My Process when Composing a Waldorf-style History Block – hint, we use a lot of Charlotte Mason tools.
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I knew from the beginning that I wanted the experience of learning history to be different than that of my own. However, as we delved deeper into history, I could see aspects of my history staring back at me. I stepped back and looked for a different way of teaching history – one that would give us more connections, more understanding, and something to make it more memorable than what I had experienced.
Charlotte Mason stepped into place with us with her living history books. Living history books are books that come at history as a narrative with details and information presented to captivate and hold the reader. Most of them, but not all, are historically accurate historical fiction. We started incorporating more of these kinds of books into our history and doing history in blocks instead of just reading one textbook. This variety of sources from living history books, biographies, and other resources helped to give us better connections to what we already knew and a more full and rich history experience.
Later, my son took OER’s The World History Project for high school history, and it was eye opening for me. They have several tools that I want to spend some time on in another post that were helpful in analyzing, understanding, and making connections within history. Now these also heavily influence how I teach history.
When thinking of a history block, I have three goals in mind. These are
- To teach the narrative or tell the stories
- Give a feel for what it was like to live in that time and space.
- Analyze, process, and internalize the information,
- as well as to make connections to what we already know
The first goal, to tell the narrative or stories, is because that is what history is – a series of stories through space and time. How can we do anything with it until we first hear and know the stories? From that point, my second goal, give a feel for what it was like to live in that time and space, comes next in line. Now we ‘know’ the stories, let’s really absorb that and begin to ‘feel’ what it was like during that time period. This is where the living history books and the handcrafts and projects come into play. Finally, we are able to analyze, process, and make connection to what we already know. How does what we have learned here relate to what we already know? What other events or people influence this time and space? How are these stories similar to other stories? Are these stories or event universal to the human experience? This sounds as if it’s a linear process like a recipe – do this, then that — but it is not. It’s more like a web with some of the projects allowing us to get a feel for the time and also making connections. Sometimes the analysis gives us a better idea of the feel. The process is varied and layered.
With the goals in mind, I have several different aspect of my history units that I’m looking for. These include
- Books
- Projects/ Handcrafts
- Maps
- Discussions/Activities
- Field Trips
- Timelines
- Movies/ videos
- Integration with other topics in that year or previously explored
- Making connections – What we already know and their passions
Books are probably the biggest input for our history. I am usually looking for a spine that gives us a general overview of the time and space we are studying. Then I’m spiraling out, looking for a living history book, a few biographies, books on artists, music, clothing, and food for that time period. We are also using a variety of book including picture books (yes, even in middle school; they are a great way to get a visual and take in a different story quickly), chapter books, biographies, reference books. I’m also looking for literature written in that time period. Most of our literature study is paired with our history work.
In addition to books, I’m looking for relevant projects or handcrafts that will help us understand the time period better. I’m also looking at maps and time line work that might help us illustrate the continuity or the change that is happening over a period of time. This was particularly striking when we were doing our Native America with the decline of Native territory and then again with the decline in the Bison population. We don’t have a ‘Book of Centuries,’ but we do a similar thing by going back to previous timelines and adding certain events to our current time line.
Many of the discussion topics come from the tools that I mentioned from The World History Project. We are looking at ideas such as comparing and contrasting, investigating a perspective of a story, and what an event would look like from a different perspective. Sometimes discussion comes from something in the books that we are reading.
These things are scattered and kept in different areas for a while, until I’m ready to plan and put them altogether. In the video, I share how I keep books and ideas for various blocks that I know are coming. I have amazon lists, photo albums, Instagram saves, electronic notes, and bookmarks. Eventually these all come together in a spreadsheet. This is when I’m finally able to start putting together lesson plans, deciding what we are going to do each day. It’s an estimate, because it’s rarely completely correct. I’m using it as a tool, not a strict regiment, so it gets adapted during implementation.
Originally when composing this piece, I thought to present it as video, but found there was more information than visual for that. However, there is some visual that I think is important so I’m giving you both – audio and video – for this piece.
I have done a number of history blocks over the years, and several have blog posts with lists of activities, resources, and books we used. I’ll leave a list of those for you below. I also am deviating significantly in the sequence that history is usually taught within the Waldorf pedagogy. I’m going to leave a couple of links of what the usual time sequence is.
Audio
Time Stamp
00:00 Introduction
01:04 Talking about the post
02:22 Our Homeschooling Journey through History
07:54 Teaching History Chronologically
09:42 My Goals for Teaching
12:42 Various Aspects of a Block
13:34 How I Choose Books
18:25 Organizational Systems for Planning
21:12 Projects and Handcrafts
23:56 Map Work
25:34 Conversations and Discussions
28:00 Time Lines
28:56 Integrations and Connections
30:50 Putting It All Together
36:18 Conclusion