Hello my Omschooligans! We've been busy around here writing poetry for Poetry Month and making recycled trash crafts for Earth Day! Then yesterday, we planned a one room schoolhouse event. I hope that was fun! I sure enjoyed creating it. And speaking of living history, spring is all about gearing up for summer reenactments like our Grand Haven Feast of the Strawberry Moon. But we don't have to wait. Let's explore American history by performing a "living history wax museum."
Why people hate history
I'm a history nerd but I know a lot of people say they hate history, especially how it was taught to them in school. That's sad because exploring the past can be fascinating! But not if your only contact with history was via boring textbooks, uninspiring paper and pencil lesson plans and endless memorization of facts. Nothing could be more antithetical to the way history should be learned. History is about more than people and times long past. It's about learning from them. It's a medium for synthesizing new ideas and processes. It's a vehicle for change. It's not about dead and gone, it's about life!
Bloom's Taxonomy vs. rote memorization
Bloom's taxonomy sequences educational tasks in order of basic to advanced. It encourages teachers to move from memorization and comprehension of facts (at the bottom) towards HOTS (higher order thinking skills) which include analyzing, applying to life, evaluating and finally, synthesizing (creating new content).
Higher-Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) Chart
Higher-Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) move beyond rote memorization. They require students to process information, connect ideas, and apply knowledge to new situations. This chart breaks down the top levels of Bloom's Taxonomy, focusing on the cognitive processes that define complex thinking. Use these definitions and action verbs to design engaging learning activities and assessments that promote deeper understanding and critical thinking.
Bloom's Taxonomy breaks down educational tasks using the HOTS acronym. In education stands of higher order thinking skills.| HOTS Level | Definition (What it involves) | Action Verbs (Examples) |
|---|---|---|
| Creating | Generating new ideas, products, or ways of viewing things. Building a structure or pattern from diverse elements. | design, construct, plan, produce, invent, compose, formulate, hypothesize, generate, compile |
| яза Evaluating | Justifying a decision or course of action. Making judgments based on criteria and standards. Checking for consistency. | judge, critique, justify, defend, debate, recommend, assess, conclude, test, support |
| Analyzing | Breaking information into parts to explore understandings and relationships. Determining how the parts relate to one another. | compare, contrast, breakdown, categorize, differentiate, examine, question, connect, organize, outline |
Living history is alive!
And HOTS is what living history requires! It's putting all the recalled and digested facts into a fresh, new context. Authentic useful history lesson plans should include historical reenactment,
cultural immersion and student-directed, hands-on history activities. Students should experience
history activities through all five senses. They should engage in interactive history activities. Then
they begin to see the big picture. Here are cross-curricular history activities that teach reading,
writing, speaking, research, art and drama.
Wax Museum tableaux
Students will create tableaux for historical reenactment in
the Living History Wax Museum. Here's how to create a living history wax museum: (I've included cross-curricular references and HOTS skill practiced).
- Assign students the task of choosing an historical figure to personify (evaluation, application, synthesis) from whatever social studies content you're studying: exploration, colonial period, a country, inventions, mythology.
- Another living history variation is a cultural diversity wax museum, where students represent famous people who share their ancestry.
- Fine arts wax museum: with famous musicians, actors, artists and composers.
- Design a local history wax museum. Grand Haven Michigan hosts the Feast of the Strawberry Moon 1760s reenactment to celebrate its voyageur history.
- Connect to books with literature-based living history wax museum. Students might choose literary figures or famous characters in favorite books. (apply, compare, synthesize)
- Students should research their person, her life, work and lifestyle. (analysis, explore). Then prepare a short biographical speech to introduces themselves (details below).
- Students will produce a living history tableau with a costume, props, artifacts and an appropriate backdrop for historical reenactment of their chosen figure. (application, analysis)
- Individual tableaux will be set up like wax museum exhibits that guests will visit. Arrange living history exhibits in a multipurpose room, series of smaller classrooms, along a hallway or outdoors. This provides math connections.
- Divide tableaux with portable partitions or use large recycled cardboard refrigerator boxes to create individual niches for each student. You could also hang curtains on free-standing poles to designate each area. Let students use problem-solving strategies to decide how to arrange. This provides more math and science connections.
- Each student should bring or be provided a table or shelf to display props and a tripod to place signage.
- Organize work days for students to construct props/backdrops. Provide paper, recycled materials and large cardboard boxes.
- Students should compose a 1-2 minute first-person script in the character's voice. Encourage them to include interesting biographical details and vignettes. Their historical reenactment should end with a quote from their chosen person.
- Have students practice their narratives with each other and provide each other with feedback. Students should memorize their monologue and recite it to guests who come to the wax museum.
- Have students write a transcript of their speech. Assemble narratives into a printed booklet for guests to take home.
- Students should anticipate questions guest may ask and be prepared with answers.
- Students to locate themselves on printed maps to show where their person originated.
- Have students write invitations to guests.
- They should make promotional advertising for their living history project and wax museum.
- Students could organize themselves into committees, too.
- Save programs for student portfolios.
- Extend lesson plans by having students prepare foods from their time period or country to to serve as refreshments.
How the performance works
- During the performance, guests travel from character to character. It could be done onstage as a pageant, but booths where guests can circulate is more informal and comfortable for families with small children or senior grandparents.
- Encourage younger guests to collect "autographs" on their programs.
- Place a notebook at each booth so visitors can leave responses. Consider using feedback to determine overall living history project grade.
- Students should evaluate their performances and grade themselves. Explain how grades should reflect creativity and participation.
