Whether or not I have designed meaningful learning activities determines the quality of my students’ learning, the energy of interactions in my classroom, and the depth of my students’ thoughts. The reality that hits me is that all of these components are – to some degree – controllable. Thus, I need to accept the responsibility for this mammoth task. What separates meaningful learning activities from those that are less fruitful is depth. Are students able to grow in their understanding? Are all students’ brains activated throughout the class period? Do students walk away from class feeling as though it was worthwhile to invest themselves in the work?

With apologies to James Carville, I offer this (to myself as much as anyone): it’s the depth, stupid. When a lesson has depth, it demands inquisitive thinking. In our recent unit on the 1920s, a handful of lessons achieved this. Prior to examining these, I should also mention that there are days as a history teacher in which the learning outcome demands exposure to an array of cultural figures and trends. One day of our 1920s unit bombarded students with names relating to art, literature, and music of the time. While these met the content needs, I had to make sure to offset the information overload with images from Georgia O’Keeffe and Frank Lloyd Wright, students being coached to swing eighth notes, and discussion about how playing rhythms that aren’t printed on the page are emblematic of other 1920s’ behaviors.

Although my last post shamed the textbook, it was invaluable as a resource for two of the activities we did as a way to streamline the information-gathering process. While students could have certainly used other resources to mine for ideas, it was convenient to use the predictability of textbook pages, especially when some of what they needed to gather was “hidden” in the plain black font of the book.

In “People of the 1920s” each student prepared to offer the perspective of assigned identity, visited with numerous other students, then completed a series of questions to reveal discoveries about the fears, changes, and consumer practices of the decade. When I designed this, it was necessary to select characters who offered perspectives on all of these topics and manipulate student interactions enough that I could feel assured that they would hear perspectives on all of these key ideas.

Using primary documents is a priority in my class. It requires students to construct meaning and offers them a more authentic feel for historians’ work. I modified Harding’s “Normalcy” speech, as presented through Teaching American History, offered some guiding questions for the document, and then asked students to compare Harding’s vision with what happened during his Presidency: Normalcy Activity . The culminating activity was a paragraph and directed students to use information about our foreign policy (specifically relating to tariffs) as well as the actions of Harding’s cabinet members.

Other activities offered insight on the 1920s and provoked student thought. When we examined racial discrimination of the 1920s, we watched this Twin Cities Public Television piece on the Duluth lynchings to discover the way that the Great Migration meant that racial cruelty sometimes moved north too.

The most challenging – and fun – activity aimed to demonstrate the broad spectrum of values that conflicted with each other during the 1920s. Prior to embracing historical inquiry methods, I would have been content to list these for students to record and share some examples of them. I probably would have been delighted to see them parrot my words on an assignment or test. The fact that I could write “1920s Speed Dating,” on the weekly calendar and draw a heart around it (on Valentine’s Day) made it even sweeter, but the activity offered a chance for students to uncover the clashes of the time. In working through these identities and knowing that they were going to converse with classmates, students needed to employ inference, apply personality, and even improvise a little during the activity. The result was a vibrant activity in which most students were able to uncover – for themselves – the diversity of ideas and people that emanated from this era. In future years, I would prefer to have students prepare their identities in advance so that the scaffolding of recalling the toxic and magical combinations they witnessed could be a more directed piece. However, 1920s Speed Dating, was a tremendous success in its ability to engage my sophomores and enrich their understanding.

When a teacher tosses students into inquiry activities, it seems as though students need to trust that the confusion they experience – and there will be confusion – will be short-term. With that in mind, a teacher needs to be content with letting this cloud of discomfort linger. Every student won’t feel like an ace right away, and some may only gain a surface understanding of the “punchline” in time. The payoff comes with the growth students experience, the interest that high-energy activities can generate, and the depth that offsets the zany pace of studying hundreds of years in 36 weeks.