-solve and search for clues about the past. Explain that they may not know what each item is or represents, but they can make their best guess. Group members will then imagine a story about the artifacts. Who owned these things?  What might have happened if they were lost or left behind? Have a scriber write down the story while the rest of the group discuss.

4. Have a spokesperson from each group to give a brief oral presentation to the class about the significance of the artifacts. In other words, have him/her tell the story.

AN EXAMPLE OF STUDENTS' WORK:

The following story was written by a group of fourth graders from my classroom after examining eight artifacts found in their bag and then shared with the class:

The shell suggests that the items were found in a forest near the sea. Maybe in South Carolina, we think there were a lot of battles near there. A soldier from the north might have picked the shell up on the beach, maybe he had never seen the ocean before and wanted to keep the shell for a treasure to take home after the war. This soldier might have been writing a letter home to his mother, while he held the lace handkerchief that she had embroidered for him. Maybe his name was John because it looks like there is a letter, "J," on the piece of handkerchief. He had just finished his dinner - a meal of hard tack and perhaps a tasty chicken leg! His unit may have been lucky earlier in the day and passed by a farm which still had a few chickens to make a decent meal for the soldiers. We think this soldier was wounded because there is a piece of tattered red bandage material that might have been part of a tourniquet for a head wound. He was probably from the union army because of the blue piece of wool that might have come from his uniform and also there is a torn piece of union money in the bag. We also think he had been sitting near a fire because there is a smoky piece of wood in the bag ,too. Maybe there was a battle close by and he had to run quickly away and he didn’t have time to collect all of his things, so they got left behind and buried until someone found them 134 years later!

The students' story demonstrates how proper investigating strategies can help students become active learners as they apply research and analysis techniques to the investigation. The scientific method is utilized; students collect information, sort it all out, develop ideas, discuss their observations and provide feedback for their fellow students in the form of hypothetical questions. They are using critical thinking skills as they predict and relate this imaginative experience to their own knowledge base. Learning becomes more meaningful and creative when students are vested in the topic and can relate to the stories on a personal level.

I AM FROM...(Language Arts)

The activity, "I am from ...," provides students with an opportunity to make connections across cultural lines by engaging them in an exercise of self-reflection. It is a celebration of identity with regard to who we are and what makes each of us unique. The lesson invites students to reflect on, mull over and interpret themselves in a personal and meaningful way.

OBJECTIVE:

To provide students with an opportunity to reflect on, mull over and interpret themselves in a personal and meaningful way

MATERIALS:

Paper; Pencil, or Pen; Markers, paints or crayons if they chose to illustrate

PROCEDURES:

Students are asked to write brief statements about who they are, completing sentences that begin with the phrase, "I am from."  The statements become poetry.  The writing would be done either individually or by the whole class. Students can share their "I am from’s" by themselves or the teacher can read them aloud and ask other students to guess the author’s identity (Haiku could also be a language arts extension).

AN EXAMPLE OF STUDENTS' WORK:

I am from a big family in a large urban American city

I am from the ice, snapshots, assists, hat tricks, blood, sharp skates. I am from the land of milkshakes, licking lips, cool chill, whip cream.

I am from the land of tuna fish, with lots of mayo, sweet pickles, lettuce, pickles and tomatoes.

I am from the basement out of the rain, dry and cozy.

I am from a tree fort, building castles for my action figures.

The above statements record unique, important moments in time for the students. Whether it be tuna, a tree fort or a large family that defines a person at any given time, it is all part of the communication process. This activity encourages students to be creative and could be a springboard for further writing assignments such as celebration timelines or autobiographies. This activity enables students to identify how people can make a difference and bring about positive changes.

 DESIGN A POSTAGE STAMP (Social Studies)

OBJECTIVE:

To provide students the opportunity to analyze the significance of stamps that honor particular individuals and design a postage stamp to honor a special person in their lives.

MATERIALS:

Postage stamps honoring people; paper; markers; pens.

PROCEDURES:

1. Students discuss and identify people who have made a difference in our society.

2. In class students examine postage stamps that have honored special people.

3. Each student makes a list of special people in their lives and chooses one for their stamp.

4. Each student designs his/her own postage stamp that illustrates why that person is special. 

This activity gives students a cursory appreciation for how people can make a difference. It gives them an opportunity to look at authentic artifacts (the stamps) and create a personal artifact for themselves.   I suggest for further study that students take a close look at the process of how people are selected to be on U.S. postage stamps or coins.

ESTIMATING AND REASONING:  T.V. INVESTIGATION (Math)

OBJECTIVE:

To provide students with an opportunity to use number sense, time, multiplication and reasoning logic as they work on the task of estimating how many hours of television they have watched in their lifetime.

MATERIALS:

paper (lined and blank) pencils; calculators; calendars

PROCEDURES:

1. Give each student group a copy of the investigation that contains the following instruction:
        About how many hours of television have you watched in your lifetime?
        Record your estimate and explain your reasoning. Include all of your figuring.

2. Ask students to think about how much television they have watched in their lifetime. What types of calculations are needed to answer the problem? Brainstorm with the students. Explain that you are interested in their strategies.  Are their estimates reasonable? Do they show a clear path of explaining as to how they have arrived at their conclusions?

AN EXAMPLE OF STUDENTS' WORK:

One student wrote, "When I was 3, I watched Sesame Street every day for an hour. That’s 7 days a week x 1 = 7, and 7 x 4 = 28 for each month, and 28 x 12=336 hours for a year now when I was 4, I watched probably Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers and Fraggle Rock, that’s probably 2 hours each day " and so on.

This activity involves students in a personal quest. Interest level is high as students think about what programs they watched at different ages as the example shows. Some students organize viewing in a span of years and come up with an average daily rate for each span. Students are often surprised to find that they have spent a full half year of their life viewing T.V. It was quite an enlightening discover for students!   Responses reveal logical reasoning, complex calculations and communication.

Banny Ackerman is a fourth teacher at Wayne Elementary School, PA. She has participated in the urban and suburban Partners Program as a partner teacher and the Penn Merck Collaborative teacher training program as an instructor.

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