Our first, three-day teacher workshop, “Critical Exploration in the Grade 4 – 12 Humanities Classroom: An Introduction,” held in August, was focused on poetry as well as on history. …
What does it really mean to be a researcher? When we assign students a research project, how can we make the experience as authentic and engaging as possible? …
(Creating Reconstructions) The primary texts of ancient history, even in translation, can be difficult for students to read and comprehend. When writing styles, vocabularies, or cultural references have changed, primary documents only a few centuries or decades old can seem almost as inaccessible. How can we help students make sense of these sources? …
(Developing Characters) Here at Critical Explorers, we’ve temporarily paused work on publishing to the website the remaining sections of the Slavery and Reconstruction resources in order to take advantage of an opportunity further to develop our soon-to-be-published Ancient Greece investigation. …
Sometimes I’m lucky enough to overhear a conversation that fits a question I’ve been carrying around. Maybe due to my sense of murkiness on the topic, I’m drawn to listen but reluctant to join. If I’m really lucky, the conversation helps clarify my thinking…
Within the approach of critical exploration, we often begin teaching about a subject matter by creating an encounter with a carefully chosen object of study that is drawn from or somehow embodies the subject matter we want to teach. The object of study is a primary source —