Week 3

Manayunk, Take Two

In the spring, we will be making two trips to Manayunk with the students during this unit, one to explore the area and the other to conduct interviews.

This week we went to the Historical Society and met with Sylvia Myers again and were able to scan primary source documents to our computer to use as resources for the unit. We also met with Kay Sykora, of the Manayunk Development Corporation, who was a great resource and is interested in helping us with our project. She will be one of the people the students will have the opportunity to interview. We also walked around and initiated conversations at Tuti's Barber operating since 1930's and Propper Bros. Furniture established in 1888. The contacts we made at each business were interested in talking with our students and were willing to be interviewed. All four people that we spoke with shared interesting stories, perspectives and geographical information we hope to include as we explore Manayunk. We also took some time to attempt mapping out a walking tour of Manayunk. Our goal is to include hand held GPS units and create some geocaching sites at the points of interest along the walking tour. We will finalize the map and sites a week or two prior to going.

Journal Entry
The students will be keeping first person journals throughout the year as time travelers visiting Philadelphia through the centuries. George Washington's Socks by Woodruff has been chosen as our initial read aloud. It models a time traveling experience yet is written in the third person.

Colonial Unit
After reviewing some of the new colonial resources Loann acquired for the LS library, we now have a better idea of how our colonial research unit will be carried out. Much of the colonial research/reading will be done independently and in book groups. Prior to learning more about individual trades, students will read A Slave Family by Kalman and Bishop in small book group. It is our intention for every student to come away with some foundational knowledge on the institution of slavery during the colonial period. This will give students a better context of the upcoming Abolitionist Movement in Philadelphia.

From that we will move into reading about apprenticeship and learning how to take notes on expository text. We found some great resources from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania regarding apprenticeship in the early 18th century. Students will get an opportunity to explore primary source documents related to apprentice indentures.

In addition, students will also explore everyday life for different members of society. There will be a study of colonial life from the individual and sociopolitical perspectives. Rather than take a trip to the colonial plantation like last year, we are playing around with the idea of creating our own hands-on experience right here on campus. We would like to involve parent volunteers in a day at the short stables, where students will engage in colonial activities like candle-making, printing, fabric dyeing, etc.

Our main focus in studying the Revolutionary War will be around events leading up to the war. We are hoping this will give students some groundwork for their study of American government in fifth grade.

Abolition and Slavery
A focus of our unit is to tell the story of Philadelphia through a variety of perspectives and one of the perspectives we have been developing throughout the unit is that of African-Americans. During the period between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War we will be examining the roles and lives of Free Blacks, Slaves and Abolitionists. As we discuss how to lead students to an understanding of the issues we have gone back and forth quite a bit about how graphically we should depict the horror of slavery. What level of description is informative and drives home the point and what level is damaging or counterproductive.

Content Delivery
One of the recurring questions we've been facing as we develop the unit has been deciding the vehicle through which students learn the necessary content information. This has so far included, book group reading, simulation, independent reading, teacher sharing, interview, primary source research, internet research, teacher spoken, map or image analysis and video. We are using video sources in several instances (often from United Streaming) which in each case seems like a sound way for students to access the information. We do want to make sure we are using a variety of methods and are not relying to heavily on any one platform. As we review and assess our unit, we will evaluate how we feel about the balance of video and other media.

Continuing to Paint the Big Picture
We spent the majority of the past week filling in the curriculum map and thinking more deeply about our approach to teaching the Colonial period, Abolitionism, the evolution of the Black community and the Industrial Revolution in Philadelphia. We will continue to work in the coming weeks to revise our curriculum map. The end product of this fellowship will include a more-detailed version of this map, a list of resources for each unit and an outline of the activities/projects.

Week 2

Touring Manayunk
In late June, the team took a trip to Manayunk to see what resources were available to us. Sylvia Myers at the Roxborough-Andorra-Manayunk-Historical Society was a great resource for us. We visited the historical society office/closet which is packed full of information relating to the Manayunk's beginnings, industrial past, followed by fifty hard years and then the current transformation into hip night spot. They have local newspapers, books, maps, photographs and other documents which help tell the story. These resources will be helpful to us for our own background knowledge (and personal curiosity) and some will be useful to the studens as they seek to learn more about the area. We will continue to revisit Sylvia and the historical society as we develop questions and find directions we would like to explore in more depth.

Kay Sykora has been with the Manayunk Development Corp for over two decades and has helped implement the economic development of the neighborhood. When we revisit the neighborhood, we will stop by her office to have an in-depth conversation about what resources and knowledge she has to share with us.

We made contact with Journey's Way Senior Center and talked to the Director Rebecca Kochman about students interviewing seniors about their experience of growing up and living in Manayunk. Our request was met with an enthusiastic yes.

We are also trying to contact an organization called the Manayunk neighborhood Council that is concerned with the balance of sustainable econmic development and neighborhood issues.

If you you have any further ideas for possible resources for the area, please let us know.

Curriculum Map
We are in the process of creating a curriculum map for our year-long study. One of the tools we are using to help guide the development of our curriculum is the Thinking-Feeling Spiral suggested in Through Other Eyes by Skolnick, Dulberg and Maestre. (Book Courtesy of Catalina) This model is designed to help students develop empathy and work towards gaining a multicultural perspective. The spiral starts with children thinking about their own concrete experiences with an issue or and idea and then, through a photograph or other artifact, imaginining someone else's experience with that idea or issue. Once they have begun to wonder about this experience they then proceed to an information gathering period to find out answers to questions and to see how the issue or idea plays out for the wider population. With this information in hand the student may now participate in simulations or other activities that involve their putting themselves into the hisortical situation. Finally students are able to reflect upon and apply what they have learned.

Using the theoretical framework described above, we are beginning to plan big-picture lessons. We are using the curriculum map to help ourselves frame and organize our thinking and to enumerate and align our activities, objectives and assessments. The curriculum map exists online as a Google Spreadsheet, which you are welcome to view. We will be updating it throughout the course of our work. We invite any and all forms of feedback you might have.

Colonial Research
We decided on "Colonial Professions" as our research project topic. This will take the place of sea creature research commencing in mid-October. After much discussion we settled on tools, techniques, training, and clientele as an initial framework to get the students thinking about what it is they truly want to know about the individual professions. One of our goals is to have the students think of what might have been important to a Colonial person and their profession. We wish to incorporate the importance of class, indentured servants and slaves as part of this study.
We have the texts for the individual professions but we are still searching around for a good resource book with general information to use in a book group format to start the research with.

Journaling
Throughout the year the students will be asked to make entries in a journal. They will write from the perspective of a time traveling 9-10 year old entering into different periods of Philadelphia history. They will include historical facts and information that they have learned and deem important to tell their story. Our hope is that they can make the actual journals in art class at the beginning of the year with Sam.

Literacy Essential Questions
In addition to having a Social Studies essential question, we thought it would be helpful to also have a literacy essential question to help students think about creating a meaningful way to communicate what they've learned in social studies. We are playing around with various forms of tools to help students present their projects. One of them is Primary Access, which is an online suite of tools that allows students to create Ken Burns-like documentaries/movies using primary source documents. Students will have to write a script, select from a catalog of teacher-selected visuals, record the narration and select a soundtrack.

In order to frame this multimedia project, we would like students to examine the following questions through the course of their studies.
- What makes a story compelling?
- How do you tell a good story?
- Why are stories important?
- What roles do stories play?
- Who is the audience?

African-American History
We have commenced reading more about African-American History in order to present a truly multicultural curriculum that will weave itself throughout the curriculum and the year, not merely limited to the unit on slavery and abolition.

Philadelphia Soundscapes Project


There was some talk at the beginning of this week about Deb spearheading a soundscapes project similar to the Open Sound New Orleans project featured on NPR. Since students will be taking numerous trips to different parts of the city, we thought it would be a great idea for students to digitally record soundscapes of the city and upload them onto Google Map. Michelle directed us to a project underway at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania called PhilaPlace and suggested we contact Joan Saverino, who is the director of the project and a friend of Rosanne's. Michelle is currently looking into how we can develop an interactive map similar to Open Sound New Orleans that is open to the public and lives online.

Week 1

This week we fleshed out the basic elements of the year. Here's the tentative schedule:

September: Lenape
October: Quakers and Early European Settlers
November: Colonial Philadelphia
December: Revolutionary War
January: Slavery
February: Industrial Revolution
March-April: Neighborhood Study
May-June: Future Neighborhood Project

Colonial Research Project to replace Sea Creature Research
Our research component will coincide with Quakers, European settlers and the Colonial period (mid October-December). The goal is to represent all the socio-economic stations of that time period. Included would be the roles of the following: slaves and indentured servants, farmers, craftsmen, builders, writers, artists, politicians and the landed gentry.

Hallway Presentation
The timeline map will represent Philadelphia and its changing landscape as well as people’s roles and professions throughout time as the city expands. It will hang in the hallway and be updated throughout the year as the study progresses.

Essential Question

After lengthy discussion we have settled on, “Is change good?” as our essential question for the unit. An important aspect of our approach is to look at this question through the eyes of multiple viewpoints as we move throughout the year, from the arrival of Europeans to the gentrification of Manayunk.

Another theme underlying this question is that of values in general and Quaker values in particular. The city was founded as a “Holy Experiment,” a religious venture. How have these and other values informed the changes in the city and how they been changed? A final theme is that of the environment. Beginning with the Lenape, and continuing through Penn’s “Green Countrie Town, ” the industrial revolution, and modern Philadelphia the physical environment and the attitudes towards it have shifted enormously. In our final project all of these themes will come into play as students consider what will make a successful neighborhood.

Neighborhood Study: Manayunk

After considering the history and nature of various Philadelphia neighborhoods, such as Germantown and East Falls, we decided that Manayunk would be an ideal neighborhood for students to study. Primary source documents related to Manayunk will allow students to look into the rich industrial history of the neighborhood and canal. With the essential question in mind, students will interview local residents who have lived through the changes in their neighborhood and attempt to understand if the development of Manayunk during the last few decades has been beneficial to the area. Interviews will give students multiple perspectives on the changes in the area. Food access and gentrification were some of the issues that we thought would be interesting topics for students to investigate.

Spring Culminating Project

Having understood the strengths and challenges of the neighborhood, students will engage in an inter-disciplinary project that asks them to develop a future action plan for the community. Potential areas of focus can include transportation, food access, and environmental restoration, among other things. Students will then present their vision of Manayunk to a larger audience.

Possible Field Trips Related to Philadelphia
Churchville Nature Center (Lenape)
Ned Hector Visit (Revolutionary War)

African-American Museum in Philadelphia (January '10)

Johnson House or Harriet Tubman Reenactment
Fairmount Water Works (with Rosanne)
PWD History of Manayunk Canal Program
Tour Manayunk Neighborhood (x2)
City Hall and Fine Arts Academy (with Sam)
Mural Arts Tour (with Sam)