Creating or Capturing Reality? Historical Photographs of the Progressive Era

Sixth-Graders' Paintings for the U.S. Food Conservation Effort: A Qualitative Study

“…While the origins of Eleanor's connection of the U.S. Food Administration as a "savior" similar to the historical anecdote shared in Nash's book (1996) cannot be ascertained, it does show that she applied disciplinary inferential thinking skills based on historical issues and events being studied in this project (Nokes, 2013). DISCUSSION The findings from this research study support arguments from the literature that with the appropriate scaffolding even younger students can analyze visual primary sources (Barton, 2001(Barton, , 2018Callahan, 2013aCallahan, , 2013bCallahan, , 2015. With this research project, the teacher and I modeled for students on day three how to analyze the symbolic imagery with one of the paintings.…”

“…Use evidence from the painting and Hoover's speech to support your arguments. This activity allowed students an opportunity to apply analysis skills learned about visual primary sources (Callahan, 2015). After groups answered the analysis prompts, there was a class discussion where groups shared the symbolic imagery of their painting.…”

“…Cory Callahan (2013aCallahan ( , 2013bCallahan ( , 2015 provides guidance to K-12 social studies teachers and social studies methods teachers to help their students have meaningful discussions with visual primary sources. He argues that teachers should provide a compelling question to drive an examination of a topic.…”

“…In a similar vein to Bickford's study (2011), I had a class of sixth grade students analyze a series of paintings commissioned by the U.S. Food Administration based on Hoover's Food in War Speech. Drawing on ideas from the literature about teaching with visual primary sources, the teacher and I started by modeling for the sixth grade students how to analyze the paintings commissioned by the U.S. Food Administration because it cannot be assumed that students possess these analysis skills (Barton, 2001(Barton, , 2018Callahan, 2013aCallahan, , 2013bCallahan, , 2015. After analyzing these paintings, students created their own painting based on parts of Hoover's speech but were instructed to not replicate items from the paintings examined.…”

Protest and prayer: the Jewish and Catholic presence at Selma

“…The lessons feature the development of questions, both from teachers and students, as classes work collaboratively to interpret a potentially powerful historical photograph and use historical events to practice thinking deeply about important topics. Here, students practiced their interpretive skills to make sense of persuasive images, and because visually based multimedia comprise much of contemporary culture, these skills are required of thoughtful citizenship (Callahan, 2015;McCormick and Hubbard, 2011). Social studies classrooms are ideal educational spaces to develop and practice analytical skills and dispositions students need to meet the challenge of critiquing visual information that concerns complex public issues, such as the role of religion in society.…”