Library, Marblehead Village School, 1 hour

Today’s blog posting falls nicely into the inquiry guideline as it addresses a great example of modeling the inquiry-based approach to learning through the use of detective skills on a primary source document.  I found today’s lesson, with the 5^th grade class that I observed, to be highly informative, creative, discussion provoking and fun.  As the children entered the library, they saw a vintage advertisement displayed on the whiteboard and the three objectives were clearly posted on an easel at the front of the room. 

The objectives were:

1.      Primary or Secondary?

2.      Examining Primary Sources

3.      Activity

Discussion began when the Mrs.  Soghomonian reviewed what the children knew of primary source and secondary source documents from a previous class.  From their examples and responses she recreated the definition of each type of document.  To ensure that all children were secure with this, she gave each child an example of either a primary or secondary source and they needed to identify it.  While fun in design, this provided an informal assessment of previous material retention. 

Finally, she turned her attention to the displayed advertisement that was produced by Swanson to promote their TV dinners, circa 1950s.  The librarian used the image she had saved from a Flickr account, but when I went to the link that she had originally procured it from, it was not longer there.  I found the Swanson TV Dinner image also seen below at the Library of Congress site.

Swanson TV Dinners 1950s Advertisement

Courtesy of the Library of Congress

She introduced the activity and passed out a worksheet to each child.  (For near point visuals she also had a copy of the color advertisement in a protective sleeve on each table.)  This worksheet clearly laid out the objectives of the activity.  There were 4 bolded questioning words (What, Who, Why & When) that focused the children on what they needed to determine during their mission as “history detectives.”  Mrs. Soghomonian worked through the first 4 questions as a group to allow the children more time on the last question that would necessitate critical thinking.

As a group the children discussed:

·         “What is it?”   (An advertisement) 

·         “Who created it?”       (Swanson)

·         “Why did they create the source?”     (To promote TV dinners)

·         “When was the primary source created?”       (The responses varied from 2009, 50 years ago, 1997, between the 1950s and the hippies, and my favorite, in between the 1960s and the 1980s when they made awkward stuff.)

Discussion was honest and always backed up with a “why did you say that” response from the librarian, which the children provided.

The last question was, “After carefully examining this primary source, what do you know or what can you infer about the time, the place, and the people that this primary source belonged to or portrays?”  Mrs.  Soghomonian made it clear that the students were NOT to describe the picture but, based on what they saw, make a guess about something relating to that time period.  She modeled her thinking by saying, “There are 2 clues that people wore a lot of hats.  How can you tell this?”  Students said by the hat on the woman’s head and the hat box on the table.  After another example of what she expected them to do, she told them to work with their small table groups to discuss what they could infer from the clues in the advertisement.  She circulated among the groups, monitored their progress, and provided prompting when needed. 

At the end of the 10 minutes she had the class come back together to share what each group found.  She showed the classes that they could find out a great deal of information from looking at a primary source document based on the clues provided.  The children I observed were very engaged with the exercise and from their small group discussions I could tell that they were mimicking the thought process that the librarian had sufficiently modeled for them.  Mrs.  Soghomonian received numerous desired responses and this encouraged the children to find the deeper meaning in their observations.  I only wish that there was more time for the students to go through this same analysis and synthesis exercise of another primary source advertisement from a different time period.