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Originally posted on August 20, 2011 by Shennan Hutton

Much has been happening while I’ve been incommunicado on this blog. In fact, I’ve been incommunicado because much has been happening! Last Saturday I met with four of the five teacher leaders who will be designing lessons for the History Blueprint Sites of Encounter in the Medieval World unit. It was a delight to meet such interesting and inventive teachers! They were very excited to hear about the lessons they would be designing and about the program of online lectures from professors who study the different regions of the Afro-Eurasian world.

In a 1972 speech to the United Nations, Salvador Allende, president of Chile, charged that multinational corporations posed a serious challenge to the sovereignty of nation-states. Elected in 1970, the embattled socialist president was dead by 1973, killed in a military coup partially engineered by the CIA.

Today I began reading with great interest a report from the Road Map for 21st Century Geography Education Project. While my main field is history, I love maps and I’ve always thought that more emphasis needs to be placed on geography in the history-social science curriculum. In the History Blueprint Cold War unit, we are having students analyze lots of maps and to combine knowledge gained from maps and other visual sources with knowledge gained from written sources.

We are hard at work on the Cold War unit, building up its collection of primary sources, visuals, and Common Core skill development and literacy activities. I’d like to share with you one activity from the third lesson in the world history track. This lesson covers developments in the First or “free” world, the Second or communist world, and the Third World between the early 1960s and 1980. The title of the lesson is “Principles versus Practices,” and its historical focus question is: “How did practices undermine the principles sought by each of the Three Worlds?”

We are in throes of researching, writing, and editing two History Blueprint units at the moment. The Cold War unit is slated to be ready for piloting in early April. Using the comments and feedback we received from all those who reviewed the lessons (professors, teacher leaders, the folks at all our sites), we are now working to revise the teacher leaders’ second drafts of the lessons. The teacher leaders have provided us with terrific lessons, but, of course, there is always room for improvement.

Originally posted on November 29, 2012 by Shennan Hutton

Originally posted on November 6, 2012 by Shennan Hutton

Let me be perfectly clear – the History Blueprint is not the magic educational bullet. I can’t promise that you’ll quadruple your test scores, end all your behavior problems, or magically get all your parents engaged when you use Blueprint materials. The project likely won’t help all students all the time everywhere without exception. It won’t cure cancer, end poverty, or make society more tolerant and charitable. I could make those claims, but I’m not a liar.

Originally posted on October 25, 2012 by Shennan Hutton

Originally posted on October 16, 2012 by Shennan Hutton

Originally posted on September 25, 2012 by Shennan Hutton

Originally posted on September 8, 2012 by Shennan Hutton

Originally posted on August 25, 2012 by Shennan Hutton

Last time I wrote that the CHSSP is taking on two new History Blueprint Units in 2012-2013. One of these units, “Sites of Encounter in the Medieval World” is for 7th grade. The following is a description of the plan and the content for the unit.

Originally posted on August 3, 2012 by Shennan Hutton

I have big news. The History Blueprint team is going to design a 7th-grade unit called “Sites of Encounter in the Medieval World,” which will be supported by an Our Shared Past grant from the Social Science Research Council and the British Council. 

Here’s what we have proposed: