WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES CURRICULAR INTEGRATION MAKE? AN INQUIRY OF
FIFTH GRADERS’ LEARNING OF HISTORY THROUGH THE USE OF LITERACY AND
VISUAL ARTS SKILLS

By
Kristy A. Brugar

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILSOPHY
Curriculum, Instruction, and Teacher Education
2012

ABSTRACT
WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES CURRICULAR INTEGRATION MAKE? AN INQUIRY OF
FIFTH GRADERS’ LEARNING OF HISTORY THROUGH THE USE OF LITERACY AND
VISUAL ARTS SKILLS

By
Kristy A. Brugar

This is a quasi-experimental mixed methods study of a curriculum intervention focused
on the interdisciplinary teaching of history, literacy, and the visual arts. In this study I address
three questions: (1) How does students’ learning in history change following their participation
in an interdisciplinary history-literacy-visual arts curriculum, and how does their learning
compare to students who learn the same content through traditional teaching approaches?; (2) In
what ways, if any, do students who participate in an interdisciplinary history-literacy-visual arts
unit demonstrate engagement, historical thinking skills, and aesthetic skills during the unit?; and
(3) How do teachers view the feasibility and effectiveness of implementing an interdisciplinary
history-literacy-visual arts curriculum? In order to answer these questions, I administered preand post-assessments, did field observations, collected student work samples, and conducted
teacher interviews.
I designed two assessments and the curricular intervention. The unit of study is the
convergence of three civilizations (African, American Indian, and European) and based on state
content standards. Student learning in history was measured through pre- and post-assessments
of students in three classrooms (two experimental and one comparison). The intervention unit
was implemented by two fifth-grade teachers in their classrooms in a school enrolling a high

population of low-SES students. The comparison classroom was in the same district with similar
demographics. While students at both schools performed similarly on the pre-assessment,
following the intervention students in the experimental classrooms scored better than the
comparison classroom students on the post-assessment. In addition, the experimental group
students demonstrated: (1) procedural and substantive engagement; (2) historical thinking skills;
and (3) Aesthetic Development skills throughout the teaching of the unit.
Also, I investigate the experimental teachers’ beliefs about the feasibility of this kind of
teaching and the effectiveness of interdisciplinary teaching on students’ learning. They reported
both challenges and benefits. The teachers described the challenges of this type of instruction in
terms of time and resources, and identified another challenge: their lack of understanding about
interdisciplinary instruction. However, the teachers and I identified several benefits to
interdisciplinary instruction. The benefits included high levels of student engagement, student
demonstration of higher order thinking skills, and teacher learning through this process.
This study contributes to our understanding of how students learn about history through
interdisciplinary instruction, as well as teachers’ perceptions of the benefits and drawbacks of
interdisciplinary instruction. In an era of decreased time for social studies and visual arts
education at the elementary level (particularly for students from low-SES backgrounds) the
meaningful integration of history and visual arts with literacy—and its relationship to student
learning and engagement— is worth exploring. This dissertation has implications for teacher
education and practice.

ii

Copyright by
KRISTY A. BRUGAR
2012

DEDICATION

To all the lost Sundays.

v

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to express my appreciation and thanks to those who
participated in my study: the principals who opened their schools, the teachers who welcomed
me into their classrooms, and the students who engaged in learning.
I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my advisor, Dr. Anne-Lise Halvorsen.
I am grateful for her support, patience, and genuine interest in my growth and progress
throughout this experience. It has been a privilege to learn from her. I am grateful to my
committee members, Drs. Janet Alleman, Nell K. Duke, and Susan Florio-Ruane for their time,
energy, and encouragement along the way.
I am thankful to my parents, Stan and Judy Dobby, who taught me what hard work and
commitment mean. Also, I appreciate that they made me laugh when I wanted to cry (or maybe
when I was crying). I am grateful for my friends who listened with open hearts and minds to the
trials and triumphs for this process. The final and most important thanks goes to my husband,
John, for his sacrifice and support through this endeavor. Without his love, commitment, and
unwavering encouragement, this whole adventure would not have been possible. Words fail to
express how important you are to me.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF TABLES

ix

LIST OF FIGURES

x

CHAPTER 1: Introduction

1

CHAPTER 2: Literature Review
Disciplinary Learning
History Instruction
Literacy in History Classrooms
Content Area Literacy Instruction
Visual Arts Instruction
Interdisciplinary Instruction
Student Engagement
Summary of the Literature
My Research Focus

9
9
11
22
25
26
34
40
42
43

CHAPTER 3: Method
Research Design
Setting
Curricular Intervention
Sample
Data Sources and Collection
Data Analysis

45
45
46
49
53
57
62

CHAPTER 4: Results: Student Learning and Engagement
Student Learning in History: Quantitative Findings
Student Engagement and Learning: Qualitative Findings

65
65
73

CHAPTER 5: Teacher Findings
Benefits
Challenges

97
97
115

CHAPTER 6: Conclusion
Summary of Findings
Implications for Practice and Teacher Education
Limitations
Suggestions for Future Research
Educational Significance

127
128
139
144
146
147

APPENDICES
Appendix A: Unit Plan

150
151

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Appendix B: Grade Level Content Expectations
Appendix C: Student Assessment, Form A
Appendix D: Student Assessment, Form B
Appendix E: Construct Matching
Appendix F: Evaluation Rubric For Researcher-Created Assessment, Form A
Appendix G: Evaluation Rubric For Researcher-Created Assessment, Form B
Appendix H: Teacher Pre-Interview Protocol
Appendix I: Teacher Post-Interview Protocol
Appendix J: Grade Level Content expectations and Assessment Questions

155
157
168
181
184
188
193
195
196

REFERENCES

197

viii

LIST OF TABLES
Table 1

MEAP Scores: Percentage of Students Identified as Proficient

47

Table 2

School Demographics

56

Table 3

Pre-Assessments and Gain Scores in Experimental and Comparison
Classrooms

66

Table 4

Unit Plan Overview

151

Table 5

Social Studies

155

Table 6

English/Language Arts

156

Table 7

Prompt 1, Form A

159

Table 8

French and British Relations with the Native Americans

160

Table 9

Prompt 3, Form A

165

Table 10

Prompt 1, Form B

170

Table 11

Prompt 2, Form B

172

Table 12

Prompt 5, Form B

179

Table 13

Student Response, Form B, Q21

180

Table 14

Construct Matching

181

Table 15

Evaluation Rubric, Form A

184

Table 16

Evaluation Rubric, Form B

188

Table 17

Grade Level Content Expectations and Assessment Questions

196

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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1

American Progress by John Gast (1872)

Figure 2

Study Sequence

57

Figure 3

Columbian Exchange Organizer. Kevin created this organizer for
his students to use when taking notes during their reading and to
then be used when creating their flow chart.

87

Figure 4

Teacher Prompt, Lesson 11. I included a photograph of the
classroom chalkboard where the prompt was displayed and
referenced to for the students. This is handwritten material.

101

Figure 5

Clash of cultures. This table shows student sample responses of their
collaborative reading.

102

Figure 6a

Student examples of inferences. Based on Kevin’s explanation of
inferences, Figure 6a includes a student example of their work with
inferences. Nadine’s work exemplifies Kevin’s explanation of
inference. In addition, these students demonstrated their ability to
show causality, an important skill associated with history learning.
This is handwritten material.

108

Figure 6b

Student examples of inferences. Based on Kevin’s explanation of
inferences, Figure 6b includes two student examples of their work
with inferences. Zane’s work exemplifies Kevin’s explanation of
inference. In addition, these students demonstrated their ability to
show causality, an important skill associated with history learning.
This is handwritten material.

109

Figure 7

Map of Africa

157

Figure 8

The Columbian Exchange

162

Figure 9

World Map

163

Figure 10

Diagram from the slave ship Brookes, 1788

164

Figure 11

Map of Africa

168

Figure 12

The Columbian Exchange, Prompt 3

174

Figure 13

The World Map

175

x

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Figure 14

Slave Deck of the Bark “Wildfire” Illustration, Prompt 4

xi

176

Chapter 1
Introduction

Figure 1. American Progress by John Gast (1872)
For interpretation of the references to color in this and all other figures, the reader is referred to
the electronic version of this dissertation.”

Each year as a middle school American history teacher, I displayed John Gast’s American
Progress (1872) (Figure 1) as an introduction to our unit on westward expansion. I instructed my
students to “draw what you see.” After the students sketched the painting, I prompted them to
draw a line vertically through the center of their sketch and to draw a second line horizontally
through the center of their sketch, which created four quadrants that I identified as northeast
(upper right-hand quadrant), southeast (lower right-hand quadrant), northwest (upper left-hand
quadrant), and southwest (lower left-hand quadrant). We discussed the painting as a series of

1

four vignettes: one for each of the four quadrants. Beginning in the east or right-hand side of the
painting, my students would identify things like trains, telegraph lines, the bridge, and riverboats
(objects associated with an earlier unit of study about the rise of cities and industry in the early
nineteenth century) and then explain the story they thought Gast was trying to communicate to
his viewers. The students noticed the darkness in the west and brightness of sky in the east and
suggested the darkness represented the unknown and the brightness represented the known world
or civilization.
The students’ excitement to identify details in the painting and make hypotheses about
the meaning of these details was infectious. My students’ interest and understanding of westward
expansion appeared to be richer than in other units. Thus, I used interdisciplinary instruction as
part of teaching American history as an attempt to bring the past to life for my middle school
students because I had a “hunch” it worked well.
The purpose of this dissertation study is to investigate this “hunch”—to examine whether,
and if so, how students’ learning of history is changed following an interdisciplinary approach to
teaching history with the purposeful integration of literacy and the visual arts in comparison to
students’ learning of history through a more traditional approach (subject-specific) to instruction.
My study also explores two teachers’ views of the feasibility and effectiveness of this curricular
approach because if teachers do not find this approach workable, then they will most likely not
choose to teach in this way. Additionally, there are larger forces driving this study that are
considered such as the concern for the survival of elementary social studies and the concern for
providing high quality social studies to students in low-socio-economic (SES) settings.
U.S. elementary school teachers face many challenges ranging from meeting state
standards and expectations that have increased with the mandates of No Child Left Behind

2

(NCLB) (Jennings & Rentner, 2006) to limited resources that have shrunk with states’ economic
difficulties. With states facing great economic challenges, educators and policymakers have had
to eliminate classes in non-academic areas, such as the visual arts. There has been a significant
decline in social studies instruction, including history—one of the core social studies disciplines.
This decline corresponds with the implementation of educational policy focused on mathematics
and language arts (Fitchett & Heafner, 2010). The literature suggests that social studies is often
marginalized, especially in the elementary grades (Van Fossen, 2005; Vogler et al., 2007). This
lack of attention and exposure to history and the visual arts is particularly acute for children from
low–SES backgrounds since their schools often have even fewer resources for specialist classes
like visual arts and are under even greater pressure to meet state expectations in math and
literacy. Given these circumstances, teachers need to think creatively and across these disciplines
(history, content area literacy, and the visual arts) for opportunities to best engage their students
in these areas that are not assessed by high stakes tests. That is, since social studies and the visual
arts are often neglected in the curriculum, one way to reintroduce these subjects back into the
curriculum is by way of meaningful integration with an area such as literacy, which makes sense
pedagogically since literacy is an area that currently receives considerable instructional time.
At the state (i.e., Michigan) level, ambitious expectations have been established for
history, content area literacy, and the visual arts in the upper elementary grades (Michigan
Department of Education, 2006, 2007). However, NCLB virtually ignores history/social studies
and visual arts at the elementary level. Districts have cut back on subjects not tested under
NCLB, and social studies is the most visible victim (Center on Education Policy, 2006). Without
sufficient class time devoted to teaching foundational knowledge/skills in history, students are at
risk of not developing the characteristics associated with full and effective participation in a

3

democratic society or, in John Dewey’s words, of not “appreciat[ing] the values of social life”
(1902/1990, p. 151). He believed that children needed to be actively curious and be allowed to
experiment to develop reflective thinking. In order to develop reflective thinking, Dewey
suggested that teachers create opportunities for students to explore and to make connections
among their experiences.
One possibility for teachers to create meaningful experiences for students to be curious
and explore the social studies is through an interdisciplinary instructional approach. Due to the
curricular marginalization of history and the visual arts, often teachers can only attend to these
two disciplinary areas through a time-saving interdisciplinary approach in tandem with a subject
such as literacy. An interdisciplinary approach is an instructional approach in which disciplines
or subjects are taught in conjunction (often by way of a theme or topic, such as social activism or
war/conflict) that draws upon core knowledge and processes from multiple disciplines.
In Michigan, the history strand of the fifth-grade social studies Grade Level Content
Standards (GLCEs) (Michigan Department of Education, 2007) address complex issues of
migration, interaction among people, and human rights. Through a use of interdisciplinary
instruction, students can address the complexity of these issues from various disciplinary
perspectives (e.g. history, language arts, and the visual arts). Another learning benefit of this
approach for students is that it potentially makes the study of topics more meaningful, engaging,
and relevant (Van Oers & Wardukker, 1999). The topics can be more meaningful and relevant
because students address content in various contexts. In addition, students have opportunities to
make meaning and make connections among the disciplines and between the disciplines and
everyday topics through various perspectives. Interdisciplinary instructional approaches have
great promise for upper elementary social studies. Using an interdisciplinary approach, teachers

4

can purposefully reinforce skills and content ideas throughout the academic day thus students
have the opportunity to practice using new material. However, what is unclear about the
interdisciplinary approach is its effectiveness, as defined by whether students meet state content
expectations. In this study, I examine the benefits and challenges of this type of instruction.
Interdisciplinary education involves two or more disciplines taught in relation with one
another and connected through a theme, topic, or project. Jacobs (1991) defined interdisciplinary
instruction as “a knowledge view and curriculum approach that consciously applies methodology
and language from more than one discipline to examine a central theme, issue, problem, topic, or
experience” (pp. 22–23). The possibilities associated with this type of instruction can be
beneficial to teachers and students. For teachers, the benefits include feeling empowered to
organize learning opportunities for their students. In turn, students grapple with content and
skills in ways that are more authentic to learning and understanding in the world outside of
school. However, for interdisciplinary instruction to be effective, teachers need to understand its
challenges and need to be clear about their goals for the subjects they are integrating.
Drawing upon the research in interdisciplinary instruction, in my study, I answer three
central questions:
1) How does students’ learning in history change following their participation in an
interdisciplinary history-literacy-visual arts curriculum, and how does their learning
compare to students who learn the same content through traditional teaching approaches?
(2) In what ways, if any, do students who participate in an interdisciplinary historyliteracy-visual arts unit demonstrate engagement, historical thinking skills, and aesthetic
skills during the unit?
(3) How do teachers view the feasibility and effectiveness of implementing an

5

interdisciplinary history-literacy-visual arts curriculum?
The purpose of this dissertation study is to describe whether, and if so how students’
learning of history changes following an interdisciplinary approach to teaching history with the
purposeful integration of literacy and the visual arts, particularly in comparison to students’
learning of history through a more traditional approach (subject-specific) to instruction. My
study also explores two teachers’ perspectives about curricular feasibility and effectiveness
according to the teachers implementing the interdisciplinary unit.
In this dissertation, I provide answers to these questions through a quasi-experimental
study of fifth-grade classrooms in a low-SES school district in a first ring suburb of a large urban
center. Specifically, I explore student learning in history through pre- and post-assessments,
classroom observations, student work samples, and teacher interviews. Also, I seek to better
understand teachers’ beliefs about the feasibility of this kind of teaching and the effectiveness of
interdisciplinary teaching on students’ learning, using teacher interviews as my main data source.
In Chapter 2, I discuss the theories and research that frame this study of interdisciplinary
instruction. Through this discussion, I define the various terms and concepts I use to develop,
implement, and analyze data for this study. I discuss the research literature that informs the
current understanding of history instruction, literacy instruction, Aesthetic Development, visual
arts instruction, and interdisciplinary instruction.
Next, in Chapter 3, I describe my quasi-experimental mixed methodology. For this study,
I designed a curriculum intervention focused on interdisciplinary teaching in history, literacy,
and the visual arts in fifth-grade classrooms to examine its influence on student learning of
history. The unit I designed consists of 22-25 lessons (variance due to an authentic assessment

6

option, which would last for 3 lessons) on the convergence of three civilizations (African,
American, and European) in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
In Chapter 4, I detail the findings of this research and my analysis of those findings
associated with my first two research questions: (1) How does students’ learning in history
change following their participation in an interdisciplinary history-literacy-visual arts
curriculum, and how does their learning compare to students who learn the same content through
traditional teaching approaches? (2) In what ways, if any, do students who participate in an
interdisciplinary history-literacy-visual arts unit demonstrate engagement, historical thinking
skills, and aesthetic skills during the unit? I focus on the impact of this interdisciplinary
curricular intervention through a quantitative comparison of control and experimental
classrooms, as well as a qualitative description of the two experimental classrooms.
In Chapter 5, I discuss the findings of this research and my analysis of those findings
associated with my third research question: (3) How do teachers view the feasibility and
effectiveness of implementing an interdisciplinary history-literacy-visual arts curriculum? I use
teacher interviews and field observation to describe the experimental teachers’ perspectives on
interdisciplinary instruction.
In Chapter 6, I examine this research and evaluate the importance and implications of
what I have found. In the end, I argue that there are several key components of interdisciplinary
instruction at the upper elementary level that contribute to student success in meeting state
standards and increasing classroom involvement. Additionally, I present several
recommendations for teachers implementing interdisciplinary instruction for history, literacy,
and the visual arts. This research illustrates the need for further research on interdisciplinary
practices in elementary classrooms and in teacher practice in and teacher preparation for this type

7

of instruction. This study has the potential to contribute to our understanding of how students
learn about history and the ways teachers think about meaningful integration of disciplines. In an
era of decreased time for history/social studies and visual arts education, the meaningful
integration of history and visual arts with literacy is worth exploring as a potential solution to
this problem.

8

Chapter 2
Literature Review
In this study, I examine the relationship between interdisciplinary instruction involving
history, content area literacy, and visual arts and student learning in history. Specifically, I
compare the achievement of students who participate in interdisciplinary instruction to that of
students in traditional history instruction. I also explore the ways students who participate in the
interdisciplinary instruction demonstrate student engagement, exhibit historical thinking skills
during the lessons, and demonstrate aesthetic development skills. In this literature review, I
describe research in the areas of history instruction, the relationship of history and content area
literacy instruction, visual arts instruction, and interdisciplinary instruction. In examining these
areas of instruction, I describe features of each area of instruction, best practices associated with
student achievement, challenges teachers face in teaching each area, and gaps in the research. I
also review the literature on student engagement and aesthetic development skills that is relevant
to my study. Before describing the research in these areas, I explain my use of the terms
“disciplinary learning” (interdisciplinary learning” is described later in the chapter, after I have
discussed the three areas of history, literacy, and visual arts).
Disciplinary Learning
According to Schwab (1962), a discipline is a body of specific knowledge or area of
specialization. Schwab (1962) argued that all disciplines have two kinds of structure: substantive
and syntactical. The substantive structures of a discipline refer to the conceptual structure: its
organization, central concepts, principles, theories, and so forth. Syntactical structures of a
discipline describe the system for gathering and evaluating data, testing assertions, and making
broader generalizations. In other words, syntactical structure refers to the ways of knowing or

9

sense-making--how the discipline interprets the raw data to make generalizations, theories, and
so forth. These structures exhibit some very basic characteristics that are stable. Within a broad
framework of stable structures, each discipline exhibits more specific structures that may be
more or less stable at a given time in the growth of the discipline.
From this perspective, not all school subjects are disciplines. For example, social studies
is not a discipline. Rather, it is a multi-disciplinary field. The National Council for the Social
Studies (NCSS), the leading national organization in social studies, defines the field as:
the integrated study of the social sciences and humanities to promote civic
competence. Within the school program, social studies provides coordinated,
systematic study drawing upon such disciplines as anthropology, archaeology,
economics, geography, history, law, philosophy, political science, psychology,
religion, and sociology, as well as appropriate content from the humanities,
mathematics, and natural sciences. The primary purpose of social studies is to
help young people make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as
citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world.
The aim of social studies is the promotion of civic competence—the knowledge,
intellectual processes, and democratic dispositions required of students to be
active and engaged participants in public life. (NCSS, 2010, p. 3)
This multi-disciplinary school subject does not have one area of substantive content. Rather, it
draws on content from a range of disciplines. Nor does social studies have a common system by
which one can gather data, test hypotheses, or make generalizations. Rather, each of the
disciplines within social studies (e.g., history) has these systems. Additionally, most states do
not focus on all the disciplines listed above in their social studies content expectations; states

10

usually focus on economics, geography, history, and political science (civics) (Michigan
Department of Education, 2007). The fact that social studies is comprised of so many disciplines
(and by extension, many kinds of content and many ways of knowing) makes instruction and
learning complicated. As such, at the high school level, social studies tends to be taught in
courses that focus on single disciplines (e.g., U.S. history, economics, and civics/government).
For a variety of reasons, described next, I decided to focus squarely on the discipline of history
in my study rather than on multiple disciplines within social studies, and study an
interdisciplinary approach using history, literacy, and visual arts.
History Instruction
The central area—in this case, a discipline—addressed in this study is history. The
reasons for this focus are two-fold: (a) fifth-grade social studies focuses mainly on history and to
a lesser extent geography, economics, and civics, and (b) because my research question focuses
on the degree to which historical content knowledge and historical thinking skills improve during
an interdisciplinary unit. History, like the other disciplines embedded in social studies,
economics, geography, political science, sociology, anthropology, to name a few, occupies an
unusual place in the school curriculum because for some grade levels, particularly at the middle
and high school level and sometimes at the upper elementary level, it is a school subject.
However, for the lower elementary grades, and sometimes the upper elementary grades, it is just
one discipline among many taught in social studies. History is the study of the human past,
which involves (but is not limited to) examining causal relationships, chronology of events, and
perspectives. Students study accounts of the past to try to make sense of what, when, and how
events happened and who was involved. They also evaluate decisions historical figures made in
the past and think about how the past would be different if certain events or movements had not

11

happened. History focuses on significant events (e.g., wars, political elections, and revolutions),
as well as on social and intellectual movements. Thus, “history” is not simply what happened in
the past, but also the dialogue among historians about why and how events unfolded. This
discipline requires gathering and evaluating evidence and arguments. In addition, one draws
conclusions about the past based on evidence and arguments.
History and literacy share the act of reading of texts. In history, these texts are primary
sources, such as political documents, diaries, and newspaper accounts, and secondary sources.
Such texts can present multiple difficulties for students, since the language and sentence
structure used, as well as the content of the documents, is unfamiliar. To be a good reader of
historical documents, one has to generally be a good reader and have discipline specific reading
skills (Bain, 2006; Moje, 2007). In order to be a good reader of history and historical
information, a student must be able to summarize texts. Additionally, students should be able to
identify the main ideas of various texts. In order to be an effective reader of history, students
should be able to evaluate sources for credibility and bias. Last, students should be able to make
inferences about a time and place based on what they read.
In the state of Michigan, these skills are identified within English/Language Arts Content
Expectations (Michigan Department of Education, 2007), not as part of the history or social
studies content expectations. The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts &
Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects similarly address reading and
writing in the areas of history/social studies (Council of Chief State School Officers & the
National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, 2010).
In this section I discuss how educators and historians have defined history content (the
substantive structure of the discipline) and historical thinking skills (the syntactic structure of the

12

discipline), and I then review the research on history instruction, how students make sense of
history, and the relationship between history instruction and student learning.
Historical content. The fifth-grade curriculum focuses on early American history.
Students utilize the social sciences (civics, economics, and geography) to better understand
history. Both the National History Standards (National Center for History in the Schools, 1996)
and the Michigan Grade Level Content Expectations (GLCEs) (Michigan Department of
Education, 2007) for fifth-grade address three eras of American history: (1) the world prior to
1600, (2) colonization and settlement, and (3) revolution and the new nation.
The first era of American history and the focus of this study’s intervention unit that fifthgraders study is the world prior to 1600. As part of this era, students in Michigan are introduced
to world history as a foundation for understanding American history. Students examine life in
Africa, Europe, and the Americas prior to European exploration. These examinations include a
geographic understanding of the relationship between people and places and civic understanding
of how people are organized and governed. In addition, students address causes and
consequences of European exploration, geographically, economically, and civically (e.g., the
Columbian Exchange). Students utilize tools of the historian to better explain exploration and
the relationship among Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans (Michigan Department of
Education, 2007).
The second era of American history fifth-graders study is colonization and settlement
(1585-1763). Students are introduced to the development of three colonial regions: New
England and the Middle and Southern colonies. Students examine these three regions, the
establishment of each, and the impact geography had on the economic and communal
development of the regions. This includes discussions of enslaved Africans.

13

The third era of American history that fifth-graders study focuses on the American
Revolution and the development of the United States. In studying this era (1754-1800), students
focus on historical developments from the perspective of government and economics. This
collection of eras and the events associated with each is one way to define history.
The curriculum outlined above is just one way of addressing the key disciplinary question
“What is history.” There are a myriad of ways to teach to this question, and each approach
requires a different set of skills and resources. In Re-thinking History, Jenkins (1991) introduces
various controversies and debates on historical thinking, guiding the reader through history
theory and practice, the nature of history, frequently asked questions about the discourse of
history, and “doing” history. Jenkins describes history as a dynamic body of knowledge in
which he advocates for students to critically approach reading and thinking historically in order
to understand the interpretive nature of history. To do this, it is important for teachers to think
across content areas and, in particular, think about the relationship between history and literacy
instruction.
Dewey helps us think about the relationship of history and literacy. Dewey (1990, 1902)
described history as “an account of the forces and forms of social life” (p. 151). He went on to
say, “To study history is not to amass information, but to use information in constructing a vivid
picture of how and why men did thus and so achieved their successes and came to their failures”
(p.151). In order to construct a vivid picture, students must draw upon a variety of historical and
literacy-based resources and skills.
Historical thinking skills. The first theoretical framework I will discuss is historical
thinking, which was built upon by Wineburg (1991). There are five standards associated with
historical thinking: (1) chronological thinking, (2) historical comprehension, (3) historical

14

analysis and interpretation, (4) historical research, and (5) using historical issues in order to make
decisions (National Center for History in Schools, 1996). These standards of historical thinking
are integral in the design of interdisciplinary unit plans, classroom observations, as well as in the
analysis of students’ work samples and pre- and post-assessments.
Chronological thinking, the first standard of historical thinking, provides a way to
organize the past and to show relationships among events as a means of explaining cause and
effects (historical causality). The National Center of History in Schools (1996) recommends the
use of narratives, e.g. biographies, historical fiction, and narrative histories, in developing
students’ chronological thinking because these sources can engage students and keep their
attention. Thus, the student/reader can use these engaging sources to make observations about
temporal structure: how events unfold over time, motivations of those involved in the events
described, and chronological connections between causes and consequences of various events.
The second standard of historical thinking, historical comprehension, requires students to
use historical narratives to develop their ability to explain a sequence of events and analyze the
contemporary factors that influenced the course of those historical events. In order to
demonstrate these skills, students should be able to (1) identify the central question addressed in
the historical narrative; (2) define the perspective or point of view of the narrative; (3) read the
historical analysis; and (4) recognize the narrative’s text organization through rhetorical clues
and text features. As a result, students use a variety of data, including architecture, artifacts,
diaries, graphic organizers representing visual, mathematical, and quantitative data, (historical)
maps, letters, paintings, photographs, political cartoons, and other visual sources “in order to
clarify, illustrate, or elaborate upon the information presented in the text” (National Center for
History in the Schools, 1996).

15

Historical analysis and interpretation, the third standard of historical thinking, is closely
linked to historical comprehension. To address this standard, students must work with a variety
of historical resources to differentiate historical interpretations or varied perspectives on
historical events. In addition, students understand that historians interpret facts, and thus may
disagree on facts associated with historical narratives. Historical analysis employs historical
comprehension skills, e.g. student evaluation of historical evidence. Through various historical
narratives and evidence, students explore and analyze historical causality while avoiding monocausality of events. Finally, students begin to understand the relationship between the past and
the present.
Historical research, the fourth standard of historical thinking, is based on students’
encounters with various historical perspectives and evidence—students develop questions about
the past. Historical inquiry begins with the identification of a problem or questions to investigate
followed by students gathering evidence associated with the problem or questions. Through this
process, students practice the construction of written history, complete with judgments about past
events. During the inquiry process, students’ contextual knowledge of a time and place
historically is crucial because it allows them to construct a sound historical argument or
historical narrative. In addition, with this standard, students experience the ways historians
reinterpret the past—through the use of new evidence and the re-examination old evidence.
Last, the fifth standard of historical thinking, using historical issues in order to make
decisions, requires students to think about historical issues at pivotal historical moments from a
contemporary perspective. Students built upon the previous four standards to demonstrate their
ability to explore historical issues and decision-making. They use their knowledge of the past as

16

well as various evidence and historical narratives to make informed decisions within their
historical analysis.
This strategy for examining historical thinking also works well for taking an
interdisciplinary approach that combines history and the visual arts because both disciplines offer
rich primary sources for investigation, allowing students to evaluate and draw conclusions about
what happened in the past. “Historical thinking that leads to historical understanding requires a
range of cognitions, those that can be used by both experts and novices” (VanSledright, 2005, p.
9). Having the capacity to think historically requires putting the past in context, while engaging
in the process of historical inquiry (Rogers, 1987).
Contextualizing the past involves imagination, empathy, and moral judgment (Lee, 1984;
Seixas, 1996). In order to make sense of the past, one must utilize historical inquiry, which
students do as they make use of literature and visual art in order to assess the subtexts of
historical accounts and corroborate evidence.
History instruction. In this section, I review (1) research on what history instruction
looks; (2) research on how students make sense of history; and (3) the relationship between
history instruction and student learning. While there are many studies on the first two areas,
there is limited research on the third.
While many researchers (e.g., Brophy & Alleman, 1991; Levstik & Barton, 2008;
Wineburg, 1991) have explored how students “make sense” of history, fewer researchers have
examined the ways particular kinds of instruction influence student learning. According to
Levstik and Barton (2008), history instruction involves a preponderance of lecture. Brophy
(1990) acknowledged “University-based scholars tend to criticize teachers for relying too much
on textbooks, teaching isolated facts and skills without enough emphasis on coherent structures

17

and application opportunities” (p. 366). He suggested alternative methods of instruction for
elementary students learning social studies that emphasize application of conceptual knowledge.
Some scholars have studied the influence of traditional instruction on students’ history
knowledge and skills. For example, in a case study of her own fifth-grade classroom, Reagan
(2008) explains the use of direct skill instruction for the study of American immigration. Reagan
(2008) structured instruction around skills that would help students with their study of history, in
other subject areas, and beyond the classroom. She explains step-by-step direct skill instruction.
In order to illustrate the impact of this approach on students, she shares student-teacher
conversations, historical sources, a thinking-strategy map, graphic organizers, and an assessment.
She concludes by describing further possibilities for direct skill instruction, which includes
determining the reliability of various historical resources in addition to evaluating contemporary
resources, e.g. advertisements, as the fifth-graders study other topics in American history.
Ultimately, she argues for the effectiveness of direction instruction approaches on student
learning in history (Reagan, 2008).
In contrast, Pappas, Kiefer, and Levstik (1995) write about the necessity of students
working with many different information sources as an integral part of thematic history
instruction. When planning and implementing lessons, the authors believe teachers should use a
variety of informational sources, which may include both informational and fictional texts,
internet sources, locations/field trips, magazines and newspapers, reference books, resource
people, and videos and films. Further, the authors believe that teachers need to employ artifacts
and props, as part of thematic instruction (Pappas et al., 1995).
White (1995) moves beyond looking at a variety of sources and believes history teachers
need to examine several teaching and learning issues. He asks: What should students learn and

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how should they learn it? Does this learning entail students’ remembering people, places, dates,
and events, or can it also mean understanding broader themes and concepts, such as cause and
effect, change, chronology, diversity, and historical interpretation? Further, how should
knowledge be assessed? Should learning only be determined by traditional measures, such as
multiple choice and essay tests? Or could one use a visual product, such as a collage, mural, or
drawing, measure learning? Is it also possible for students to show historical understanding in a
debate, monologue, or role-play? If, as teachers, we accept a broader view of learning, then
should we not also accept a broader view of content and how it is taught and assessed?
Levstik (1996) suggests that teaching students to engage in “doing history” involves a
"shift from an emphasis on a ‘story well told’ (or, the story as told in the textbook), to an
emphasis on ‘sources well scrutinized,’ which means students pose questions, collect and
analyze sources, struggle with issues of significance, and ultimately build their own historical
interpretations" (p. 394). Bain (2000) acknowledges that it is the teacher who, after reading the
literature, is the one left to “design activities that engage students in using such thinking in the
classroom” (p. 334).
Teachers struggle with difficult questions, including: how can teachers help to facilitate a
deeper understanding of the past by their students? And how can students work with primary
sources in developmentally appropriate ways? Many teachers encounter the challenge of
creating a learning environment that supports students in an exploration of history via inquiry.
Other challenges to implementing historical inquiry in the classroom include (1) the time
pressure teachers feel to address the content/the curriculum/the textbook, in order to prepare
students for the end of year or standardized assessments (McNeil, 1986); (2) the level of
sophisticated content knowledge necessary to teach students how to engage in “doing of history”

19

(Wineburg, 2001); (3) the (perceived) lack of students’ enthusiasm to closely examine sources in
order to develop evidence-based understandings of the past (VanSledright, 2002); and (4) the
challenges students encounter when identifying and explaining the significance of sources in an
effort to investigate and respond to their historical questions.
VanSledright and Kelly (1998) suggest two ways in which teaching and learning history
in elementary classrooms could be changed in order for the full potential of an inquiry-based,
multi-source approach to be reached. First, strategies might include teaching students to draw
from multiple resources, including their own prior knowledge, in order to reconstruct the past;
discussing validity and reliability of evidence, including issues of bias in conflicting sources; and
enabling students to begin the practice of sourcing information by utilizing primary sources and
only employing texts that contain references. Second, VanSledright and Kelly (1998) advocate
for a shift in the type of history promoted in classrooms. This means teachers would present
history as representations of the past authored by various people with different purposes for
retelling a story. For many teachers, this is a different way of thinking about history teaching
(Bain, 2005; Hutton et al., 2006).
In order to think about retelling history differently, several studies have been done on
reading and writing in history. De La Paz (2005) conducted a study of 70 eighth graders
(including talented writers, “average” students, and those receiving special education services)
who participated in an integrated unit (social studies and language arts). The unit was designed to
promote both historical understandings and writing skills. The study describes how teachers and
tasks foster students’ historical reading and writing. The unit was approximately three weeks
long and included 12 days of historical reasoning instruction and ten days of writing instruction.
Students read documents and applied historical inquiry strategies. Students learned to plan

20

argumentative essays related to various historical events. De La Paz found that students were
able to write more historically accurate and more persuasive essays in comparison to the students
in a control group (62 students) who did not receive the historical understanding or writing
instruction.
While many scholars have written about and advocated particular approaches to history
instruction, fewer have examined the relationship between those approaches and student
learning. However, De La Paz and Felton (2010) have examined the effects of historical
reasoning strategy on student writing. The researchers designed an instructional approach for
students in the experimental group. In this approach, students did use a pre-writing strategy in
preparing argumentative writing. While studying twentieth century American history, the
experimental group of students (n = 81) learned historical inquiry strategies and a pre-writing
strategy to develop argumentative essays related to each historical event investigated. These
students’ essays were compared to essays written by a control group (n = 79). In both groups,
students read the same primary and secondary source materials and received feedback on written
essays on the same topics. The essays written by students in the experimental group essays were
stronger in two ways. First, the essays were rated as having significantly greater historical
accuracy. Second, the essays were identified as significantly more persuasive due to more
elaborate claims and refutations within each argument (De La Paz & Felton, 2010).
In addition, Monte-Sano and Cochran (2009) address the needs of adolescents through a
focus on disciplinary literacy (Moje, 2007). In their study, Monte-Sano and Cochran (2009)
examined the ways two teachers think and reason based on discipline texts and tasks. In addition,
the teachers think about how adolescents grapple with in order to help them become proficient
readers and writers. The researchers asked teachers to do an analysis of their students’ work.

21

These teachers focused on their students’ disciplinary thinking and their skills. The researchers
examined the impact of teachers’ disciplinary understanding, district and school contexts,
pedagogical content knowledge, and pre-service experience on their learning. The authors found
that each teacher had different strengths: one teacher focused on developing students’ historical
understandings, and the other focused on reading comprehension and student engagement.
In summary, historians and history educators tend to advocate history instruction that
involves higher-order thinking skills, that replicates of the work of historians (in
developmentally appropriate ways), and that goes beyond traditional textbook and lecture.
However, most history instruction tends to be of the textbook-lecture variety. Studies have also
examined the challenges students have in making sense of history (e.g., presentism, chauvinism,
ethnocentrism, difficulty with chronological thinking) and most history instruction does not tend
to address these challenges. Last, there is limited but promising research on the influence of
alternative approaches to history instruction on student learning. My study seeks to extend the
kind of work that De La Paz and Felton, Monte-Sano, and VanSledright do in examining the
relationship between alternative approaches and student learning in history.
Literacy in History Classrooms
In her review of the literature on disciplinary literacy, Moje (2007) examines a wide
variety of materials (books and edited volumes), providing an overview of different perspectives
on disciplinary literacy and how these different perspectives contribute to our ideas of how to
develop socially aware, content-based instruction in school settings. The disciplinary
distinctions presented in later elementary and middle schools, which are similar to those that
exist in high schools, begin to highlight the differences in disciplinary practices. As students
move and transition from class to class, the practices associated with each school subject seem to

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be associated with a person or place rather than a discipline. For example, students may
associate writing with something they do in language arts class, so when they are asked to write
in a history class, they do not associate the skills introduced and utilized in language arts as being
applicable.
One way to present history authored by various actors is through authentic literature,
which is text in the language of the author (Routman, 1991)—that is, the texts are not altered for
student consumption. Through the use of authentic literature, students have demonstrated an
excitement and motivation to learn (Cullinan, 1992). According to Huck, “We don’t achieve
literacy and then give children literature; we achieve literacy through literature” (1989, p. 258).
Using literature to enhance historical understanding includes employing a balance of texts,
narrative and expository (Cullinan, 1992).
History teachers use authentic literature in the form of primary sources. For example, in
the intervention unit I designed, the students read excerpts from Before Columbus (Mann, 2010)
and Slavery (Grant, 2009). The intent was to use texts that would promote students’ historical
thinking skills, including chronological thinking, historical comprehension, historical analysis
and interpretation, historical research, and historical decision-making (National Center for
History in the Schools, 1996).
Narratives are only one kind of text that students read in history. In addition, students
read informational texts in history. Informational text is a type of nonfiction that has a specific
purpose, features, and format (Duke & Bennett-Armistead, 2003). According to Greenlaw and
McIntosh (1987), students need to experience expository or informational texts as an important
resource in order to gain new knowledge about concepts. Informational texts give students an
important perspective on the world (Duke & Bennett-Armistead, 2003). In addition, access to

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informational texts can motivate students to read and write. This is particularly true for students
who have a strong interest in informational material (Caswell & Duke, 1998). Guthrie and
Anderson (1999) provide a view of reading engagement. They found that motivated readers are
more likely to be active citizens later—engaging in voting and joining civic organizations.
Monte-Sano (2010) proposes a descriptive framework for adolescents’ historical writing.
Monte-Sano pays close attention the particular literary demands of a discipline that are required
for students to develop more advanced literacy skills. In this qualitative study, Monte-Sano
(2010) analyzes written responses (n=56) by eleventh graders to a document-based essay
question. Document-based essays were used to identify and illustrate several characteristics of
historical writing, including the use of various sources of evidence to persuade, to corroborate, to
contextualize, and for the purpose of interpretive accuracy. To exemplify these characteristics,
Monte-Sano (2010) presents a myriad of student samples and defines historical writing as a
framework for integrating historical content with literacy, as well as developing literacy skills.
She found 49 of 56 students were able to write an argumentative piece with evidence. The
students in the sample demonstrated five uses of evidence: accuracy, persuasiveness, sourcing,
corroboration, and contextualization.
Nelson (1994) shares a piece of action research in which she links history and literature
in her fifth-grade classroom. She used an interdisciplinary instructional model in which the
historical content (e.g., a theme, time period, location, or people) is central to the instruction.
She used trade books to integrate reading, writing, thinking, and curricular material and claims
that the interdisciplinary model represents a link of historical content and literature, which more
effectively teaches students about history. Nelson’s students gained skills in historical literacy
through an immersion in literature. They learned about issues by asking questions prompted, in

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part, by the literature they read. As a result of this experience, students were better able to relate
to events past, present, and future.
In summary, we know teachers use a variety of texts (e.g., narrative, informational texts)
for different purposes in history classrooms. The various texts used come with benefits and
challenges including how teachers understand the texts and use them with their students.
Content Area Literacy Instruction
For this study, literacy is being defined as content area literacy or disciplinary literacy.
These two areas have much overlap, the central difference being that the term “content area
literacy” has been used for longer than disciplinary literacy and that disciplinary literacy tends to
be used in reference to students in upper elementary, middle, and high school. Each will be
defined in the following paragraphs.
Content area literacy is the ability to obtain new information in a given discipline through
the use reading and writing (McKenna & Robinson, 1993). McKenna and Robinson (1993)
identify three components of content area literacy: general literacy skills, content-specific
literacy skills, and prior knowledge of content. Swafford and Kallus (2002) define content area
literacy as using (1) background knowledge; (2) print and non-print texts (which is done in this
study); and (3) the language arts skills to explore, construct, and communicate.
Disciplinary literacy emphasizes the notion that literacy differs by discipline--for
example, that we read differently in history than we do in biology (Moje, 2007). Reading in
history is a practice distinct to the discipline of history (Bain, 2006; Wineburg, 2003). Wineburg
(2003) argues that historians follow a disciplinary process of reading and analyzing historical
narratives, which includes, but is not limited to, determining authorship and context.

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Shanahan and Shanahan (2008) argue disciplinary literacy should be a focus in middle
school and high school. They present data collected during the first two years of a study on
disciplinary literacy about how content experts and secondary content teachers read disciplinaryspecific texts and make use of comprehension strategies. Findings suggested that experts from
history (and other subjects discussed) read their respective texts differently. In turn, how do
these content experts and secondary content teachers teach those reading and comprehension
strategies to adolescent students? Shanahan and Shanahan (2008) suggested that students who
are required to complete content specific tasks are better prepared for the reading, thinking, and
writing. In order to best prepare students for disciplinary reading tasks, teachers must also be
prepared in their disciplines. Teachers may or may not have the required knowledge of content
literacy in order to teach both history and reading. This is a potential drawback of crosscurricular instruction—teacher preparation.
Visual Arts Instruction
The third area addressed in this study is the visual arts, which, like history, is considered
a discipline. The area includes the traditional fine arts, such as drawings, etchings, painting,
printmaking, and sculpture, and the design arts (e.g., architecture, ceramics, folk arts, graphics,
works in wood, paper, and other materials) (National Art Education Association, 1994). The
visual arts address a variety of issues and transcend economic and cultural boundaries. Often,
the meaning of visual art pieces is ambiguous, and thus open to interpretation by viewers.
Eisner (1996) described the creation and interpretation of art in terms of forms of
representation. Forms of representation are “the devices humans use to make public conceptions
that are privately held” (p. 39). These devices include the variety of fine arts and design arts
described at the start of this section as well as auditory experiences (e.g. speeches) and

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kinesthetic displays (e.g. dance). The form of representation one uses to demonstrate conceptual
understandings varies from person to person and is influenced by their experiences. Eisner
(2002) explained the role of the arts in education is to “refine our senses so that our ability to
experience the world is made more complex and subtle” (p. 19). Thus, these forms of
representation help students think about, create, and interpret works of art. Students are able to
encode (create) and decode (interpret) larger cultural ideas through various art forms.
According to the Visual Arts Elementary Content Standards and Benchmarks (Michigan
Department of Education, 1998), students should be able to both create their own visual arts
products and interpret the visual arts. For the creation of the visual arts, this includes the use
traditional methods and materials. The interpretation of the visual arts requires a range of skills
(e.g., analyzing particular visual structure and functions of art; explaining the relationship
between visual arts and everyday life; comparing pieces of art belonging to a particular time,
culture, and place; and explaining the relationship between history and the visual arts). The
visual arts interpretation shares some features with the interpretation of historical artifacts (e.g.,
analyzing meaning, identifying the creator, and explaining its significance).
Schwab (1962) stated, each discipline has its own set of disciplinary structures; however,
these structures can span different disciplines—both history and visual arts require the
observation and interpretation of artifacts. Students should be able to analyze pieces of art in
terms of the story being told/idea being communicated and what the piece communicates about
the time and place in which it was created. In elementary schools, a disciplinary specialist (i.e.
an art teacher or a classroom teacher who may or may not have an expertise in arts education)
often teaches the visual arts.

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Aesthetic Development. I use Aesthetic Development (Housen, 1992) to describe
students’ growth in the ways they observe and interpret images in the unit. Housen (1992)
outlined five stages of Aesthetic Development that I use to frame observations, as well as
analyze students’ work samples and pre- and post- assessments. According to Housen (1992),
these stages occur sequentially and are equally important. Each stage represents a collection of
aesthetic skills, thus less experienced (novice) art observers are not less skilled at knowing how
to look at art, they simply have less experience and, as a result, possess a smaller collection of
strategies for evaluating and understanding art. In order to promote Aesthetic Development, it is
necessary to expose students to art over time. The five stages of development are Accountive,
Constructive, Classifying, Interpretive, and Re-Creative.
The first stage of Aesthetic Development is the Accountive Stage. Those individuals
identified in the Accountive stage (Stage I) of Aesthetic Development are described as
storytellers. According to Housen (1992), students/observers use tangible observations and
personal links to create a story or narrative of the piece. The evaluation of art at this stage is
based on observations of what the observer knows and what they like. Often, observers’
comments or stories are based on emotion.
The second stage of Aesthetic Development is the Constructive Stage (Stage II). As part
of this stage, observers begin to build a framework for looking at artwork. They use their prior
knowledge, e.g., perceptions and knowledge and values of the world around them, in their
observations and descriptions of artwork. If the work does not fit into the viewer’s experience or
look the way it is “supposed to,” the viewer may deem it as “weird” (Housen, 2002, p. 114) or
lacking value.

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The third stage of Aesthetic Development is the Classifying Stage (Stage III). In this
stage, viewers are more critical and analytical in their observations of artwork. In many ways,
viewers take on the role of art historians. Observers identify and examine specific artwork in
terms of “place, school, style, time and provenance” (DeSantis & Housen, 2007, p. 14). They
attempt to explain and rationalize the meaning of artwork through the use of data (facts and
figures) to categorize the work.
The fourth stage of Aesthetic Development is the Interpretive Stage (Stage IV). At this
stage, viewers seek personal encounters with the artwork. They explore the artwork, letting
meanings develop as they appreciate subtleties of the piece, e.g. line, shape, and color. At this
stage, the observer’s feelings take precedence over their critical skills. This allows for the
symbols of the work to become apparent for the viewer and for the viewer to make meaning of
the symbols. Housen (1992) points out the new encounters with artwork allow for the possibility
of new insights and experiences. Art observers recognize that observations and interpretations of
artwork are subject to reinterpretation. As a result, the observer’s own interpretations are subject
to change.
The last stage of Aesthetic Development is the Re-Creative Stage (Stage V). In this stage,
Housen (1992) identifies observers as having many experiences viewing and reflecting on
artwork. A major component of this stage is time. Viewers have experiences and are more
knowledgeable of artwork (e.g. time period, history, questions, and provenance). At this stage,
observers combine personal experiences and contemplation with their history and a piece of
artwork in order to address universal concerns.
This framework is useful because of its overlaps with historical thinking. In both
Aesthetic Development and historical thinking, students organize ideas and understandings

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chronologically. Also, students must make interpretations of varied materials as an aspect of
historical thinking and Aesthetic Development. Last, through each approach, students
demonstrate understandings of the event or piece of art in context.
Research on visual arts instruction. In the era of high-stakes testing, there is a fear
among art educators that schools will divert instructional time and resources from the arts to
highly tested curricular areas (e.g. reading and math) (Amadio, Truong, & Tschurenev, 2006;
Eisner, 2000). In order to address the value of the arts as part of an elementary education,
scholars have taken a variety of approaches, including the transfer of knowledge (Darby &
Catterall, 1994; Fiske, 1999; Hamblen, 1993) and, most associated with this study, the use of arts
to study other academic disciplines (Catterall & Waldorf, 1999; Fiske 1999).
Eisner (1992) claims the arts can be used to both acquire and express the knowledge and
understandings students gain in schools. Through the arts, students engage in the aesthetic world
to learn new information. Students gain new information while thinking creatively and using
their imaginations.
While history and literacy are a natural pair, since they are both text-based, history and
the visual arts are also a natural pair because so many historical accounts are artistic renderings
of events and people. The visual arts serve as a record of the past and serve to connect people
across time and space. Elementary education often focuses more on use written texts than visual
primary sources (works of art and other cultural artifacts), although exploring visual sources can
contribute to the understanding of multiple perspectives. In addition, examining and analyzing
works of art can make history come alive and generate excitement about learning (Laney, 2007).
Gee (2000) argues that the arts are a form of communication. Thus, students can utilize
art to construct and express new arts knowledge. Like written and spoken language that is made

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up of parts of speech, the visual arts have a language that consists of elements, including color,
shape, space, and texture (Gee, 2000).
Teachers can use these artistic elements to scaffold the use of the visual arts in history
instruction and through the use of Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) (Housen, 2002). The use of
VTS by teachers and students fosters development through the aesthetic stages (Housen, 1992).
As described earlier, these stages include a myriad of critical thinking skills (e.g., ask, observe,
differentiate, explain, discuss, interpret, and make assertions). VTS emphasize stage-appropriate
actions. Thus, at a beginning level art historical information (e.g. dates, facts) is not appropriate
because an observer has fewer experiences from which to draw. VTS center on the use of Stage I
(narrative) and Stage II (constructive) skills, as was done in this study.
Housen and DeSantis (1993) conducted a longitudinal (five-year) study to explore the
benefits of VTS with students in a museum setting. Sample students were in second, third, and
fourth grades at the start of the study and included 52 randomly selected students from the
experimental school and 47 randomly selected subjects from the control school. Housen and
DeSantis (1993) collected pre- and post-interview data. They found evidence that the use of VTS
leads to growth of critical thinking among elementary-age students in art and other school
subject areas. The findings identify critical thinking occurs when elementary students react and
respond to artwork over time. Additionally, Housen and DeSantis (1993) explain “how learning
in the arts can enable students to move beyond the interpretation of images into critical thinking
in other areas” (p. 7).
Housen and DeSantis (2002) also studied students (grades three, four, and five) in a
museum setting who completed VTS lessons. The sample included 25 experimental and 25
control students. During this three-year study, data was collected twice a year: prior to the first

31

yearly VTS lesson and after the last VTS lesson of the year, in order to follow the growth of
aesthetic skills and general critical thinking skills. Data included pre- and post-interviews,
demographic questionnaires, museum biographies, material object interviews, and writing
samples. The researchers found that students who participated in VTS lessons significantly
outperformed students who did not have VTS lessons in both aesthetic thinking and critical
thinking skills. There was evidence that the experimental students were able to transfer critical
thinking skills, such as supported observations and hypothesis, to their individual art-viewing
experiences. The students utilized the critical thinking skills in other classroom situations. They
clearly demonstrated steps in the learning process (Hosen & DeSantis, 2002).
DeMoss and Morris (2002) compared the impact arts-integrated curriculum and traditional
learning have on student learning across ten classrooms (n = 30). They conducted a series of
surveys, observations, interviews, student focus groups, and artifact collection (primarily writing
samples) and found that art-integrated curriculum affected students in several ways. First,
students were more independent and intrinsically motivated to learn. Second, they found
students’ learning was more focused on understanding as opposed to recall. Third, students’
written interpretations included richer analytic interpretations and affective connections. Fourth,
the implementation of arts-integrated curriculum helped students engage in content discussions
and development. Based on these findings, DeMoss and Morris (2002) identified six
characteristics of desirable art-integrated curriculum:
•

Application of arts concepts;

•

Demonstration of student work habits;

•

Explanation of activities, expectations, and outcomes;

•

Inclusion of democratic ideals;

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•

Participation that is equitable and connected instruction; and

•

Utilization of challenging content.

Erickson (1997) studied the effects of art history instruction and found some evidence of
its positive influence on students’ learning across the curriculum and in students’ lives. There
were three key findings in this study. First, there was an increase in students’ knowledge bases in
the art disciplines. Second, there was evidence of students’ ability to ask questions that was
transferable to other subject matter. Third, students were more likely to acknowledge and seek
out varied perspectives. While all three of these findings may impact students’ history learning,
the second and third findings are noteworthy because these skills are used in history teaching and
learning.
Gullatt (2008) reviewed the limited empirical literature on the benefits of the arts for
teachers and students in elementary through high school settings. The relationship between
academic achievement and exposure to art had mixed results (Gullatt, 2007; Winner & Hetland,
2000).
Strand (2006) documented the impact of arts programs through a collection of case
studies. She utilized a variety of qualitative data including correspondence with the participants;
interviews with teachers, administrators, and students; field notes; lesson transcriptions, and
examples of student work. A researcher journal with her impressions and analytical memos and
diagrams of evolving patterns was kept. Strand (2006) identified themes and made policy
recommendations for arts partnerships. She found that the greatest possible value of arts
integration is to help learners experience learning more holistically.

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Interdisciplinary Instruction
Elementary children do not divide their lives and learning into different disciplines. So
as teachers divide up their students’ academic day, it becomes important for teachers and
students to recognize the differences among disciplines and to develop understandings of various
disciplines. Without a thorough understanding of individual disciplines, it can be difficult to
develop an interdisciplinary awareness of the possibilities between disciplines (Lederman, 1994).
Defining interdisciplinary. In this section, I use a variety of different terms (e.g.,
interdisciplinary, integrated, and cross-disciplinary) based upon the terms each author uses. In
this study, I use the terms interdisciplinary and curricular integration inter-changeably.
Interdisciplinary education involves two or more disciplines taught in relation with one
another and connected through a theme, topic, or project. Jacobs (1991) defined interdisciplinary
instruction as “a knowledge view and curriculum approach that consciously applies methodology
and language from more than one discipline to examine a central theme, issue, problem, topic, or
experience” (Jacobs, 1991, pp. 22–23). Interdisciplinary instruction utilizes the distinctive
features of each discipline in an effort for students to better understand knowledge and processes
of each discipline, as well as the interconnected nature of one discipline to another. For
example, an interdisciplinary approach to teaching in history and literacy for intermediate
students supports core academic skills, content knowledge, and affect (e.g., motivation and
interest in reading). One can interpret and enact interdisciplinary teaching in several different
ways, which may lead to challenges and unintended consequences. Most simply, and for the
purposes of this study, interdisciplinary teaching is a method by which teachers and students
experience content across disciplinary boundaries, and these experiences happen in a variety of
ways. Yet consistently, teachers make conscious decisions about the skills and content presented

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in lessons without privileging one discipline over another. In designing the unit intervention for
this study, I made decisions regarding the balance of history, content area literacy, and visual arts
skills.
One possibility for balancing disciplines is through interdisciplinary teaching teams
(common in upper elementary and middle schools)—an approach in which teachers from
different disciplinary backgrounds work together to coordinate (some of) their instruction (Vars,
1991). Often these interdisciplinary teams work with the same group of students, which has both
academic and social benefits (Vars, 1991). A more common method of interdisciplinary
teaching is through thematic units (taught by one teacher), in which a common theme or
important idea is studied from more than one discipline (Barton & Smith, 2000; Jackson &
Davis, 2000). A third way of approaching interdisciplinary teaching (curricular integration) is
through the study of student-driven questions without regard for disciplinary boundaries (Beane,
1995).
The notion of interdisciplinary teaching is interpreted and enacted in several different
ways. Most simply interdisciplinary teaching is a method by which teachers and students
experience content across disciplinary boundaries—these experiences may happen in different
ways. An interdisciplinary team (common in middle schools) is an approach in which teachers
representing different content areas work together to coordinate some of their instruction (Vars,
1991). Often these interdisciplinary teams work with the same group of students thus there are
academic and social benefits. A more common method of interdisciplinary teaching is through
thematic units, where a common theme or important idea, is studied in more than one content
area (Barton & Smith, 2000; Jackson & Davis, 2000). Third, interdisciplinary teaching emerges
from student-generated questions about social issues and concerns, without regard to disciplinary

35

lines (Beane, 1997). For the purposes of this study the latter two methods will be discussed and
analyzed.
Advocates for curriculum integration identify four major components needed for
effective interdisciplinary teaching and learning: integration as curriculum design, integration of
experiences, knowledge integration, and social integration (Jacobs, 1991). Overall, advocates
argue that positive integrative activities have a focus on a topic that draws on more than one
content area, an authentic application of skilled learning in one subject area to be used in another,
and enrichment activities to pique the curiosity of the learner.
Beane (1997) asserts that the subject-specific approach incorrectly portrays as an “ends”
rather than a “means” purpose of education. Students are led to believe that the purpose of
education is to “collect” (Bernstein, 1975) facts and skills for specific use in one discipline rather
than see how that collection of information might be used beyond the classroom for real-life
purposes. However, generally, the way students are introduced to disciplines is through the
subject-area. Students are asked to memorize specialized vocabulary or practice disciplinary
skills rather than learning what each discipline is really about and how it relates to other
disciplines and the world beyond school. In this approach, similar concepts (e.g., participation)
and skills (e.g., reading) are taught separately in social studies and the language arts. In contrast,
Beane advocates for the contextualization of disciplinary knowledge and skills through and
integrative approach. Perkins (1986) identifies these concepts, skills, and strategies as
“portable.” Thus, they are easily used in a variety of different contexts. Thus, one designing
curriculum using curriculum integration is concerned with enhancing the possibilities for
students in terms of personal and social development through the organization and presentation
of curriculum.

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Conditions for interdisciplinary instruction. In a review of the literature on
interdisciplinary instruction, Jones (2010) outlines several advantages and few disadvantages of
interdisciplinary teaching. He found that interdisciplinary techniques are important for students
to solve problems using higher order thinking skills and to enrich academic skills, lifelong
learning habits, and personal growth. On the importance of an interdisciplinary approach, Jones
reviewed the work of Duerr (2008) who states, “students can become more involved in their
learning and teachers can work toward eliminating disciplinary lines. Students can become
independent, confident individuals who ‘learn how to learn’ and develop lifelong learning skills”
(as cited in Jones, 2010, p. 77).
There are several conditions generally agreed upon for interdisciplinary instruction to be
effective (Barab & Landa, 1997; Black, 1997; Brophy & Alleman, 1991; Gatewood, 1998;
Morse, 2008; Vars, 1991; Willis, 1994). Vars (1991) recommends the teacher or teacher teams
identify a common theme that is of interest to students and that is relevant in all participating
disciplines. Often, these themes are broad so that each participating discipline can be included in
authentic ways. Teachers should carefully plan daily activities to foster the goals of each
discipline (Brophy & Alleman, 1991) and design summative experiences that address a variety of
students in their classrooms. Last, students should reflect on the interdisciplinary learning across
the disciplinary lines.
Studies in interdisciplinary instruction. There is limited research on the integration of
history, literacy, and the visual arts and its relationship to student learning. However, there have
been a few studies about the integration of science or mathematics and literacy in elementary
classrooms. The findings from these studies suggest possibilities for the integration of history,
literacy, and the visual arts. I describe that research in this section.

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Douville, Pugalee, and Wallace (2003) studied a group of elementary teachers who were
promoting reading and writing in science among their students. In this qualitative study,
Douville et al. (2003) described the practices of a group of elementary teachers as they
developed an understanding of interdisciplinary possibilities between and among science,
mathematics, and literacy for their students. The authors analyzed survey data and made several
discoveries with regard to integrated instruction. First, there were significant differences in
process and the use of well-developed, interdisciplinary lessons. Second, teachers had difficulty
making conceptual connections during the use of integration. Third, researchers identified
contradictions in the use of integrated instruction. For example, teachers in the study placed
great importance on hands-on experiences. The researchers found many examples of teachers
who used measurement as the first interdisciplinary experience between mathematics and
science. Last, teachers did not use instructional strategies designed specifically for using
informational text. These findings highlight the need for professional development that foster
teacher’s development of a conceptual understanding of curricular integration and in the
improvement of pedagogical content knowledge in terms of the integration of science,
mathematics, and literacy (Douville et al., 2003).
Bristor, Romance, and Vitale (1994) conducted a five-year project entitled In-Depth
Expanded Activities in Science (IDEAS). This program for fourth- and fifth-graders replaced
traditional reading and science classes with a two-hour integrated science block in which science
was taught in conjunction with reading and writing skills. Bristor et. al (1994) concluded that this
program was beneficial.
Dickinson and Young (1998) make recommendations for elementary teachers to
effectively use literacy strategies in order to develop reading and writing in science. Dickinson

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and Young (1998) assert that the goals and objectives of science and language arts are
complimentary. In many ways, science may provide a purpose for reading and writing through
interdisciplinary instruction often found in elementary schools. Notably, students may use
language arts tools for gathering, recording, and communicating the results of their scientific
experiences/inquiry. Dickinson and Young (1998) found elementary teachers felt more
confident in teaching language arts than science. Thus, capitalizing on the teachers’ strengths in
language arts may be a solution to improving science instruction for elementary students. It is
their belief that through a stronger understanding of the role science in literacy instruction, there
may be greater possibility exists of focusing on science in the elementary classroom. Yet
Dickinson and Young (1998) are cautious. Elementary teachers cannot use language arts to meet
all of the goals and objectives of science learning. Additionally, language arts cannot be used in
lieu of science inquiry. Curricular consideration of both disciplines must be given in elementary
classrooms.
Teachers who utilize an interdisciplinary approach in their classrooms make use of the
distinctive features of each discipline in an effort to better understand the interconnected nature
of the disciplinary matter. An interdisciplinary approach to teaching the humanities for
intermediate students supports core academic skills and content knowledge. However, there are
also challenges of interdisciplinary instruction, described next.
Challenges of interdisciplinary instruction. McBee (2001) concluded that there are
several challenges to curriculum integration that make it difficult for interdisciplinary instruction
to consistently be present in classrooms. In interviews with 10 elementary teachers about
interdisciplinary teaching, she found several challenges to this type of instruction. McBee
identified a lack of time for teachers to plan for interdisciplinary opportunities—this is a

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challenge for the teacher in my study. She found that teachers had limited access to materials to
facilitate interdisciplinary instruction—also evident in my study. Also, McBee identified
incompatible standards and assessment tools (2001, p. 259), and school cultures that had strict
views of disciplinary divisions in the curriculum. In spite of the many challenges, several
teachers in the sample identified interdisciplinary curricular opportunities as having meaningful
impact on students’ academic performances that she described in terms of academic
improvement (e.g. increased reading rates, more extensive written responses, higher rates of
homework completion). In my study, there was an impact on student engagement, which I
discuss in the next section.
Student Engagement
Student learning in history is the central focus of this study, however, I also examined the
affective dimension of student engagement to determine whether (and if so, the degree to which),
students are engaged by this kind of instruction. Many scholars use the term engagement and
they do so in different ways. My study draws upon the some of the common ways scholars have
written about engagement, with a particular focus on the two forms of engagement Nystrand and
Gamoran (1991) identified.
In their study of high school English students, Nystrand and Gamoran (1991) identified
two kinds of student engagement: substantive and procedural. Procedural engagement revolves
around classroom participation and routines, whereas substantive engagement is more closely
associated with content learned in the classroom. Students are more apt to show signs of
procedural engagement. However, they do demonstrate substantive engagement as part of
participation in classroom routines and tasks (e.g., a class discussion or writing an essay). It is
less frequent for students to exhibit substantive engagement than procedural engagement.

40

Nystrand and Gamoran (1992) examined the kinds of literature instruction that foster
student engagement and how that engagement and instruction on impact student achievement.
The sample for this study was 58 eighth-grade English classes. Nystrand and Gamoran (1992)
related student outcomes and different forms of engagement (procedural and substantive). The
findings were that a lack of engagement negatively correlates to achievement and substantive
engagement has a strong, positive effect on achievement. Features of substantive engagement in
instruction include open-ended, authentic questions and high-level of teacher responsiveness, i.e.
student responses integrated into ongoing class discussion. These findings involve negotiation
between students and teachers as well as reciprocal interactions, which can be described as the
cornerstone of substantive engagement (Nystrand & Gamoran, 1992).
The notion of high-level student responses and substantive engagement are similar to
Newmann’s findings (1992). Newmann (1992) focused his attention on engagement through
higher-order thinking skills. He observed 160 social studies lessons across 16 social studies
departments. Through these observations, he found six dimensions to student engagement: (1)
persistent examination of a few topics; (2) continuity in the lesson; (3) time provided for students
to think about responses and questions; (4) challenging tasks were presented to students; (5)
teacher modeled higher-order thinking/thoughtfulness; and (6) evidence was used to support
student conclusions.
Another study on student engagement by Stodolsky, Salk, and Glaessner (1991)
investigated instructional patterns in math and social studies in elementary classroom and
focuses on the students’ perspectives. Stodolsky et al. (1991) interviewed 60 fifth-grade
students in 11 classrooms regarding their ideas and attitudes associated with learning math and
social studies. As part of the interviews, students defined math and social studies, described

41

typical activities associated with each subject, thought about how they learned each subject, and
discussed instances of what they liked and disliked in each subject. The researchers found that
students’ conceptions about and attitudes associated with math and social studies were different.
As the researchers predicted, students framed their math experiences as positive and negative
based on their success. However in social studies, student responses were evaluated and ranged
from interesting to boring.
In another study, Marks (2000) investigated whether student engagement is marked by
patterns in grade level and subject matter. The sample was made up of 3,669 students who
represented 143 social studies and mathematics classrooms in 24 schools across the United
States. Hierarchical linear modeling in its three-level application (HLM3L) was used for
analysis. Marks (2000) found classroom subject matter influences engagement (i.e. if a student
liked a particular subject); they were more apt to be engaged. The results were generally
consistent across grade levels.
There are a variety of ways to define and demonstrate student engagement. Students are
engaged in classrooms when they follow basic rules as well as when they participate in higherorder conversations. Students’ level of engagement varies from school subject to school subject
based on their interests and their levels of success.
Summary of the Literature
Based on the aforementioned literature, we know that interdisciplinary teaching has rich
potential for student engagement and learning but that it can also be challenging for teachers in
terms of organization, time, and expertise with disciplinary material. In addition, we know that
instruction in history, content area literacy, and the visuals arts utilizes a similar collection of
skills, and thus these skills can help to complement and reinforce disciplinary knowledge and

42

understanding. Often, these types of explorations and experiences exemplify the “best practices”
in history teaching and learning, e.g., inquiry-based instruction. However, there is a gap in the
literature on interdisciplinary instruction regarding upper elementary classrooms. Thus, little is
understood about elementary school students and their historical understanding as developed
through interdisciplinary instruction, including history, content area literacy, and the visual arts.
Additionally, more research must be done on the relationship between interdisciplinary
instruction and student learning and teachers’ perceptions of this type of instructional design.
With regard to engagement, we know that substantive engagement has a positive relationship
with academic achievement.
My Research Focus
Learning within and across content areas requires students to acquire and apply content
and skills in order to construct knowledge and develop understanding. There is a gap in the
literature in reference to the relationship of these school disciplinary areas (history, literacy, and
the visual arts) and their contributions to upper elementary students’ historical knowledge and
skills. The purpose of this dissertation is to describe whether and how students’ learning of
history changes during an interdisciplinary history unit with the purposeful integration of content
area literacy and the visual arts in comparison to students’ learning of history through a more
traditional approach (subject-specific) to instruction. In addition, I explore another important
and relevant question about the feasibility and effectiveness of curriculum integration according
to fifth-grade teachers. Specifically, I investigate the following research questions: (1) How does
students’ learning in history change following their participation in an interdisciplinary historyliteracy-visual arts curriculum, and how does their learning compare to students who learn the
same content through traditional teaching approaches?; (2) In what ways do students who

43

participate in an interdisciplinary history-literacy-visual arts unit demonstrate engagement,
historical thinking skills, and aesthetic skills during the unit?; and (3) How do teachers view the
feasibility and effectiveness of implementing an interdisciplinary history-literacy-visual arts
curriculum? My goal in answering these questions is to determine whether interdisciplinary
instruction in history-literacy-visual arts has potential to improve students’ learning of history,
particularly with students from low-SES backgrounds.

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Chapter Three
Method
Research Design
In order to address my research questions, I chose to conduct a quasi-experimental,
mixed methods study. Mixed methods research offers many opportunities to “describe and
develop techniques that are closer to what researchers actually use in practice” (Johnson &
Onwuegbuzie, 2004, p. 15). Johnson and Onwuegbuzie (2004) identify strengths and
weaknesses of mixed methods research.
Johnson and Onwuegbuzie (2004) identify several weaknesses of mixed methods
research, of which three were challenges for this study. First, they identify the potential
difficulty “for a single researcher to carry out both qualitative and quantitative research” (p. 21).
Second, mixed methods research can be more time consuming. Third, the “researcher
understand various methods and approaches as well as how to use them together in appropriate
ways (p. 21).
In addition, Johnson and Onwuegbuzie (2004, p. 21) identify several strengths of mixed
research of which two were benefits for this study. Through the use of mixed methods, I am able
to address a broader range of data associated with my research questions. Also I believe I have a
stronger collection of evidence from which to draw findings and conclusions.
In my study, I was able to capitalize on several strengths associated with this approach.
Through the use of mixed methods, I was able to describe both processes (qualitative) and
outcomes (quantitative); investigate possible explanations with the qualitative and quantitative
data; explain the findings more completely (i.e., more comprehensively than quantitative or
qualitative alone), and present the findings in terms that practitioners could potentially use

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(Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004). In this study, I conducted quantitative research through the
analysis of pre-assessment and post-assessment scores. The qualitative data sources (interviews,
field notes, student samples) were collected during the intervention. All data were analyzed at
the end of the study, following the completion of the post-assessment.
Setting
The setting for this study was two elementary schools in a low-SES district: Mann
Elementary and Dewey Elementary. For the purpose of this study, a low-SES district is
identified as one in which all schools in the public school district are attended by students at least
50% of whom are eligible for the Free or Reduced Lunch (FARL) program; this number exceeds
the state average of 42% (based on the National Center for Education Statistics, 20082009)(Great Schools, 2012). The district in this study has an average of 75% of its students
eligible for FARL (Great Schools, 2012). At Mann Elementary, 76% of the students are eligible
for FARL, and 75% of the students at Dewey Elementary are eligible for FARL. Both schools
receive Title I funding.
On the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP), students at both schools
scored below the state’s proficiency average in two of the three areas (reading, math, and
science) tested at the fifth-grade level (See Table 2). The only area in which students at the two
schools reached or exceeded the state average in proficiency was math. At Mann Elementary,
83% of students were identified as proficient in math, and at Dewey Elementary, 80% of
students were identified as proficient in math (the state average in math was 80%). On the
Reading portion of the MEAP, the state average was 85%. At Mann Elementary, 76% of fifthgraders reached proficiency, and 83% of fifth-grade students at Dewey Elementary were
proficient (as such, they were close to proficient). However, on the Science portion of the

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MEAP, the state average was 78%. At Mann Elementary 65% of fifth-graders reached
proficiency, and 70% of fifth-grade students at Dewey Elementary were proficient.
Social studies is assessed as part of the MEAP in grades six and nine. This study took
place in a district where sixth grade is housed in the middle school. Students from Mann and
Dewey attend the only middle school in the district, Williams Middle School. In 2011, sixth
grade students at Williams Middle School scored well below (47%) the state average (75%) on
the social studies section of the MEAP. As such, the schools in my study met my criterion of
low-performing in social studies.
Table 1.
MEAP Scores: Percentage of Students Identified as Proficient
Mann

Dewey

State Average

Reading

76%

83%

85%

Science

65%

70%

78%

Math

83%

80%

80%

Williams Middle School
Social Studies

47%

75%

Source: Michigan Department of Education, 2010-2011, cited at Great Schools
Mann Elementary School is a one-story building tucked into a quiet neighborhood. It
serves approximately 350 students in grades 1-5 with an average class size of 18 students per full
time educator (Great Schools, 2012). Mann is the school in which the focal experimental
teachers for this study, Drew and Kevin, teach and thus where the study’s experimental
classrooms were located and the curricular intervention was implemented. Drew’s class

47

contained 23 students, and Kevin’s class contained 22 students. However at the start of the
study, Kevin’s class had 18 students and grew to 22 students by the end of the intervention.
Just over a mile from Mann Elementary School is Dewey Elementary School, a two-story
brick building built in the 1920s in which the comparison classrooms were located. The school
serves approximately 250 students in grades 1-5. The average class size is 16 students per full
time educator (Great Schools, 2012). For the purpose of this study, I speak about the two fifthgrade comparison classrooms at Dewey Elementary as one group or classroom. Amanda, the
focal teacher for the comparison classroom, did the planning and implementation of the social
studies lessons throughout the study, so I write about her as the comparison classroom.

1

The experimental and comparison classrooms have similarities and differences. Each
teacher had district resources (e.g. textbooks and pacing guide) for English/language arts and
mathematics. These guides were important to all three teachers but were most important to
Kevin, who was teaching fifth-grade for the first time. He explained, “I am a newbie. I need
everything they will give me.” Each classroom had two walls of chalkboards on which the
teachers wrote the daily agendas and weekly schedules. Most often, the desks were kept in rows
in these three classrooms. All three teachers created a library area for their students. Drew,
Kevin, and Amanda had shelves displaying a variety of books for students to read during the
academic day. In addition, Kevin created a space with a couch and pillows for students to “relax
while reading in the library area.”

1

The teacher in the other comparison classroom dropped out of the study and eventually left his
teaching position. However, this did not affect my study (except that I could not conduct
observations in his classroom) because it occurred very early in the school year. Amanda taught
all the social studies for the fifth graders at Dewey Elementary. I was still able to assess children
in both classes.
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There were several differences among the classrooms, particularly in terms of size,
décor/display, and atmosphere. Amanda had the largest classroom, which accommodated her
large class. Drew’s and Kevin’s classrooms were about the same size. Amanda had very few
things displayed around the room beyond the daily agenda. Drew displayed some student work,
most often tests or quizzes with strong scores. Kevin posted student artwork on the ceiling. On
the back door (leading outside), Kevin created a chart of student success on a multiplication
challenge. The most notable difference among the three classrooms was in terms of classroom
atmosphere: Kevin’s classroom was distinct from the other two. . Often, Kevin played piano
music while students were working and he kept the overhead lights off, preferring to light his
room with floor lamps, in his words, “to build a more relaxed and comfortable space for
learning.”
Curricular Intervention
In order to address my research questions, I designed an interdisciplinary unit on the
convergence of three civilizations (African, American, and European) prior to the sixteenth
century. The unit was taught in two fifth-grade classrooms, which will be referred to hereafter as
the experimental classrooms. I selected this unit for three reasons: timing, available resources,
and personal interest. First, the convergence of these three civilizations is commonly taught in
the fall of the fifth-grade academic year—a year devoted to early American history. The study
was conducted in the fall, so this curricular unit fit neatly into the standard course of study.
Second, I was able to draw upon a rich collection of primary and secondary sources that are
available from murals and written documents. Third, as a middle school American Studies
teacher, I taught aspects of this unit in my own classroom and was interested in using materials
and teaching strategies with a younger student population.

49

This curriculum intervention was two-fold: (1) a professional development opportunity to
prepare the participating teachers for teaching the unit, and (2) the implementation of the
curriculum by the classroom teachers: an interdisciplinary unit in which the history content is
enhanced/reinforced with student inquiry of visual arts catalysts and the use of content area
literacy skills in order to meet state standards in all three domains.
Professional development. Prior to the start of the school year, I met with Drew and
Kevin to introduce the project, review the materials, and respond to questions and concerns. To
best accommodate their schedules, I met with Drew and Kevin individually. Each meeting was
approximately one hour and took place in each teacher’s classroom. I started each meeting with
a brief overview of the study. Then I presented the curriculum and supplemental materials. I
used the curricular materials to model the expectations for the opening conversations about the
visual arts. For example, I displayed an image of the Catalan Atlas (1375) and asked each teach
to describe what he saw. Then, I asked him to explain the story being told. I selected to focus on
the visual arts element because both Kevin and Drew expressed little familiarity with using
visual arts as part of their instruction. The meetings concluded with an opportunity for each to
ask questions or express concerns. Neither teacher had immediate questions or concerns. I
addressed concerns and questions when they came up. Thus, there were informal professional
development opportunities throughout the unit.
Unit plan. I designed the interdisciplinary unit (Appendix A) to be used as the
intervention in this study. The unit plan includes 22-25 lessons and is about the convergence of
three civilizations (African, American, and European). The variance in the number of lessons is
due to an authentic assessment option for teachers (that would take three days). I grounded the
unit plan in the eight history GLCEs. These are the eight GLCEs, I identified for the

50

assessment. Following development of an initial draft of the unit, I shared the unit plan with two
practicing classroom teachers who have expertise in elementary social studies and experience
teaching in low-SES school districts. I asked each teacher to review the unit plan and provide
written feedback. Based on these reviewers’ suggestions (for example, building in connections
between content and skills in each lesson, adding hands-on experiences for students), I finalized
the unit plan.
Each lesson addresses at least one GLCE in history (under the umbrella of social studies)
and at least one GLCE in English/Language Arts (Appendix B). During each lesson, students
used literacy and visual arts skills to support and develop a greater historical understanding of
the three civilizations’ intersection. Each lesson began with the teacher displaying one or more
visual images associated with the day’s topic (e.g. Lesson 1 opened with the students’
examination of several maps of Africa). In order to frame a discussion around the images, the
teachers prompted students with two questions: (1) what do you see? and (2) what story do you
think the artist is trying to tell? Students discussed their observations and made hypotheses
about the story the artist was trying to tell. Following a discussion of the artwork, students were
asked to use various informational texts to further investigate the day’s topic. For example, in
Lessons 2, 3, and 4, students read sections of Slavery (Grant, 2010), Ancient West African
Kingdoms: Ghana, Mali, & Songhai (Quigley, 2002), and Ancient West African Kingdoms
(Shuter, 2008) to learn about life in Africa prior to the sixteenth century. Each book is an
informational text that includes primary and secondary source material, images, and text features
(e.g. maps, captions, bold-faced text). Each lesson concluded with a summary of historical
understanding through class discussion or written work. For example, in Lessons 2, 3, and 4,

51

students completed sections of a graphic organizer about aspects of African life prior to the
sixteenth century (e.g. the growth of towns and how people made a living).
Additionally, I allotted one lesson for a field trip experience to The Charles H. Wright
Museum of African American History. This out-of-the-classroom experience helped students
develop a final project for the unit’s authentic assessment—a piece of visual art that conveyed
what they knew and understood about the unit’s content. Students created captions similar to
those they might find at the museum that labeled works of art and displays. As a class, students
created a “museum guide” outlining and describing the various exhibits. Last, to make this
learning authentic, other classes and families were to be invited to visit the class museum
(Newmann et al., 1995). However, due to time constraints, this assessment was not completed.
The curricular unit builds upon the kind of instruction that Pappas et al. (1995), White
(1995), VanSledright and Kelly (2000), Bain (2005), and others recommend. It intertwines the
investigation of primary sources, the use of multiple kinds of sources, inquiry-based questions,
student-centered activities, and other higher-order thinking skills. In other words, the unit would
not be defined as “traditional” history instruction that tends to emphasize teacher lecture and
over-reliance on the textbook.
In the comparison classroom, Amanda taught lessons grounded in the same social
studies/history GLCEs as were targeted in the unit plan taught in the experimental classrooms.
She made use of the student textbook and lesson plans available from the intermediate school
district of which both Dewey Elementary and Mann Elementary are a part. From these lessons,
Amanda used graphic organizers for students to complete in conjunction with their reading. She
described her typical social studies lesson as one that “starts with a reminder of the last social
studies lesson, then we read about the topic of the day. Then, depending on time, we might do

52

something with the new information . . .like a graphic organizer or write a paragraph.” During
my observations, the responsibility for reading the text was shared between teacher and students:
Amanda read to the students, the students read to one another, and the students read
independently. Students were evaluated using textbook-created tests with multiple choice,
matching, and short answer questions.
Sample
In order to select participants, I first secured permission from the participating district and
schools by communicating with the district superintendent who put me in contact with the two
elementary principals in her district. I obtained informed consent from each of the principals
who then put me in contact with the fifth-grade teachers in their buildings. All fifth-grade
teachers were invited to participate, and I obtained informed consent from each teacher.
The sample of this study is three fifth-grade teachers (two in one school and one in
another school) and 50 fifth-grade students. I had originally planned to have four teachers in two
schools. My plan was to have one experimental and one comparison classroom in each school.
However, this did not happen for several reasons. First, as I explained earlier, there were
personnel issues at Dewey Elementary (the comparison school): there was only one fifth-grade
teacher available to participate in the study. Second, teachers had varying degrees of interest in
participating in the study; as such, I could not randomly assign teachers to the experimental and
comparison groups. Third, the fourth teacher who agreed to be part of the study left his position
during data collection and thus could not remain a participant. However, his students remained
participants in my study. Given challenges I faced finding and recruiting participants, and given
that the school year was about to begin, I decided to continue the study and reconceptualized its
design from an experimental to a quasi-experimental (given that there was no random

53

assignment of treatment).
Teachers. Kevin is one of the two teachers in experimental classrooms at Mann
Elementary School for this study. He has been teaching for five years. He earned his
undergraduate degree with a major in history from a large Midwestern university. He studied
history “because I like to read, and I think I am good at it.” Several years after earning his
degree, Kevin returned to school at a regional university to earn his teaching credential while
substitute teaching. Following the completion of his teaching certification, he taught in three
districts (including his current district), all of which surround a large urban center. Kevin spent
two years teaching third grade, a year teaching sixth grade, a year at fourth grade, followed by a
year teaching middle school science before landing in fifth-grade during the year of this study.
Kevin is state certified to teach (a) Elementary K-5 all subjects/K-8 All Subjects Self Contained
Classroom and (b) Science (6-8). Currently, Kevin is working on a master’s degree in literacy at
another regional institution. Kevin expressed interest in participating because “it is a good
professional development since I am new to fifth-grade.”
Drew was most interested in participating. He felt that, “this [interdisciplinary
instruction] fits how I teach” and “it will be great to have another adult around.” Drew is the
teacher in the other experimental classroom at Mann Elementary School. He earned his
undergraduate degree from a large Midwestern university, and he described his educational
background as having “a concentration in elementary education and a major in mathematics and
a minor in social studies.” Drew has taught for seven years in two districts (including his current
position) that surround a large urban center; one district is rural and the other is suburban. Drew
spent a year substitute teaching, a year teaching middle school social studies, a year teaching
second grade, a year as a reading specialist, a year as a technology specialist, and two (non-

54

consecutive) years teaching fifth-grade. Drew saw the positive side of having served in these
various teaching roles and the perspective it provided him for his current position. “I have a
good idea of what kids have done and what they should be able to do in elementary school.”
Drew is state certified to teach (a) Elementary K-5 all subjects/K-8 All Subjects Self Contained
Classroom, (b) Mathematics (6-8), and (c) Social Studies (6-8). Currently, Drew is completing a
master’s degree in literacy through a regional institution’s online program.
Amanda is the comparison teacher at Dewey Elementary School. She has taught for 39
years in various settings and states. Amanda has served as a regular education, special
education, and Title I teacher at the high school, middle school, and elementary levels. In
addition, she worked at the university-level as a staff developer, facilitator, clinical teacher, and
university instructor (graduate assistant, special education). In her words, “I have done it all . . .
and love it!” Amanda is state certified to teach (a) Elementary K-5 All Subjects/K-8 All Subjects
Self Contained Classroom, (b) Social Studies (6-8), and (c) Learning Disabilities K-12. For the
last five years, Amanda has taught fifth-grade at Dewey Elementary School. During this study,
Amanda taught social studies to all the fifth-grade students at Dewey Elementary. Amanda’s
approach to social studies is to utilize the textbook as the cornerstone for knowledge. “I think
using the book is good for students. . . they all have a book.”
As I stated in the previous section, Amanda planned and implemented the social studies
lessons at Dewey Elementary for both her class and the other fifth-grade classroom. While she
expressed interest in a higher level of participation in this study, she expressed concern about
preparing new instruction and having an observer in her classroom everyday. She lamented, “I
just don’t have much time because of all the stuff I do with Special Ed.”
Students. There were 50 students in this sample. I sought informed consent from the

55

parents of all students in the participating classrooms (response rate was 64.93%). I selected all
consenting students from each of the classrooms that used the interdisciplinary unit intervention
and all consenting students from the comparison fifth-grade classrooms in which the teacher
used traditional, discipline-specific instruction to teach history, literacy, and/or visual arts (in
other words, every student whose parents gave consent were included in the sample—there was
not random selection from the consented students). The participant numbers breakdown as
follows: Drew = 16, Kevin = 11, Dewey Elementary = 23. I randomly selected five focal
students from each class for my observations and analysis of their work samples. These students
were racially diverse (National Center for Education Statistics, 2008-2009) (See Table 2).
However, the school demographics do not take into account English Language Learners or other
Special Education services.
Table 2.
School Demographics
Mann Elementary

Dewey Elementary

(Experimental)

State Average

(Comparison)

White

78%

69%

71%

Black

17%

25%

20%

Asian

3%

2%

3%

Hispanic

<1%

2%

5%

American Indian

<1%

2%

<1%

Eligible for FARL

76%

78%

42%

Source: National Center for Educational Statistics (2012)

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Data Sources and Collection
For this study, I utilized both quantitative and qualitative data. For the quantitative data, I
used a pre-test/post-test control group design (Shadish, Cook, & Campbell, 2002, p. 261).

1) Professional 2) Pre-Assessment
Development (quantitative)
Pre-Interviews
(qualitative)

Intervention
3) Field Notes
(qualitative)

4) PostAssessment
(quantitative)
Post-Interviews
(qualitative)

5) Analysis &
Interpretation

Figure 2. Study Sequence

The quantitative data are the students’ pre- and post-assessments. There are four sources
of qualitative data: teacher interviews, student assessments, field notes of classroom
observations, and student artifacts.
Student assessments. I began the assessment development process by identifying the
state GLCEs associated with history, English/language arts, and the visual arts that would be
taught in the unit. I identified eight history GLCEs for fifth-grade to be measured (see Appendix
B). I then developed one or more questions/tasks that addressed each GLCE. There were three
types of questions: map-based questions, multiple choice questions, and constructed responses.
For the map-based questions, students were asked to identify, label, and illustrate information
associated with a map. The multiple-choice questions were presented as questions to be
answered and sentence stems requiring completion. In each case, students were asked to select
from four possible answers. Questions and tasks (multiple choice and constructed responses)

57

included “Identify the regions of Africa” and “What caused states and towns to grow in western
th

Africa before the 16 century?”
To lessen the threat to internal validity of testing using the same tool, I developed two
social studies-based assessments: Form A and Form B (see Appendices C and D). The use of
two assessments lessens the potential practice effects. According to Shadish et al. (2002),
practice effects are an issue when participants become better at something when given the same
test repeatedly. Form A and Form B were randomly assigned to students for their preassessment. The students were given the other form of the assessment for their post-assessment.
Following the development of an initial draft of the assessments, I worked with Dr. Ed
Roeber, a professor of education with specialization in measurement and quantitative methods at
Michigan State University (MSU). Dr. Roeber suggested the assessments be modeled after the
Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) for the purpose of ecological validity. In
addition, Dr. Roeber made a number of suggestions to improve the assessments (although he
could not evaluate each assessment for psychometric validity). Then I had two expert reviewers
complete a matching task with the assessment questions and standards. (Appendix E). Both
expert reviewers are doctoral students with an expertise in social studies. Each expert reviewer
was given the assessment questions and the state GLCEs. The reviewer was asked to identify the
question or questions that best addressed each of the GLCEs. Through construct matching, there
was a 93.75% agreement on the two assessments (Form A – 87.5% and Form B – 100%).
Last, I field-tested these assessments with a group of eight fifth-grade students during the
summer prior to the study. All students were given a copy of Form A to complete to the best of
their ability. After approximately 45 minutes, I led the group in a discussion of the assessment
questions. I asked the students to (1) share their answers, (2) talk about how they came to their

58

answers, and (3) identify any challenges they associated with the question. This process was
repeated with Form B. The students commented on challenging vocabulary, difficulty associated
with content, and general uncertainty. Their feedback primarily revolved around word choice,
and I amended the assessments according to the problems and questions they raised.
Two school days prior to the implementation of the curriculum, I administered preassessments to students in both the experimental and comparison classrooms. In each classroom,
all students completed an assessment individually (this was a whole-class, paper and pencil
administered assessment). As students completed their assessment, I collected them. Once all
the students had turned in their assessment, I asked each teacher to keep the pre-assessments (for
their own students) until the completion of the study. One day after the final lesson of the
intervention (and one day after the final lesson of the traditional unit), all students completed the
post-assessment. Again, students completed their assessment and I collected them. After I
collected all the assessments, I divided the consented student assessments (pre- and post-) from
the non-consented students. Then, I gave the assessments from the non-consented students to the
classroom teacher and I took the assessments completed by the consenting students out of the
schools for evaluation.
Each assessment took students between 45 and 60 minutes. In each classroom, half of
the students were randomly given Form A as their pre-assessment, and half of the students were
randomly given Form B. The students took the other form of the assessment for their post
assessment.
Next, I created a scoring rubric for Forms A and B (Appendices F and G). I developed a
four-point scale (4: Meeting Expectations; 3: Approaching Expectations; 2: Beginning to
Address Expectations; 1: Does Not Meet Expectations) to measure students’ level of

59

understanding of each of the eight GLCEs. I established a “4: Meeting Expectations” for each
GLCE by identifying how a student would need to respond to show successful understanding of
all parts of the GLCE. A “1: Does Not Meet Expectations” included inaccurate responses as
well as questions left unanswered. These rubrics were shared with the classroom teacher and
recent MSU graduate who helped to evaluate the assessments. The MSU graduate and I read,
explained, and discussed each rubric. Based on these discussions, I edited the rubrics based on
questions and concerns adding clarifying language and possible examples.
Following all data collection, I scored all of the pre- and post-assessments. First, I
removed each student’s name from the assessment and replaced it with an identification number.
I listed numbers 1- 100 in Column A of an excel spreadsheet. Second, I listed each student’s
name (Column B) and class (Column C) on an excel spreadsheet. Third, I randomized the
numbers in Column A by using the excel function, RANDBETWEEN (1,100). This function
reorganized the numbers between 1 and 100 associated with each student in the sample, which I
used as the student identification numbers.
I met with a classroom teacher who is a recent graduate from MSU and who has
participated as a research assistant on an MSU research project, and thus has some experience
with research. For Form A, we independently read and scored the same fifteen assessments and
then compared evaluations. Using a simple percent agreement calculation, we had a 96% interrater reliability (IRR). We repeated this process for Form B and attained an agreement of 94%
IRR.
I then scored the remainder of the assessments (again, blind to condition and blind to time
point). In order to record the scored items, I hand-wrote each score into a spreadsheet. After I

60

had scored all the assessments, I entered each score into an SPSS database. I waited one day and
then reviewed with “fresh eyes” the entered scores for accuracy.
Classroom observations. I spent an average of four days a week observing for the
entirety of the unit (which, although designed to last four weeks, lasted eight weeks due to the
fact that social studies was taught about half as often as I expected) in the field collecting data
through observations that I recorded in field notes. In Kevin’s class, the lesson observations
ranged from 21 to 55 minutes with an average of 36 minutes. In Drew’s class, the lesson
observations ranged 27 minutes 80 minutes with an average of 53 minutes. I typed the field
notes on my laptop during the class sessions based on observations of both students and teachers.
I recorded time, teacher prompts, and student responses in my field notes. I organized the field
notes around the lesson plans so I was able to read the lesson plan followed by the field notes. In
the experimental classrooms, these observations occurred four to five days a week for the
duration of the unit, which lasted approximately eight weeks. In the comparison classroom, I
conducted observations four times during the unit of study. I made fewer observations in the
comparison classroom because Amanda taught social studies at the same time of day
(approximately 1:45-2:45 p.m.) that Kevin taught social studies, because the main focus of study
was on the implementation of the interdisciplinary unit, and because I thought four observations
could give me a general sense of whether Amanda taught the content without the visual arts or an
emphasis on content area literacy. I took field notes on the lessons, which ranged from 25 to 60
minutes. Each teacher gave me permission to ask questions and interject during instruction.
Evidence of these questions and comments is documented in the field notes.

61

Artifacts. I collected artifacts from each of the classrooms, including individual student
work (including pre- and post-assessments), collaborative student work, and classroom displays,
e.g., bulletin board. These included graphic organizers, foldables, and summaries, to name a few.
Teacher interviews. It is important to understand teachers’ perceptions and to address
issues of feasibility of interdisciplinary instruction in history, literacy, and the visual arts. I
conducted pre- and post-interviews (Appendices H and I) with the experimental teachers and two
interviews the comparison teacher. Each interview lasted between 45 and 60 minutes. Questions
ranged from discussion of the overall implementation of the units to subject-specific connections
to interdisciplinary instruction. The interview with the comparison teacher followed the preinterview protocol (Appendix H).
Data Analysis
Quantitative. The quantitative data I analyzed were the experimental and comparison
students’ scores on the pre- and post-assessments. I performed two sets of analyses. First, I have
drawn conclusions based on a comparison of achievement on pre- and post-assessments of the
students in the two experimental classrooms. Specifically, I used paired sample t-tests for
comparisons between pre- and post-assessments within the experimental classrooms, to
determine whether there was significant growth in their history achievement over time. Second,
I used independent sample t-tests to compare pre-assessments and gains scores (i.e., the
difference between the pre-test scores and the post-test scores) (Allison, 1990; Zimmerman &
Williams, 1982) between students in the experimental and comparison classrooms to determine
if there were significant differences between the experimental and the comparison students,
calculating Cohen’s d for the independent sample t-tests with significant differences. I compare
gain scores, rather than post-test scores, because gain scores account for students’ performance

62

on the pre-tests and because gain scores can be highly reliable (Allison, 1990; Zimmerman and
Williams, 1982).
Qualitative. For the qualitative data, I followed a three-step interpretivist approach for
this analysis (Miles & Huberman, 1994). First, I read through all the qualitative data (classroom
artifacts, field notes, and interviews) and determined themes and patterns (e.g., students
responding to teacher prompts) that would eventually become codes (Merriam, 1998). Coding
involves identifying phrases that represent patterns in the data. I determined analytic codes by
using terms associated historical thinking and understanding (e.g., comprehension, interpretation,
and analysis) (National Center for History in Schools, 1996) and aesthetic development stages
(e.g. observation, interpretation, analysis) (Housen, 1992). Second, I revisited the data sources
and marked places that reflected the codes. Then, I organized the coded text into categories. Last,
I revised the frameworks to encompass the newly created categories (e.g. frameworks,
interpretations, and understandings), thus allowing me to make comparisons and note patterns,
identify quotes, and themes (Miles & Huberman, 1994; Strauss & Corbin, 1998).
For the teacher-based data (teacher interviews and field notes), I coded for benefits and
challenges. I identified and coded benefits that are primarily student-based and include student
engagement, students’ exhibition of higher order thinking skills, and students’ ability to “connect
the dots” or draw connections between the unit and learning outside of the unit. In addition, I
identified and coded challenges, which are primarily teacher-based and include resources,
preparedness, and knowledge. These findings will be described in Chapter 5.
While this is a mixed methods study, I utilized a specific approach for each research
question. For the student-based questions, I employed quantitative analysis and qualitative
analysis (results of these analyses are repeated in Chapter 4). I used quantitative methods to

63

investigate research question 1: How does students’ learning in history change following their
participation in an interdisciplinary history-literacy-visual arts curriculum, and how does their
learning compare to students who learn the same content through traditional teaching
approaches? I used qualitative methods to address research question 2: In what ways, if any, do
students who participate in an interdisciplinary history-literacy-visual arts unit demonstrate
engagement, historical thinking skills, and aesthetic skills during the unit? and research question
3: How does a teacher view the feasibility and effectiveness of implementing an interdisciplinary
history-literacy-visual arts curriculum?

64

Chapter 4
Results: Student Learning and Engagement
In this chapter I present the results of the study’s findings related to student learning and
affect. Specifically, my study addresses the following questions: (1) How does students’
learning in history change following their participation in an interdisciplinary history-literacyvisual arts curriculum, and how does their learning compare to students who learn the same
content through traditional teaching approaches? And (2) In what ways, if any, do students who
participate in an interdisciplinary history-literacy-visual arts unit demonstrate engagement,
historical thinking skills, and aesthetic skills during the unit? I use quantitative data and analyses
to answer the first question, and qualitative data and analyses to answer the second question.
Student Learning in History: Quantitative Findings
To answer my first research question, I needed to determine whether (1) students in the
experimental classrooms performed at a different level than students in the comparison group on
both the pre- and post-assessments; and (2) students in the experimental classrooms
demonstrated significant growth between the pre- and post-assessments. As stated previously,
each GLCE was assessed on a four-point scale. I added points students earned for each GLCE to
calculate a cumulative score out of a possible 32 points.
Experimental vs. comparison students. There was no statistically significant difference
between the students at Dewey Elementary (comparison) and Mann Elementary (experimental)
on the pre-assessments. In other words, neither group was advantaged due to higher preassessment scores (see Table 3). Following instruction in each classroom on the convergence of
three civilizations (African, American, and European), there were statistically significant
differences between students’ post assessment scores at Dewey Elementary and Mann

65

Elementary. The students scored higher at Mann Elementary (t(48) = 4.160, p =.000). The
Cohen’s d for this independent samples t-test is 1.02.
The experimental students’ mean score of 14.761 (out of a possible 32) falls between the
score of 2 (which is beginning to address expectations) and 3 (approaching expectations).
Neither this group of students not the comparison students met expectations of all the GLCEs. In
the discussion section, I will offer explanations for why the students, on average, did not meet
the GLCEs.
Table 3
Pre-Assessments and Gain Scores in Experimental and Comparison Classrooms
Classroom

Gain Scores

n

M (SD)

M (SD)

27

13.91(2.87)

7.85(3.48)

23

14.76(2.87)

2.87 (4.13)

50

Mann Elementary

Pre-Assessments

14.3 (2.69)

5.56 (4.51)

a

(Experimental Classrooms)
Dewey Elementary

a

(Comparison Classrooms)
Total
a

Significant differences (p< .001) exist between pre- and post-assessments.

Experimental students’ gains. Students in both the experimental (t(26) = 7.85, p =.000)
and the comparison (t(22) = 2.87, p =.003) classrooms demonstrated statistically significant
gains (i.e., growth between the pre- and post-assessments). In other words, all students made
significant growth following instruction of the convergence of three civilizations. However, the
students in the experimental group made greater gains, statistically speaking, than the students in
the comparison group between the pre- and the post-assessment: in terms of raw scores, students
66

in the experimental group gained about one point, whereas students in the comparison group
gained about one-half point. Effect sizes are another way to compare the achievement for the
two groups of students: the effect size for the experimental group was .84 (which is considered
large), and the effect size for the comparison students was .52 (which is considered medium).
Fine-grained analysis of GLCEs. Eight social studies GLCEs were assessed. Some of
the GLCEs had more than one assessment question associated with them (see Appendix J.)
Although I recognize that analyzing individual items on the assessment is not reliable, and it is
not possible to calculate Cronbach’s alpha internal consistency reliability for individual test
items, I thought that examining the results of the individual test items would provide useful
information about the specific areas and skills that the unit focused on strengthening. Such
information could be useful for formative assessment purposes to determine for which GLCEs
the instruction seemed to be particularly effective. At the very least, understanding which
GLCEs students did and did not make significant gains in between the pre- and post-assessments
suggests an area of future research.
For six of the eight GLCEs, there was a statistically significant difference between
students’ performance on the pre-assessment and the post-assessment. I composed three basic
types of questions students were asked to complete as part of these assessments: mapping
questions, extended response questions, and multiple-choice questions. I first describe the six
GLCEs for which there was significant improvement and then I describe the two GLCEs for
which there was not growth. For each GLCE, I offer explanations for the growth or lack of
growth.
Given the strong emphasis on mapping skills in the unit, it was not surprising that
students’ scores significantly improved on the GLCE, 5 – U1.3.1: Use maps to locate the major

67

regions of Africa (northern Africa, western Africa, central Africa, eastern Africa, southern
Africa) (National Geography Standard 1, p. 144) (Michigan Department of Education, 2007, p.
38). There was a statistically significant improvement, t(26) = 8.33, p =.000. The effect size was
.85 (which is considered large). On Form A, students were prompted to label the five regions of
Africa on a map. On Form B, students were prompted to identify the five regions of Africa from
a labeled map. In Lesson 1, students were asked to identify and label the regions of Africa on
their own map. In Drew’s classroom, the five regions of Africa were labeled on a bulletin board
to support student learning throughout the unit. Students were exposed to these regions
repeatedly throughout the intervention.
In addition, students frequently referenced to their lessons associated with the GLCE, 5 –
U1.3.2: Describe the life and cultural development of people living in western Africa before the
th

16 century with respect to economic (the ways people made a living) and family structures, and
the growth of states, towns, and trade (National Geography Standard 10, p. 162) (Michigan
Department of Education, 2007, p. 38). There was a statistically significant improvement, t(26)
= 2.70, p =.012. The effect size was .47 (which is considered medium). On both Form A and
Form B, there were three multiple-choice questions that addressed this GLCE. In Lessons 2-5,
students discussed images, read from a variety of informational texts, completed a graphic
organizer, and created small museum displays that synthesized their knowledge of these three
aspects (economics, families, and the growth of towns through trade).
For GLCE, 5 – U1.4.2: Use primary and secondary sources (e.g., letters, diaries, maps,
documents, narratives, pictures, graphic data) to compare Europeans and American Indians who
converged in the western hemisphere after 1492 with respect to governmental structure, and
views on property ownership and land use (National Geography Standard 12, p. 167, C, E)

68

(Michigan Department of Education, 2007, p. 38), there was a statistically significant
improvement, t(26) = 2.88, p =.008. The effect size was .49 (which is considered medium). On
both Form A and Form B, students were given a passage to read. On Form A, students
demonstrated their knowledge and understanding of the reading by answering three multiplechoice questions. Yet on Form B, students expressed their knowledge and understanding of the
text by summarizing the reading in terms of similarities and differences between Europeans and
Native Americans in terms of government, property, and land use. In Lessons 8 and 9, students
participated in a series of center activities around primary source material. At these centers,
students completed tasks that involved using visual images, reading for information and
understanding, as well as synthesizing their understanding of history via these materials.
A statistically significant difference existed between the pre-assessment and postassessment questions associated the GLCE, 5 – U1.4.3: Explain the impact of European contact
on American Indian cultures by comparing the different approaches used by the British and
French in their interactions with American Indians (National Geography Standard 10, p. 162, C,
E) (Michigan Department of Education, 2007, p. 38). There was a statistically significant
improvement, t(26) = 7.12, p =.000. The effect size was .81 (which is considered large). On
Form A, students read a short passage comparing how the French and British interacted with the
Native Americans. They then completed a table describing how each European group interacted
with Native Americans. Similarly, on Form B, students read the same passage. However,
following the reading, students summarized each perspective in short paragraphs. In Lesson 11,
students read about these various perspectives. In Kevin’s class, students worked collaboratively
and created large graphic organizers that compared three perspectives (British, French, and
Spanish), and they displayed them around the classroom. In both classrooms, students were

69

asked to evaluate the Europeans’ actions, and students shared their points of view with evidence
in a large group discussion. John (a student in Kevin’s class) asserted, “The French were better
because they treated them like people.”
In addition, there was statistically significant difference associated with the GLCE, 5 –
U2.2.1: Describe Triangular Trade including the trade routes, the people and goods that were
traded, the Middle Passage, its impact on life in Africa (National Geography Standards 9, and
11; p. 160 and 164E) (Michigan Department of Education, 2007, p. 38). The difference was t(26)
= 8.23, p =.000. The effect size was .85 (which is considered large). On both Form A and Form
B, there were six questions addressing this GLCE. On both Form A and Form B, students were
asked to respond to a variety of types of questions including: mapping, reading and summarizing,
document (image) based questions, and multiple-choice questions. Each question was a multiplechoice question. During Lessons 13-17, classroom instruction focused on this GLCE. Students
participated in image analysis, reading, and whole class discussion. In both classes, students
made frequent references to their field trip to the Charles Wright Museum of African American
History (Wright Museum) during these lessons.
Last, there was a statistically significant difference between the questions associated with
the GLCE, 5 – U2.2.2: Describe the life of enslaved Africans and free Africans in the American
colonies (National Geography Standard 5, p. 152) (Michigan Department of Education, 2007, p.
38). There was a statistically significant improvement, t(26) =10.99, p =.000. The effect size was
.91 (which is considered large). On both Form A and Form B, there was one question addressing
this GLCE. On Form A, students were asked to describe life for free and enslaved Africans in 35 sentences, whereas on Form B, students were asked to complete a table comparing life for
these two groups. During Lessons 19 and 20, students read and created a foldable documenting

70

the lives of free and enslaved Africans in the American colonies. As part of their assignment,
they were asked to distinguish between experiences in the Northern colonies and the Southern
colonies.
For all but two GLCEs, students in the experimental group made significant gains
between pre- and post-assessments. The two GLCEs for which students did not demonstrate
significant growth were GLCE 5 – U1.4.2: Describe the convergence of Europeans, American
Indians, and Africans in North America after1492 from the perspective of these three groups
(Michigan Department of Education, 2007, p. 38) (t(26) = 1.87, p =.073; effect size = .34) and
GLCE 5 – U1.4.4: Describe the Columbian Exchange and its impact on Europeans, American
Indians, and Africans (Michigan Department of Education, 2007, p. 38) (t(26) = 1.89, p =.07;
effect size = .35). What these two GLCEs had in common was the topic: interactions among
people of different cultures, and the means of assessment: multiple-choice questions (although
they were not only assessed using multiple-choice questions).
There are two possible explanations for the fact that students did not make significant
gains on these GLCEs. One possible explanation is the learning activities in the unit did not
align with the format of the questions on the assessments. During the lessons associated with
each of these GLCEs, students worked in collaborative groups to read and summarize their
understanding. For example, in Lesson 12, students read about the Columbian Exchange and
created a flow chart diagram to illustrate their knowledge of things (e.g. livestock, diseases) that
were moved from east (Old World) to west (New World) and west to east. On the assessments,
students were asked to respond to three multiple-choice questions about the impact of the
Columbian Exchange on the people of Europe, Africa, and the Americas. A second possible
explanation is that these GLCEs were more fact-based. These recall questions were less

71

challenging than higher-order thinking questions, and the unit focused more on developing
historical thinking skills than on requiring students to memorize factual information.
Students made the largest gains (pre-assessment mean = 1.86; post-assessment mean =
3.20, and the effect size was .85 (which is considered large) associated with 5.U.1.3.1, mapping
African regions. There are two possible explanations for this improvement. First, maps of
Africa were displayed in each of the classrooms throughout the unit. Occasionally, teachers and
students referred to these maps. A second possible explanation is that the focus on the visual arts
in the unit impacted the ways in which students responded to questions that had visual
connections.
In summary, these analyses show that students in the experimental group made
significant growth between the pre- and post-assessments, and that students in the experimental
group scored higher than students in the comparison group following the intervention. On
average, the students did not meet expectations on any of the GLCEs (which, although beyond
the scope of this study, is something important to explore). In the next section, I describe my
observations of students’ learning in history as well as literacy and aesthetic skills. The
qualitative data provide a more nuanced and detailed examination of student growth and student
engagement during the unit. These two kinds of data— qualitative and quantitative—help me
fully answer this research questions in a mixed-methods approach. As Johnson and
Onwuegbuzie (2004, pp. 17-18), state, “What is most fundamental is the research question—
research methods should follow research questions in a way that offers the best chance to obtain
useful answers.”

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Student Engagement and Learning: Qualitative Findings
The analyses of the student assessments demonstrated that students who are taught
through interdisciplinary instruction made significant growth between the pre- and postassessments. My analyses of the qualitative data support these quantitative results. During this
unit, students who were taught through interdisciplinary instruction exhibited increased student
engagement, aesthetic development skills, and historical thinking skills. These analyses use the
qualitative data from this study: observations of the experimental classrooms and interviews with
the two experimental teachers.
Student engagement. For the purposes of this study, I defined student engagement in
terms of substantive and procedural student engagement (Nystrand & Gamoran, 1991).
Procedural engagement includes students’ willingness to participate in classroom routines, e.g.,
following classroom rules and completing required academic tasks. Substantive engagement is
described as commitment to the content of schooling beyond a singular lesson, e.g., asking
questions and thinking beyond the immediate academic task. The difference between procedural
and substantive engagement is often associated with time. Procedural engagement is most
associated with a specific class task or action, so it can be recognized with some degree of
immediacy. On the other hand, substantive engagement transcends one task in order to better
understand academic content in terms of the larger world. In addition, engaged students attempt
to establish independence through understanding content and concepts beyond the class
assignments and requirements (Nystrand & Gamoran, 1991). There was evidence of
experimental sample students engaged both in procedural and substantive ways.
Both Kevin and Drew (the teachers in the experimental classrooms) recognized increased
student engagement in their classrooms during the interdisciplinary unit. Each teacher identified

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increased student engagement in terms of involvement in class activities and conversations, as
well as making connections beyond a single lesson. Throughout the project, students began to
take a much more active role in lessons (e.g., by volunteering responses in the classroom).
Students demonstrated procedural and substantive engagement throughout the unit. The
first evidence of this trend was through voluntary participation in whole group lessons. In both
classes, throughout the unit, there were consistently a large number of students raising their
hands to volunteer responses to the teachers’ questions (procedural engagement). I did notice
that this number grew over time. For example, during the opening prompt of the first lesson,
only four (out of 23) students in Drew’s class raised their hands to respond to his questions;
however, by the middle of the unit, on average, two-thirds to three-fourths of the students in both
classes raised their hands to volunteer responses to the teachers’ questions.
The second way in which students exemplified engagement was through the quality and
length of their responses. These responses are examples of both procedural and substantive
engagement. Each lesson began with the display of an image that could both review previous
instruction and preview the day’s topic (in the Professional Development discussions prior to
implementing unit, I suggested that five to seven minutes be devoted to examination and
discussion of these images). As an example, I will draw upon some of the student discussion in
Lesson 2. In this lesson, Drew displayed three images and asked students what they saw.
Student responses ranged from the concrete to the more abstract. For example, Becky said she
saw “flags” and Danielle said she saw “houses.” As the whole class discussion continued,
students attempted to create a story about and among the three images. Danielle put forth the
idea that “it looks like they are going somewhere.” Kenard suggested, “People are trying to walk
around to the water.” While Nate proposed, “I think they are going to war because I see their

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fists and they have spears.” Several students nodded in agreement. This student-driven
discussion continued for approximately 30 minutes (far longer than the 5-7 minutes I suggested,
but Drew let the conversation extend due to students’ enthusiasm for the topic) during which the
students analyzed the images and expanded on one another’s ideas. As Drew moved from the
front to the back of the room to distribute materials, he was grinning for ear-to-ear and said to
me, “They have never done that much talking!” This activity prepared the students to work
collaboratively to use the various texts for the purposes of confirming or refuting their
hypotheses, as well as to gather new information about the kingdoms of Ghana, Songhai, and
Mali.
These rich student responses were not limited to only verbal responses. In Lesson 9,
students investigated various primary sources. At Center 7, students were asked to examine a
collection of images and write about the following questions. “What do these [pictures] have in
common? When you look at them as a collection, what story is being told?” Although there
were a few students’ responses that were brief, most of the students responded to these questions
in several well-crafted sentences. Dave wrote, “I thank [think] a man was mad so he said let’s go
into war.” Kenard wrote, “I think Columbus came from Europe, then he went to North America,
saw some land and then told the queen, then the queen sent the army to procouter [procure] the
land.” Haley responded to the questions in the following way:
They look like they are going to war. They look like they are fighting to ban
slavery. They also look like they are exporting them. They look like they are
keeping them captive. They might be taking the slaves to slave so they don’t die.
Katie replied to the questions with

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This picture tells a story like they were in a long adventer and they used boats to
travel. They found new land and they meet new people, and the pictures look old
and every picture has a boat and people and flags. I think this picture tells a
picture about Clesfer Colombus [Christopher Columbus] because they found new
land and new people and the boats had the same flags when clesfer Colombus
salds. That is all in common of this picture.
These responses exemplify procedural engagement because the students have completed the
assignment task. More interestingly, they demonstrate substantive engagement because the
students are connecting knowledge from previous lessons and prior experiences with this content
material in order to respond to the questions. In addition, Haley and Katie use multiple sentences
in their responses.
The length and quality of student response seemed to increase throughout the unit. In
Kevin’s class, by Lesson 16, students spent approximately 30 minutes analyzing a primary
source of their choice. As part of this lesson, students selected a primary source associated with
the Middle Passage, made at least three hypotheses based on their observations, and summarized
their understandings.
Student participation in the unit’s activities provided opportunities for them to build
understanding and to demonstrate substantive engagement through independent actions in the
classroom. For example, during Lesson 5 in Kevin’s class, he showed students a model of the
mini-museum display that they were asked to create on their own. Kevin spent approximately
eight minutes (a small amount of time in comparison to the number of minutes he spent in direct
instruction) describing the assignment before asking them to complete the task. As part of these
instructions, Kevin prompted students to review and utilize the graphic organizer associated with

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Lessons 2-4. A student, Steve (a student who often did not complete tasks, even when directed
by the teacher), told Kevin, “I don’t have my chart.” Kevin guided him to use the resources
available in the room to help him with the task. Steve proceeded to the back of the classroom
where he selected three books that he thought would help him with the task (creating a minimuseum display). This example shows that the unit required students to make decisions
independently (and actively seek out resources) rather than simply staying at their desks and
relying on the textbook.
During Lesson 12, the teachers assigned students to work in small groups to read about
the Columbian Exchange. The teachers gave students a paragraph or two that they became
“experts” on. These excerpts were assigned based on their individual reading ability (identified
by the classroom teacher), and students were grouped together (by the classroom teacher) to
create a flow chart of The Columbian Exchange. Students’ flow charts were a visual
representation of the reading, which was organized around the geographic movement of
materials (east to west and west to east). Students showed the movement from east to west and
west to east on a map of the world by drawing arrows and labeling the arrows with items
exchanged. In Drew’s class, one group (including Haley, Danielle, and Marc) did very well:
they completed the task together and in the time allotted. Once the reading was completed,
Danielle told Haley, “You will do the map for us, okay?” Followed by “Marc, tell us the stuff
from your part.” Her group members reacted positively. This was the only group to complete
the map during the assigned class time. In a conversation with Drew following this lesson, he
shared that this group was the one with which he was most concerned. His concern stemmed
from their overall classroom participation, which had been minimal. He identified them as

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working at the lowest reading level. Yet through the use of resources, students were able to
demonstrate independence.
Exhibition of aesthetic development skills. As I outlined in Chapter 2, Aesthetic
Development has several commonalities with historical thinking: framework, interpretation, and
understanding. First, the framework of each theory is sequential and often chronological. Next,
in order to demonstrate aspects of Aesthetic Development, students (observers of art) must
interpret what they are seeing. These interpretations are based on a variety of resources and
experiences the student has had. Last, there is an overlapping goal of understanding in both
Aesthetic Development and learning history. The goal is for students to understand a time and
place in context and in relation to themselves. The relationship between aesthetic development
skills and history learning is based on student demonstration in these areas.
Housen (1992) outlined five stages of Aesthetic Development that I use to frame
observations, as well as analyze students’ work samples and pre- and post-assessments. She
framed these stages as problem-solving strategies that help students (observers) think about
objects and images. According to Housen (1992), people’s progression through these stages
occurs sequentially, and each stage is inclusive of the stages before it. Each stage represents a
collection of skills, thus those with less experience observing art are not less adept at knowing
how to look at art; they simply have less experience and, as a result, a smaller repertoire of skills
from which to draw upon for understanding and evaluating art. Therefore, students move
between and among these stages as they gain more exposure to art over time. In order to
promote Aesthetic Development, it is necessary to expose students to art over time--in this case,
over the course of the unit. Aesthetic Development does not occur without time and exposure to
artwork. With each purposeful experience a student has with art, students become more adept in

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making meaning from artwork. The five stages of development are (I) Accountive, (II)
Constructive, (III) Classifying, (IV) Interpretive, and (V) Re-creative.
This unit provided students the opportunity to be part of all these stages but particularly
Stage IV (Interpretive). For example, each lesson started with a visual prompt with the
following questions: what do you see? (Accountive), and what do you think the artist is trying to
tell you? (Interpretive). Moreover, many of the lessons involved the study of primary sources,
which required students to make interpretations. The interpretive stage also overlaps with the
historical thinking skills, particularly historical interpretation. Thus, in these ways, Aesthetic
Development and historical thinking skills reinforce each other.
In this section, I describe examples from the unit of each of the five stages, particularly
Stages I and IV. There were more examples associated with these two stages. Stage I is very
broad (personal observation) and thus all students were capable of demonstrating the action and
behaviors associated with this stage. In addition, there are several examples of students
demonstrating actions associated with Stage IV (Interpretative) that overlap with historical
thinking skills (e.g. historical comprehension, historical analysis and interpretation).
Stage I: Accountive Stage. Those individuals identified in the Accountive stage (Stage I)
of aesthetic development are described as storytellers. They use concrete observations and make
personal connections to create a story or narrative of the piece. The evaluation of art at this stage
is based on what the observer knows and what they like. Often, observers’ comments or stories
are filled with emotional terminology.
While my analysis is of the students, I briefly describe an instance in which one of the
teachers reflects this stage. In Kevin’s descriptions of assignments and his reactions to materials,
he exemplifies Stage I. In Lesson 7, Kevin tells his students “I know there is a lot of dry material

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in social studies . . . that’s how it works.” In that same lesson, he goes on to describe the reading
as “a little gross.” His students also used these kinds of emotional or reactionary statements.
While viewing an image in Before Columbus (Mann, 2010), Kevin asked his students, “What do
the crosses mean?” and “Why are the men carrying swords?” Steve responded, “they [crosses]
are bad. . . in case the other people are slaves, he can cut their heads off.” In this case, Steve
created a narrative based on his understandings and experiences.
During Lesson 7 in Drew’s class, students reacted to a wider array of images in the texts.
Prior to reading a short selection about Europe prior to 1500 (Haskins, 1999), Drew asked
students what they saw in the image from the reading. Both Fiona and Olive responded to this
prompt in ways that exemplify Stage I. Fiona observed, “a queen and a lot of people,” while
Olive focused her attention on “a guy holding a chain. Maybe he is chained.” In this statement,
Olive began to move from pure observation to building a framework of understanding, or toward
Stage II of Aesthetic Development.
Stage II: Constructive Stage. As part of this stage, observers begin to build a
framework or structure for looking at works of visual art. At this stage, viewers use their prior
knowledge (e.g., perceptions, knowledge and values of the world around them), in their
observations and descriptions of artwork. If the work does not fit into the viewer’s experience or
look the way it is “supposed to,” the viewer reacts to the piece. As mentioned in the previous
section, Olive’s statement exemplified aspects of Stage I, observation, and Stage II, using prior
knowledge. In this case, Olive’s prior knowledge of the history of slavery and people being
bound in chains influenced her response.
Another example of Stage II occurred as part of the pre- and post-assessments. While
evaluating the assessments, I noticed that a considerable number of students had not completed

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the tasks associated with Form B, Question 15: “Complete this map about the Triangular Trade
Route.” After the study, I was surprised that so many students left this question blank or half
completed on the post-assessment, so I asked a student, Al, about this. He told me that the
question didn’t make sense--“it was written wrong.” I asked him what was wrong with the
question to which he responded, “The question says to do things on the map, but there isn’t a
map. This [pointing to the image on the page] is a globe. So I didn’t do it because it didn’t say
do it on a globe.” I responded, “Al, this is a map, not a globe.” Al followed-up with “Look at
our book. It is a globe.” He opened his book and read “A globe shows the water and land
masses that cover the Earth” (Boyd et al., 2003, p. H8). The corresponding images look similar
to the image used on the assessment. Al used his prior experience with the image that a circular
depiction of the Earth is a globe, to make sense of the question that was asked. He used this
prior knowledge in order to explain his response to the assessment question.
There were several instances where I observed Stage II: students identifying and
explaining images in the context of their prior knowledge. During Lesson 4, Al connected his
prior knowledge of mosques to an image by simply stating, “I think I see a mosque.” Drew
asked him how he knew it was a mosque as opposed to another type of building. Al pointed out,
“it’s tall and the same shape.” During Lesson 14, Drew displayed an image of a manilla (an iron
bracelet used form of currency in West Africa). A majority of student hands went up to discuss
the image. Kenard was the first to respond with, “We saw that at the museum! They used that to
buy people.” Then Tony added, “It was by those guys trading for the slaves.” Both boys were
accurate, there is a manilla displayed at the Wright Museum as part of the West African trading
post exhibit. Each student identified and explained the image based on their prior experiences, in
this case at the museum.

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Stage III: Classifying Stage. The third stage of Aesthetic Development is the
Classifying Stage. In this stage, viewers are more critical and analytical in their observations of
artwork. In many ways, viewers take on the role of art historians. Observers identify and
examine specific artwork in terms of “place, school, style, time, and provenance” (DeSantis &
Housen, 2007, p. 14). They decode and categorize artwork using facts and figures. Then,
observers explain and rationalize the work’s meaning.
In Lesson 4, Vanessa attempted to decode and rationalize the image of Mansa Musa. “I
think they are trading people going to trade gold.” She observed people traveling on the backs of
animals (Stage I). In this statement, Vanessa connected to her prior experience (Stage II) of
reading and discussing the Gold and Salt trade to aspects of the growth of African towns prior to
the sixteenth century. By using her prior knowledge, Vanessa was able to classify and explain
this image as one representing trade and commerce.
However, Haley interpreted this image a bit differently. She stated, “I see peasants going
to a castle to ask for something.” She decoded this image using her experiences and
understanding to categorize it. Prior to social studies instruction, students had time to
independently read books of their choice. During this time, I observed Haley reading fantasy
fiction--stories that took place in castles that may have involved peasants. Although she was not
accurate in her categorization of the image displayed in class, she demonstrated the skills
associated with this stage.
Stage IV: Interpretive Stage. The fourth stage of Aesthetic Development is the
Interpretive Stage. At this stage, observers seek personal encounters with artwork. They explore
the nuances of the canvas, letting meaning unfold and appreciating details of the piece, e.g., line,
shape, and color. At this stage, the observer’s feelings take precedence over their critical thinking

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skills. This allows for the meanings to emerge for the viewer. New insights emerge with each
new encounter with the artwork. Viewers recognize that the identity and value of the artwork are
subject to interpretation and reinterpretation.
Students in Drew’s class (compared to Kevin’s students) more often exemplified Stage
IV of Aesthetic Development. Drew was consistent in displaying the images associated with
each lesson, and he provided time for his students to discuss each image. Kevin was less
consistent in his use of the images; if a lesson needed to be shortened due to time constraints;
Kevin would begin the lesson without the image. Thus, Drew’s students had more exposure and
practice with art, which enabled them to better demonstrate the skills associated with this stage:
identifying and interpreting symbols through personal encounters.
During the first several lessons of the unit, Drew’s students were given the simple
prompts, “What do you see?” and “What story do you think the artist is trying to tell?” Students
responded to these prompts in fairly concrete terms while seated at their desks. Following the
field trip to the Wright Museum (Lesson 6: Day 1, Week 2), I observed students in Drew’s class
engaging with the images in different ways--engaging in more abstract thinking about the images
and physically interacting with the art by looking closely at it and even touching it.
One instance of this change in interaction occurred during Lesson 7. In response to,
“What do you see?” and “What is the artist trying to tell?,” David stated, “I think someone
started a war.” Then without prompting or permission, he walked to the board and pointed to a
man with a sword in his hand and stated, “because he has a sword.” David identified the sword
as a symbol of war and was compelled to physically point out to his classmates that this symbol
represented the larger concept of war.

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Another demonstration of this Interpretative Stage occurred during Lesson 10. Students
were prompted to examine Diego Rivera’s Disembarkation of the Spanish in Veracruz. A
majority of students verbally contributed to the discussion about this image, and many of them
got out of their seats, walked to the front of the room, and pointed out their various observations
about this mural. During this discussion, students shared observations as well as
reinterpretations as the conversation unfolded. For example, David pointed out “they are
building things in the back.” Olive extended this observation with “the guys in front are selling
the stuff being made.” And David added “but the guys in back aren’t getting any of the money.”
Both David and Olive were interpreting symbols, like the bag held by the man in the foreground
as evidence of trade. Additionally, they explored the relationships among the various figures
included in the mural. Each identified the human figures in the foreground who had lighter skin
to be “in charge” or more powerful than the workers David pointed out who were in the
background and had darker skin.
Stage V: Re-Creative Stage. The last stage of Aesthetic Development is the Re-Creative
Stage in which students/viewers have experiences with art (e.g. viewing and reflecting about
works of art). Here, time is a key ingredient, allowing Stage V viewers to know the provenance
of a work–the date, time period, history, and other intricacies. Drawing on their own experiences
with a particular work, and with viewing in general, these viewers combine personal thoughts
and views that generally address universal concerns (Housen, 1992). Based on this unit of study,
students most often exemplified this stage through discussion of large, more universal concerns.
There are few examples of students at this stage because of the limited exposure students had to
artwork over time.

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This stage was best exemplified by Becky who, in Lesson 10, expressed concern for the
treatment of various individuals in Diego Rivera’s mural. Throughout the introduction and
description of the image, Becky made several comments about trade and started to address issues
of treatment. Following the whole group discussion, students were directed to complete a
graphic organizer. Rather than beginning the graphic organizer, Becky walked over to Drew
who asked her to sit back down. Instead of going directly to her desk, Becky came to me where I
was sitting in the back of the room. She said, “Mrs. Brugar, I don’t think that is right. People
shouldn’t treat people like that.” Becky reacted to the universal concern of the treatment of
others. She acknowledged several places in the mural where one person or a group of people
were not being kind, or in Becky’s words “being mean,” to others.
During Lesson 19, students were shown John Lewis Krimmel’s Pepper-Pot: A Scene in
the Philadelphia Market (1811). In this painting, an African-American woman is selling pepper
pot (a stew) to several white customers. In Drew’s class, students discussed implications of the
universal concern of freedom--in this case, freedom for African Americans living in North
America. Drew asked his students, “Does she look like a slave?” and prompted them “to look at
the clothes.” Several students evaluated her clothing and proclaimed her to be “free . . . because
her clothes are nice,” “It is a whole dress,” and “It doesn’t have holes.” Drew confirmed that the
woman depicted was free and owned a business. In response to hearing the woman in the
painting was free, Amy shared, “I read yesterday about a place in Brazil with a lot of freed
slaves.” Then Olive stated, “She’s an entrepreneur. She could do whatever she wanted.” In
these two short sentences, Olive identified that the woman in the image exemplified freedom
through entrepreneurship: the ability to buy or to sell anything she wanted to someone else.

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The aforementioned examples illustrate the value of Aesthetic Development as an
opportunity for students to learn about history. Students demonstrated a variety of skills-- from
observation and explanation to evaluation and construction of meaning. These skills are
necessary for students to experience the historical process with the goal of gaining a greater
understanding of history.
Historical thinking skills. I am utilizing the five historical thinking skills associated
with the National History Standards (National Center for History in Schools, 1996) to frame my
discussion of historical learning. The historical thinking standards help teachers frame the
learning of history in terms of engaging in student-centered inquiry in which students use a
variety of evidence to answer their questions. The five historical thinking skills/standards are (1)
chronological thinking, (2) historical comprehension, (3) historical analysis and interpretation,
(4) historical research, and (5) historical issues. In this study, students demonstrated all but
historical issues, due to the design of the unit.
Chronological thinking. Chronological thinking provides a way to organize the past and
to show relationships among events to explain cause and effect (historical causality) (National
Center for History in Schools, 1996). For the most part, the intervention unit was designed
chronologically. The focus was on causal relationships among the people of the three regions
being studied (Africa, Europe, and the Americas) in order to scaffold and organize historical
information.
For example, during Lesson 13, Kevin wanted to re-teach the cause and effect
relationships associated with the Columbian Exchange. In order to organize his ideas and
understandings associated the Columbian Exchange, Kevin designed a basic graphic organizer
(see Figure 3). Because it was helpful to him as a learner, Kevin asked his students to create and

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complete the same graphic organizer (see Figure 3). Students were prompted and reminded to
add examples under each heading.

East to West
Diseases

Crops and Animals

West to East
Diseases

Crops and Cuisine

Figure 3. Columbian Exchange Organizer. Kevin created this organizer for his students
to use when taking notes during their reading and to then be used when creating their
flow chart.

The students worked in small groups to complete their organizers. In four of the five
classroom groups, students divided the reading and added their contribution. As the students
completed the organizer, Kevin asked students to give real world examples of cause and effect.
John’s example was “people were talking so people went to lunch late.” Kevin added, “I am
thirsty, cause . . . I take a drink, effect.” He transitioned to the organizer students had completed
and instructed, “Look at the graphic organizer. The cause is the Columbian Exchange for all
these things.” He asked a several students to share examples from their work. John shared,
“slavery as a negative effect for America and a positive for Europe. They got rich.” In this
example, John identified the institution of slavery; recognized two parties effected of slavery;

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and evaluated the effects as positive and negative. This example represents John’s overall
growth in chronological thinking.
Historical comprehension. Historical comprehension means that students develop the
ability to explain a sequence of events and to analyze the contemporary factors that influenced
the course of these historical events. In order to demonstrate these skills, students should be able
(1) to identify the central question addressed in the historical narrative; (2) to define the
perspective of the narrative; (3) to read the historical analysis; and (4) to recognize the
narrative’s text organization through rhetorical clues and text features. There are several
examples of students exhibiting historical comprehension skills both individually and in small
groups.
As I described earlier, in Lesson 2, students were asked to examine images of the Mali
Empire and Mansa Musa. Drew’s class spent approximately 10 minutes discussing the depiction
of Mansa Musa in the Catalan Atlas (1375). Following the examination of the three images,
students were given one of three texts (based on reading level): Ancient West African Kingdoms
(Shuter, 2008), Ancient West African Kingdoms: Ghana, Mali, &Songai (Quigley, 2002), and
Kids Discover: Ancient Kingdoms (2007). Tony was reading his assigned text (Quigley, 2002)
and stopped when he got to the image of Mansa Musa that was displayed on the board. He took
the open book to Drew and said, “This is the picture we already saw. It’s in here.” Drew
congratulated him for recognizing the picture and directed him to take his seat. Tony returned to
his desk and noticed that David’s book (Shuter, 2002) had a similar picture, as did Haley’s book
(Kids Discover, 2007). Tony collected the three books and walked back to my desk and stated,
“Ms. Brugar, the picture we saw is in all these.” I asked Tony, “Were you guys right? Did you
say the right things about the picture?” Tony looked at me quizzically, then examined the texts

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while he stated, “I am looking at the captions to find out.” After a few minutes, Tony said, “We
were right that he is a king. But we didn’t say anything about Mali. We just said Africa.”
Tony demonstrated the four attributes associated with historical comprehension. He
identified central questions associated with the lesson: Who was Mansa Musa? Why was he
important? He acknowledged several points of view about Mansa Musa, including the
viewpoints of his classmates and the perspectives of the authors of the various texts used in the
lesson. Further, Tony drew upon the images in the various texts in order to elaborate on his
understanding of Mansa Musa. Next, Tony used text features, in this case captions, to focus his
attention on information about the image in order to better understand it. Finally, Tony
compared the class discussion with his newfound information in order to develop his narrative of
Mansa Musa.
In addition, during Lessons 8 and 9, students demonstrated historical comprehension.
These two lessons addressed the use of primary and secondary sources when studying history.
The lessons were designed as a series of eight centers students visited to complete a short task.
Kevin and Drew decided to alter these lessons in one way: instead of having small groups of
students read The Traveling Man: The Journey of Ibn Battuta 1325-1354 (Rumford, 2004), each
opted to read the text to the whole class and model the written expectations for the centers.
Drew began to read by displaying the text for his students on the document reader. He
stated, “If we were doing this for reading, we would look at the pictures in more detail.” This
statement appeared to prompt students to look more closely at the pictures. Al raised his hand
and asked, “Is that Arabic around the words?” Drew responded, “Yep, the story is written in
Arabic and English. I am going to read the English.” Al said, “I can speak Arabic and Marc and
Danielle. My dad can read it too.” Then Drew asked, “Why would this be written in English

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and Arabic?” The students sat quiet for a few moments before Marc raised his hand and said,
“Maybe that’s the way the guy in it talked.” Drew responded with “Good, it says on the back
that Ibn was a Muslim scholar. So I guess he spoke Arabic.”
Lesson 9 was an extension of Lesson 8 in that students worked independently on the
remaining centers. In Drew’s class, students worked well at each station—asking questions but
acting much more independent than I had observed in previous lessons. Al, Kenard, and Olive
were in one group. When this group arrived at Center 4, Kenard read the instructions to the other
group members: What area do you think this map represents? Identify 3-5 clues that helped you
come to this conclusion. As a group, the students discussed several possibilities from “I don’t
know!” to “It’s Africa.” After a minute or so of brainstorming, Kenard started to look beyond
his group members to the world map on the far bulletin board. He looked from the bulletin
board to the map and back to the bulletin board before he got up and took the map to the bulletin
board. With his finger, Kenard traced the outline of the west coast of Africa on the map and the
bulletin board while he explained the similarities to the other members of his group. Olive
followed suit by outlining the Italian peninsula on the map and then the bulletin board. Then the
group returned to their center to record their responses to the task.
In Lesson 12, Kevin displayed John Vanderlyn’s painting The Landing of Columbus
(1846). In this painting, Vanderlyn depicts the landing of Christopher Columbus in West Indies.
Kevin asked his students, “What is happening here?” Jonathon said, “I think they just won a
war,” and Jane noticed, “I think they don’t think anyone is there but people are hiding.” The
conversation continued for several minutes before Zane raised his hand and said, “Do you
remember the article you were not supposed to give us. There was a picture with the same

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cross.” Through his contribution, Zane recognized a clue that linked previous information about
European exploration for religious purposes to this image.
Historical analysis and interpretation. In order to address this standard, students must
work with a variety of historical resources. When students use of various sources, they have
opportunities to identify varied perspectives on an historical event. Also, students are able to
recognize and differentiate among historical interpretations.
There is evidence of students demonstrating this standard of historical thinking during
Lesson 10. When Drew displayed the anchor image, he asked, “What do we see? What is the
artist trying to tell us?” Kenard responded, “It looks like the museum when they were taking the
guy.” In this statement, he was referring to the gallery in the And Still We Rise exhibit in which a
mannequin is dressed and bound in a similar way to the man kneeling in the left foreground of
the image. Then Vanessa pointed to upper right side of the image and identified corn, then
stated, “Corn was originally made in America but it is being taken.” Vanessa referenced the
reading from the previous session (Mann, 2010) but noted that the corn was a commodity being
exported, thus showing varied perspectives on an historical event.
In Lesson 11, Kevin’s students compared perspectives on European colonization in North
America. Students were asked to read, compare, and evaluate the approach that the British, the
French, and the Spanish took in building relationships with the Native Americans. Throughout
this lesson, students’ small group conversation was peppered with evaluative statements like
“That’s not fair” and “The British were mean.”
As part of Lesson 17, Kevin directed his students to “state the notes in your own words.
Don’t copy, use your own words. The pictures can come from the book because it is your own
interpretation.” As a result of this prompting, Kevin’s students attempted to make sense of

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challenging text in their own words. Students used various sources, representing varied
perspectives on European colonization in hopes of having a more complete understanding of
colonization on those affected by it. Thus students may better understand the past.
Historical research capabilities. Based on students’ understanding and experiences with
various historical perspectives and types of evidence, students develop questions about the past.
Historical inquiry begins with identification of a problem or questions to investigate. Then
students gather and examine evidence associated with the problem or questions. After, students
analyze their information and present their findings (National Center for History in Schools,
1996).
Lesson 6 consisted of preparing for and attending the Charles H. Wright Museum of
African American History (Wright Museum). Prior to their departure for the field trip, students
were asked to observe and examine images of the Wright Museum. In Drew’s class, students
worked together on a K-W-L chart. The students had limited knowledge (K) about the site--only
Al had visited the museum before this class trip. Therefore, Drew focused on what students
wanted to learn (L). Kenard asked, “Why is it [the building] a circle?” Olive wanted to know
“what the flags represent.” Drew encouraged each student to write their questions on a note card
and to carry it in their pockets on the trip so they could ask a museum guide and gather evidence.
Olive’s question about the flags was addressed quickly upon our arrival at the museum.
Kevin and Drew’s students entered the museum and stood in a circle in the large room they
viewed in their classrooms. Olive looked up, noticed the flags, and took her note card out of her
pocket. She asked her question to the tour guide who explained that the flags represent the
overarching content of the museum–the African Diaspora. The tour guide recognized the

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students’ confusion over the word “diaspora” and re-worded her answer by saying “the flags are
all the places that people moved from Africa to.”
Kenard saw the discussion of Olive’s question as an opportunity to ask his question.
However, his question was not as easily answered. In response, the tour guide said, “Yep, it is a
circle. It makes it echo in here.” Since I had visited the Wright Museum many times in advance
of this field trip, I was familiar with the significance of the architectural design. The circular
design mimics the conical design of Shona architecture in Sub-Saharan Africa. Thus, I directed
Kenard to read about the Shona in the Kids Discover: African Kingdoms (2007), which was one
of the informational texts used in the intervention unit. Upon returning from the field trip,
Kenard read the pages about the Shona and The Great Zimbabwe and shared with me his
hypothesis about the circular building. “I think it is a circle because circles are strong and look
important.” Each of these seemingly innocent questions was significant to the design and
material presented at this museum. In addition, each of these questions represented the students’
ability to create lines of inquiry that were of interest to them and were appropriate for
investigation and demanded evidence gathering.
As part of Lesson 17, students were asked to develop their own questions for historical
inquiry around issues of impact. In Drew’s class, all students worked together to develop the
following questions:
1) Affected what Africans ate. What impact did opening trade routes have on what the
Africans ate?
2) Population decreased. How did the population decrease?
3) Areas of Kongo and Angola changed. How were the areas of Kongo and Angola
impacted or affected by the slave trade? (Student Samples, Lesson 17)

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Haley responded to question 1 with “New crops from new land ar [are] introduced to Africa
which were cassava and maize.” Not only did Haley respond to questions of inquiry, she also
demonstrated her understanding of causal relationships in her response to question 2, “People
were selling, but nobody was buying. Nobody was there to buy.”
This same lesson was approached a bit differently in Kevin’s classroom. Kevin prompted
his students to think about and share their impressions about the term impact. John said,
“something affects a whole thing,” and Jane added, “like an accident.” Based on conversation
and reading, the students developed their own questions for inquiry. The students used these
questions to guide their reading in Slavery (Grant, 2010) and gather evidence about impact to put
in a foldable. Zane examined a primary source entitled “Dancing on the Deck.” His questions
for inquiry included (1) “why were slaves property? (2) Why did they beat slaves if they were
valuable? (3) What did they do with dead slaves?” Michelle studied a source called “Food and
Drink” and created three questions: (1) “How did the slaves live with just rice and beans? (2)
How long did the slaves go without food and water? (3) Did the slaves only get one handful of
water?” In response to these questions, Michelle documented details from her reading and
inferences (labeled “inferences” in her foldable) she made. For example, in response to question
1, Michelle wrote, “Detail – I see black and white beans. Inference – I think that the slaves were
getting very little food.” Students formulated questions, and examined and evaluated evidence in
order to interpret the past.
Historical issues-analysis and decision-making. With this skill, students are asked to
think about historical issues at pivotal historical moments from a contemporary perspective.
Throughout the unit, students wrestled with a number of historical issues from trade relationships
to interactions among people.

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In Lesson 4, students were examining the growth of states, towns and trade in Africa
prior to the sixteenth century. As a result, the students were asked to read about the gold and salt
trade of medieval Africa. At the conclusion of the lesson, Drew asked his students, “Was a trade
of gold for salt a good deal?” The students collectively respond, “yes” to which Drew asked,
“why?” Marc raised his hand and responded, “There wasn’t a lot of it,” and Al added, “It was
used to preserve food.” Marc acknowledged the scarcity of salt across the African continent
prior to the sixteenth century. Al recognized the contemporary value of salt to the people of the
time in reference to food preservation.
Becky exemplified the ability to grapple with historical issues. During Lesson 10,
students were prompted to examine Diego Rivera’s Disembarkation of the Spanish in Veracruz
(1951). Drew’s students identified many aspects of the image as part of a full class discussion-from livestock to weapons to the exchange of money in the foreground to the treatment of people
by others in the left foreground and right background. Following the full class discussion, Drew
directed the students to write a short summary paragraph, and Becky walked to the back of the
room to the table where I sat. She said, “Mrs. Brugar, can I tell you something?” Without
giving me an opportunity to respond she stated, “I don’t like how those people are treated in the
picture. People shouldn’t be allowed to do that to people, especially the guy with that thing over
his head.” She held her hand over her head in a similar way to the man in the right background
holding a whip. I said to Becky, “I agree with you, we should treat people better. Why do you
think that man was doing that?” She simply stated, “There was a lot of work, I guess. But it
isn’t right and we shouldn’t do it today.” Becky recognized the perspective the artist was
presenting in the mural and she was able to express her own perspective on the treatment of
people in the painting.

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In summary, students’ learning in history did improve following their participation in an
interdisciplinary history-literacy-visual arts curriculum. All students (experimental and
comparison) showed statistically significant improvement on their learning of historical content.
However, students in the experimental classrooms showed greater improvement than students in
the comparison classrooms on the post-assessments. The qualitative data provide a more finegrained description of student improvement than the quantitative results. In addition, these data
go beyond the GLCEs. In this study, students the students showed evidence of engagement and
skills associated with Aesthetic Development, and engaged in historical thinking skills. Thus, we
do know that this kind of instruction makes a difference. However, is this kind of
interdisciplinary instruction feasible and worthwhile in the teachers’ eyes? The next chapter
responds to this important question.

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Chapter 5
Teacher Findings
The previous chapter answered the dissertation’s first two research questions, which
focused on student learning. I concluded that student growth in history learning was evident and
I concluded that an interdisciplinary teaching approach resulted in student growth in history
learning. However, student growth is not the only factor that determines whether a curricular
approach should be adopted. Factors including whether teachers find an approach manageable
and feasible are also important. If teachers feel that an approach is not cost-effective and is too
difficult and time-consuming, they are unlikely to incorporate it into their teaching (Brophy &
Alleman, 1991). In this chapter, I turn to the third research question: How do teachers view the
feasibility and effectiveness of implementing an interdisciplinary history-literacy-visual arts
curriculum? Drawing upon interviews (both formal and informal), as well as classroom
observations, I describe the benefits of an interdisciplinary approach, as well as the challenges
these teachers face in planning and implementing instruction of this kind. In this chapter I focus
on my observations of Kevin and Drew and the comments by these teachers in the interviews.
Benefits
Jones (2010) outlined several advantages of interdisciplinary instructional strategies.
They provide space for students to solve problems using higher order thinking skills, as well as
enrich lifelong learning habits and academic skills. Kevin and Drew noted several advantages to
an interdisciplinary history-literacy-visual arts curriculum over a traditional approach to teaching
history. They described benefits for both students and teachers: (1) active student engagement,
(2) students’ use of higher order thinking skills, and (3) teacher learning. Together, these three
benefits make a compelling argument for the effectiveness and feasibility of the approach.

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Active student engagement. As I explained in Chapter 4, I observed students engaged
in the interdisciplinary lessons associated with the intervention unit. I drew upon Nystrand and
Gamoran’s (1992) use of student engagement (as being composed of procedural and substantive
engagement). Although I have discussed student engagement in Chapter 4 already, here, my
discussion of student engagement is framed differently. Here, I describe student engagement as a
benefit of this kind of interdisciplinary instruction described from the teachers’ perspectives.
First, there was procedural engagement in which students demonstrated a willingness to
participate in the classroom routine. In addition, students demonstrated substantive engagement
through understanding content and concepts beyond the class assignments and requirements.
Kevin and Drew described students’ engagement as “active.” This active engagement was
evidenced in two ways: (1) increased participation (procedural) and (2) connections among
lessons within the unit, between the unit and other school subjects, and with the world beyond
school (substantive).
Both Kevin and Drew recognized the active engagement of their students during the
interdisciplinary unit. Each teacher identified student engagement in terms of involvement in
class activities and conversations as well as making connections beyond a single lesson. First,
students demonstrated active involvement through increased voluntary participation in whole
group lessons. For example, during the entirety of the first lesson, only four out of 23 students in
Drew’s class raised their hands to respond to his questions. By lesson 14, 18 of the students
raised their hands to participate throughout the lesson. By Lesson 19, 23 students volunteered to
participate in the full group discussion of the anchor image. As I described in Chapter 3, each
lesson began with an image and students were asked to respond to two questions: What do you
see? What story do you think the artist is trying to tell?

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In reflecting on teaching the unit, Drew noted that this unit elicited “the most
involvement I have seen from my students in all my teaching. We [Drew and his students]
looked forward to social studies.” Not only were students involved in instruction, “they
[students] wanted to participate. They were so engaged.” I asked him why he thought there was
such a high level of participation. Drew responded, “it was safe and comfortable for them to
interject.” Additionally, during my classroom observations, I noted students being praised for
their contributions and inquiring about topics of which they were unsure.
In his description of the intervention unit, Kevin commented, “I like the students talking
and working together.” He went on to describe several experiences in which the students worked
together. Throughout the unit, Kevin encouraged his students to assist one another with prompts
like, “ask your partner” and “check what you know with someone else.” Kevin described the
experiences students had during Lesson 8 and 9—working with primary and secondary sources.
“The kids helped each other with the tough reading selections so they could complete the
assignments.” In my observations of this lesson, several students helped one another with the
reading passages. For example, Mary asked Dave, “What’s league?” (a reference to Center 3,
Diary of Christopher Columbus). Dave shrugged and said, “I guess we need to check the
dictionary” and proceeded to get a dictionary from the classroom library. Mary and Dave read
the various definitions together before they decided that Columbus was referring to a distance.
While student participation generally increased throughout the unit, Drew and Kevin
identified two areas that seemed to be particularly engaging for students: (1) the treatment of
others and (2) opportunities to connect to their prior experiences.
During Lesson 11 in Kevin’s class, students worked together (three groups of five
students) to create a chart comparing the British, French, and Spanish involvement in North

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America and with Native Americans (see Figures 4 and 5). As part of the class assignment,
students read, discussed, and summarized the each European group’s interactions with Native
Americans. While generating the chart, the students spoke with one another about the positive
and negative aspects of these interactions. The students reacted to the material they read with
statements like, “that’s not fair,” “why are they [French, Spanish and British] different?” While
reading the text, a student named Steve asked the peers in his group and then asked Kevin, “what
does elimination mean?” Kevin responded, “get rid of. I want to eliminate the ants by the door.
I can sweep them outside or have the janitor spray them so they will be eliminated or gone.”
Following this explanation, Steve turned to his peers and said, “this means the British were okay
with getting rid of the Indians. . . like killing them, right?”

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Figure 4. Teacher Prompt, Lesson 11. I included a photograph of the classroom chalkboard
where the prompt was displayed and referenced to for the students. This is handwritten material.

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British
•

“The British had very

French
•

litte respect or
kindness”

“The Frenchs interest

Spanish
•

“Use as labor force”

for trading fur”
•

“The French and
Indians were less
violent than in
Spanish or English.”

Figure 5. Clash of cultures. This table shows student sample responses of their collaborative
reading.

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At the lesson’s conclusion, Kevin quickly summarized the three perspectives
(using the charts in Figure 5 as a guide) and asked his students, “Which group related to
the Native Americans the best? You are going to have an ‘is’ and ‘because’ statement.”
Students were given two minutes to review their charts and reach a consensus. All three
groups felt the French related best to the Native Americans because they “married Native
Americans,” “learned their culture,” and as Nadine said, “They were not interested in
immigration.” In coming to these conclusions, students drew information from their
readings and the collaborative chart each group had completed. At the conclusion of this
lesson Kevin commented, “They [his students] really seemed to empathize. We have
been talking about that during reading. It was cool to see them feel for others.”
In addition to student participation concerning the treatment of others, Drew and
Kevin noticed increased participation when students had the opportunity to connect to
their prior classroom/academic experiences. During Lesson 8, Drew read and displayed
Traveling Man (Rumsford, 2004) as an example of an historical narrative for his students.
The students listened to Drew read and looked at the pictures in the book. A couple of
pages into the reading, Al raised his hand and asked, “Is that Arabic around the words?”
Drew responded, “Yep, the story is written in Arabic and English. I am going to read the
English.” Al said, “I can speak Arabic and Marc and Danielle. My dad can read it too.”
Al had connected not only his prior experiences, but also to the prior experiences of his
peers. Then Drew asked, “Why would this be written in English and Arabic?” The
students sat silently for a few moments before Marc raised his hand and said, “Maybe
that’s the way the guy in it talked.” “Good, it says on the back that Ibn was a Muslim

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scholar. So I guess he spoke Arabic,” said Drew. Marc connected to his experiences in
which Arabic and English are spoken and written.
These two areas (the treatment of others and students’ prior experiences)
overlapped during and following the students’ field trip experience at the Wright
Museum. Drew remembered his students’ experiences and reactions to the exhibit And
Still We Rise at the Wright Museum (Lesson 6). In this exhibit, students followed the
experience of Africans in Africa being captured, sold, and forcibly brought to the
Americas. Drew recalled, “They [his students] always came back to remember when the
people were in cages with the chains, and we went down in the ship.” Further, Drew
noted that students often referred to “going into the hull of the slave ship, it was scary for
them.” Yet their memories extended beyond the hull of the ship. The principal at Mann
Elementary asked Drew’s students to write about three things they observed at the
museum. Becky wrote, “The first thing I learned is how slavery is just nasty, plain
nasty.” Haley stated, “Slaves were treated unfair.” Katie noted, “The people would put
the slaves on a boat and separate them . . . and it was cruel.” Each of these statements
links students’ prior experiences with their reactions to the treatment of others. All the
students in Drew’s class also participated and “loved the field trip. This absolutely
connected and it built our prior knowledge. It is more difficult in a district like this when
kids don’t get these experiences.” Drew expressed a great pride in his students’ memories
of their experiences as well as their ability to connect these memories with the
information they acquired during the tour.
Kevin expressed surprise about the field trip’s on-going impact on his students
and in their conversations. Kevin reported, “I was skeptical of going at the beginning . . .

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before my kids knew anything. But the kids got a lot out of it. I can’t believe what they
remember.” Similar to Drew’s class, all of Kevin’s students attended the field trip. He
acknowledged, “It was a true experience and created common experiences because
everyone went on the trip.”
Another avenue of student engagement was the ways they voluntarily made
connections among lessons, between school subjects, and with the real world. Students
were able to draw connections between the content of the unit and their learning in other
school subjects. While there Drew and Kevin noted multiple examples of student
connection-making among lessons in the intervention unit, both felt the field trip was the
experience most often referenced and remembered by students.
In addition, students’ engagement in other aspects of the school day connected to
the content of this unit. According to Drew, his students “are using observation all the
time. We used it in social studies with the pictures every day and they are doing the same
thing in science and language. . . what do you see? What’s the story?” Another example,
in Kevin’s class, is when students visited the library once a week to borrow books for
independent reading. He described this class experience as an “opportunity for kids to be
independent and make their own choices.” In the last two weeks of the unit, Nadine
selected books about slavery in order to learn more about how the practice of slavery was
ended in the United States. Nadine demonstrated a level of independence in her selection
of the text so she could broaden her knowledge and understanding of this social studies
topic, which she would explore further during reading and language arts instructional
time.

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In summarizing his hopes for this instructional unit, Kevin said, “I want them to
bring narratives in from their own lives and share…School doesn’t end at the school
door.” Similarly, Drew described the benefits of interdisciplinary instruction as “like the
real world. . . everything’s together.” Additionally, he explained that this type of
instruction could be used “across school subjects.” Amanda (comparison teacher) had
several ideas about the benefits of interdisciplinary teaching and learning “students can
hook this information to something they already, you know, prior knowledge. The
transfer of information and use of generalization—using in a new and different way.”
Exhibition of higher order thinking skills. Throughout the unit, I observed
students engaged in higher order thinking (Bloom, 1956)—from observation and analysis
to evaluation and creation. In addition, Drew and Kevin identified the use of higher order
thinking skills among their students and as another benefit to interdisciplinary instruction
for their students. Specifically, they identified students’ opportunities and abilities to (1)
make inferences, (2) apply their knowledge, and (3) make evaluations. Each of these
higher order thinking skills is significant in students’ learning of history. During
meaningful history instruction, teachers ask students to draw upon what they know in
order to make assumptions, ask questions, and draw conclusions about the past (Levstik
& Barton, 2008; Wineburg, 1990).
Inference. In the Post Interview, I asked Kevin and Drew to identify the various
skills they felt were emphasized in the intervention unit. Drew responded in general
terms about the skills students developed and used. He noted the benefits of students
“building prior knowledge and building experiences” through the course of the unit. In
addition, Drew acknowledged, “It was nice to have more materials for these students to

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link together.” He spoke most enthusiastically about the opportunity students had to make
inferences. “We did PD on inferencing, and I think that’s huge when you are reading
expository text.”
Like Drew, Kevin also instructed his students in how to make inferences. During
Lesson 16, they examined primary sources about the Triangular Trade Routes. As an
introduction, Kevin asked Zane to pick one of the possible sources of inquiry, and he
selected the image of the slave ship, The Brooks, 1788 (Grant, 2010, p. 40). Kevin
instructed the students to “list a detail from your image and add an inference.” Zane
asked “like a prediction?” John followed with “like an observation?” Kevin explained
further, “The inference is like a guess based on detail. It is an assumption based on what
we see.” His students set to work. First, each student identified a primary source from
the pre-selected list. Second, each student developed three questions about the sources.
Third, each student identified and documented three details and inferences (based on
those details) in a foldable. Below are two examples of the student work (see Figures 6a
and 6b). Nadine identified the ropes in the image she selected and made the inference
that the ropes would be used to harm the enslaved people on the ship. In making this
inference, Nadine stated, “like at the museum . . . on the ship.” Zane acknowledged,
“Slaves were property.” Then he inferred “They [slaves] were sold a lot.” He made the
connection that property is often bought and sold.

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Nadine’s Example

Figure 6a. Student examples of inferences.
Based on Kevin’s explanation of inferences, Figure 6a includes a student’s example of
their work with inferences. Nadine’s work exemplifies Kevin’s explanation of inference.
In addition, these students demonstrated their ability to show causality, an important skill
associated with history learning. This is handwritten material.

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Zane’s Example

Figure 6b. Student examples of inferences.
Based on Kevin’s explanation of inferences, Figure 6b includes a student’s example of
their work with inferences. Zane’s work exemplifies Kevin’s explanation of inference. In
addition, these students demonstrated their ability to show causality, an important skill
associated with history learning. This is handwritten material.

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Application. Kevin spoke about the skills that students developed in the unit,
noting several skills that he categorized as “general skills, not just social studies skills.”
Additionally he stated, “There are a lot of skills that are more literacy than social
studies.” He identified student engagement through the following general skills: asking
and responding to open-ended questions that gave his students an opportunity to “connect
to the world outside of school. ” In addition, Kevin felt his students had many
opportunities to begin “looking beyond just text.” He went on to explain, “The kids had
to do some tough stuff. The reading was challenging, to say the least, so they had to
make sense of what they read and then they had to do something with that information.”
This meant they were able to perform two complex tasks. First, they could use more than
simply the textbook for gathering information or learning about a subject. Second, in
addition to written text, students used and dissected images to think critically about the
past and develop the open-ended questions he mentioned as a general skill that students
developed.
Further, Kevin gained an appreciation for reading and understanding primary
sources as a distinct social studies skill. “I don’t remember learning about primary
sources.” He discussed the power of these materials (e.g., Columbus’ diary and the
narrative of Ibn Battuta). “These are real people, doing the same things you like to do.”
He said primary sources “allows kids to dive deep” into the people and places students
study.
Both Kevin and Drew acknowledged that the texts used throughout the unit were
challenging for their students who had varying reading abilities. Kevin stated, “The
reading is tough for me. I have to read stuff two times, so I know it is tough for the kids.”

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But the teachers were quick to identify the possible ways their students might apply prior
knowledge from reading and language arts instruction to overcome these challenges.
Thus, each identified the literacy skills associated with this intervention unit as important
to building student content knowledge. Kevin consistently worked with his students to
teach them how to take notes and highlight the texts. While reading a selection from
Before Columbus (Mann, 2010), Kevin taught students to highlight important information
in the text by saying, “After each sentence you are going to highlight two important
words. Then you are going to explain those words in the margins [he then asked students
to identify the margins by pointing to them on their reading packets].” Also Kevin noted
his students’ use of text features, most notably, “looking to captions for student ideas to
come forth.”
While Kevin worked with a variety of language arts skills, Drew focused mainly
on vocabulary development. He stated, “The kids used context clues for vocabulary.
Think of all the vocabulary they got in context, like livestock. We didn’t go past it. We
learned it as we read about it.” He went on to say, “We focused on vocab because they
needed that to understand the history. Once, they got it [vocabulary words] we could
move on.” More generally, he felt students used these context clues or “comprehension
strategies, which you do in life.”
Teacher learning. Drew and Kevin took ownership of this unit after they
recognized the level of student engagement and the skills students were developing
through the unit. They were learners alongside their students. Teacher ownership of the
unit and lessons was also a benefit since, as I stated in the introduction of this chapter,
they are stewards of the curriculum and have the power to made decisions about what is

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and is not included, as well as how instruction is given. As each teacher became more
comfortable with the content of the unit, the lessons, and their materials, they took greater
ownership over how the material and how it was presented. Drew and Kevin spoke about
issues of ownership generally, in terms of what they already knew and what they learned.
Each teacher spoke about how their level of investment increased over time.
Early in the unit, Kevin did very little preparation in advance of the lessons. He reported
about using the curriculum, “I thought this was going to be one of those canned things
where you just come in and read from the paper. In that first week, I learned I needed to
think about the lessons before teaching them.” Lesson Seven seemed to mark a turning
point in his sense of curricular ownership. In Lesson Seven, students were divided into
three groups, one representing each of the three civilizations studied in the unit. After
reading a short selection about their assigned civilization, students reorganized into
groups of three so a representative from each civilization was present and completed a
Venn diagram. Kevin was confused by the lesson plan description; he read it for the first
time while he attempted to instruct his students about the lesson expectations. Following
the lesson, he looked over at me and said, “I should have prepped better. This was a
disaster.” He expressed frustration because he had not organized students in this way
before and was unsure how things should proceed in the lesson. After this experience,
Kevin reported to me (and I observed) that he read the lessons at least one day in advance
and asked questions face-to-face or via e-mail frequently. In reflection Kevin stated, “I
think I needed that. When lessons good well, I don’t really think about it––they are
supposed to go well. When it doesn’t work, I am forced to think about how to do things
better. I think I got better at teaching this stuff.”

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Drew described teaching of the unit in this way: “These were your lessons, your
unit. I didn’t feel like I was going to fail, no matter what because you were here. I felt
like you were the mentor, a co-teacher, a class member. So the next time I do it I will feel
more ownership because I will be more comfortable with it.” Drew went on to say that
the intervention unit will be “his unit” next year, but he will be employing the
instructional strategies (e.g., use of images and varied text sources) in his class now.
Kevin described a similar process of growth. “More of me invested in the lessons as I
went along.” He stated, “I needed to be engaged and excited so the kids could get
something out it.” While he expressed some frustration at the perceived open-endedness
of some of the lessons, he described this process as “an opportunity to grow. Any
monkey can read a script.” Similar to Drew’s description of implementing the unit with
support in order to then teach it on his own, Kevin described the learning process in terms
of his previous teaching assignment. “If you are a science teacher, you better do the
experiment first. With this, I need to do it first so I can answer their questions.”
As Kevin began to take greater ownership of the unit, he identified several key
components he already knew. First, “I knew I liked the foldables.” Foldables are handson, student-created graphic organizers developed using skills and concepts. Often
foldables are created using kinesthetic activities that help students organize information
(Zike, 2000). So, “I put more foldables in” the lessons. Also, Kevin knew there was
“difficult text [that] was a challenge because many of my students are below reading
level.” As a result, for several of the readings, he worked with students independently
and in small groups. In addition, Kevin added reading to further students’ background
knowledge about people and places. I most often observed this when the students were

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reading Slavery (Grant, 2010) in which short paragraphs provide information in
conjunction with a lot of visual material.
Both teachers identified the benefits of learning about teaching through the
process of increasing their curricular ownership. According to Kevin, “I needed to
become a student of the material. I needed to learn alongside the students.” Kevin
reiterated that he learned “the concept of primary and secondary sources. I probably
knew of it, but I didn’t have a name for it and I liked it. I learned something and I think it
can be used in a lot of different places.” Further, he said, “It’s not textbook. It helped me
think about planning ahead to find different texts, trade books for other sources for
instruction for students at different levels because my students aren’t at the same level.
Remind my eyes to stay open.” Drew discussed the role of the textbook as well. “After
the unit, I am looking at the textbook differently. It really got me thinking of how can I
do things differently. This unit gave me more tools as a teacher.” In his description of a
more traditional approach (textbook-driven) to teaching, Drew stated, “teachers have
pacing guides and sometimes this [interdisciplinary instruction] slows you down if you
are going deeper, but you want students to go deeper.” The last challenge he identified
was “new material I have to get used to…I might have known of but I didn’t remember
it.”
In the post-interviews, I asked Drew and Kevin about the content and skills that
were emphasized during the intervention unit. Drew identified slavery, trade, and the
“decreasing population and trauma to people” as the content prioritized in this unit of
study. Kevin spoke about the content a bit differently, stating that it was “mostly about
African culture,” but also about other “cultural aspects and how did cultures interact.” He

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went on to talk about his connection to the content. “I liked trade the best. I know the
Triangle Trade, but I didn’t really know much about the Columbian Exchange.”
The benefits of interdisciplinary history-literacy-visual arts curriculum include
teachers and students engaging in active inquiry with the unit materials and exploring
how they relate to the past and the present. In order for students to take an active role in
the inquiry, they must employ higher order thinking skills in ways that mimic the work of
historians, making inferences, applying knowledge, and evaluating resources of the past.
Challenges
Unsurprisingly, teachers also encountered challenges while teaching the
interdisciplinary unit. There are several conditions necessary for interdisciplinary
instruction to be effective (Barab & Landa, 1997; Black, 1997; Brophy & Alleman, 1991;
Gatewood, 1998; Vars, 1991; Willis, 1994). McBee (2001) concluded that the consistent
presence of curriculum integration was not possible due to several challenges: time,
limited materials, incompatible standards and assessment tools, and an entrenched view
of disciplinary divisions in the curriculum. These challenges were evident in my study.
The challenges for teachers included (1) time, (2) teacher preparedness, and (3)
experience with interdisciplinary instruction.
Time. The lack of time was one challenge Drew and Kevin acknowledged and
repeatedly noted throughout the study. Time is a precious commodity in any classroom,
and the experimental and comparison classrooms in this study were no exception. The
results of a nationwide, longitudinal study indicate that social studies instruction has been
marginalized part of K-5 curriculum during the last two decades (Fitchett & Heafner,

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2010). I noted two distinct but interrelated aspects of the time challenge: the number of
minutes devoted to social studies instruction and the time of day the subject is taught.
In all participating classrooms for this study, social studies was most often taught
in the afternoon and toward the end of the day. For example, Drew taught social studies
Monday through Thursday from 12:50-1:45 p.m. and Fridays from 10:40 a.m.-11:30 a.m.
(the one exception to afternoon social studies). Yet, he rarely started “on time” because
students were returning from lunch and recess at 12:50 p.m. and often required time to
settle back into academics. “After lunch I have them [the students] read until they are
settled down and under control so I can move on to the lessons.” However, Drew did
extend instructional time beyond his predetermined scheduled time. “I want to finish the
lesson. If the kids are excited and into what we are doing, I don’t want to cut that off.”
On Kevin’s posted daily agenda he stated “Social Studies: 1:45-2:35.” However,
social studies rarely started prior to 2:00. But Kevin taught social studies from 1:50-2:40
(the end of the academic day) Monday through Thursday and, on Fridays, he taught
social studies from 1:00-1:55 because the students had physical education from 2:00 p.m.
to the end of the day (2:45 p.m.).
In Amanda’s class, social studies was scheduled in the afternoons from
approximately 1:00-2:00 everyday except Wednesdays when the class started at 1:15
p.m. Amanda reported, “We lose social studies almost once a week because of other
schools events like a half day or an assembly. I can’t cut language arts, reading, or
math.” This acknowledgement that social studies was the most notable victim of
scheduling changes reflected Amanda’s frustration as well as resignation—she did not
seem to think there was any other solution.

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Because social studies was taught in the afternoon (Drew’s Friday morning
session was the only exception across the three classrooms), it was often postponed if
there was a change to the schedule. For example, if another lesson ran longer than
anticipated, the social studies lesson would be shortened. Additionally, there were other
interruptions to instruction during my observations, including fire drills, lockdown drills,
holidays, half-days, and state testing. When I approached Amanda to plan the preassessment administration at Dewey Elementary, she responded via e-mail that over the
course of two weeks, social studies would not be taught on four of ten days due to other
activities, including teacher professional development, special education meetings, and
the end of the marking period. Last, during the course of this intervention and unit
(comparison) each teacher missed at least three days due to illness and/or professional
responsibilities taking them outside of the classroom. In each case, they chose not to
have the substitute teacher teach a social studies lesson. Drew said he was uncomfortable
having a substitute teach the unit.” While on the surface this may appear to be positive,
because of the number of days Drew was absent and other school disruptions, the flow of
the unit was interrupted.
Teacher preparedness and ownership. A second challenge to teaching a
history-literacy-visual arts interdisciplinary unit is teachers’ perceived lack of
preparedness. Kevin and Drew did not feel completely prepared to enact this curriculum
or, in several cases, they had a false sense of preparedness in the lessons/content
instruction because each had taught similar content in the middle school or in previous
years teaching fifth-grade. There are two aspects to teacher preparedness: (1)
implementing the lessons, and (2) understanding of materials.

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Implementing lessons. When asked about the lessons, Kevin and Drew explained
they out of all subject areas, they planned for social studies last, and examining the
intervention lessons was the last item on a very long daily “to do” list. According to
Drew, “I have a lot to organize with the literacy circles and math.” Kevin stated, “I am a
science guy so I am excited to plan for science. I need to get reading and math stuff
prepped because the kids need that for middle school.” Based on casual conversations
before or after my observations, Kevin and Drew revealed that they rarely looked at unit
lessons and materials in advance of the day they were being taught. I designed the
lessons and provided all necessary materials (e.g. handouts, art supplies, etc.) to teachers
and as a result, “it’s the last thing I think about when I am prepping to teach and most of
the time I don’t get to it before the lesson.” Drew continued, “I knew I could ask you
[Kristy] any questions I had during the lesson so I didn’t worry.” Prior to a lesson in
Drew’s class, he stated, “I have to admit, I have not read ahead. I am hoping that I know
this stuff so as the lesson goes, but if I miss something please interject.” Kevin admitted,
“I was lax in my planning, which allowed for a lot of planning as I went through” this
unit.
In our conversation following Lesson Seven, Kevin expressed great frustration
with the lesson and his teaching of it. “I was not completely sure about the format. . . .I
didn’t completely get it.” As we discussed the lesson and I provided further explanation,
Kevin became a bit more comfortable with the methodology of the lesson but repeatedly
stated, “if I would have been better prepared.” After this lesson, Kevin reviewed lessons
at least one day in advance of instruction. Often, he would ask questions about lessons

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and share ideas about how he planned to alter the lessons for his students, as the e-mail
excerpt below indicates.
I am making an alteration to the centers lesson. Please let me know your
thoughts. Due to the length of story, text layout, and supply of texts (1), I
am making the reading of the Traveling Man story a whole class activity,
where students can summarize the story, as read by me. From there, they
can start on the centers, where I will be funneling them in.
Drew and Kevin described and rationalized their initial lack of preparation with
the interdisciplinary curricular unit materials. However as the unit continued, Kevin, and
to a lesser degree Drew, put greater effort into reviewing materials and amending
activities to address the distinct aspects of their classrooms.
Understanding materials. The various materials used throughout the lessons
included informational texts/reading selections at one or more reading levels, examples of
visual art that exemplify the historical content studied in a particular lesson, and the
student tasks. Both experimental teachers rarely looked at the reading materials in
advance of the lesson. For example, while thumbing through Before Columbus (Mann,
2010), Drew stated, “this is a gold mine. If I would have known what was here, I mean I
knew the book was here. . . what was in the book, I would have used this much sooner.”
New material. Drew and Kevin had to familiarize themselves with were content
area literacy and the visual arts. It appeared to be difficult for Drew and Kevin to balance
the three academic domains (history, literacy, and the visual arts) in the unit plan. During
lesson observation, Kevin drew a stronger connection between history and content area
literacy; whereas Drew established a stronger connection between history and the visual

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arts. I observed Kevin’s approach to the history lessons with a stronger connection to
content area literacy. In particular, he focused on reading for information and note-taking
with his students. He said, “This is an opportunity for them to practice skills [e.g. notetaking, highlighting text] they will need next year in middle school.” Kevin identified
student challenges associated with various texts throughout the unit, and said in the Post
Interview “They needed the main ideas to know what to look for when they read.”
An additional issue involving resources came up in conversations with teachers
regarding where to find out about such books and how they were being paid for. In
speaking with Kevin, he pointed out how he liked the format and straightforward
presentation of the content in Ancient West African Kingdoms (Shuter, 2009). But he
thought Ancient West African Kingdoms: Ghana, Mali, and Songhai (Quigley, 2002)
was too abstract and forced students to make too many inferences. Following this
evaluation, he stated, “I don’t even know where I would start to find stuff like this. And I
don’t have a lot of time to just explore kids’ books since I am working on my Reading
Specialist degree.” Similarly, Drew said, “Where can I find more books like these? They
are great.”
Field trip. Of the adults that attended the field trip (Drew, Kevin, and three
student teachers) only Kevin had visited the Charles Wright Museum before the field trip.
Four students had visited the museum previously: one student in Drew’s class and three
in Kevin’s class. Kevin was excited to have his students visit the museum. In the short
bus ride from the school to the museum, Kevin said he was most interested for his
students to go through the hull of the ship (Charles Wright Museum of African American
History, And Still We Rise, “Belly of the Beast”) because it puts people “into history.” In

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addition, he talked about his favorite parts of the museum that included the 20th century
exhibits.
Drew had not visited the museum. “I taught Africa last year too. I just never
thought about going.” He went on to talk about the challenges of taking field trips in the
various schools in which he has taught, pointing to parent involvement, money, and, of
course, time. I asked what he was interested in seeing, and his response was “everything-I have no idea what to expect.”
Both Drew and Kevin wanted to include their student teachers in this experience.
They identified this as an important opportunity for them to work with the students and to
participate in a class event. So three (all) student teachers participated in the field trip.
Following the field trip experience, all the teachers (student and in-service) had
suggestions for ways to make the trip more meaningful for the students. These
suggestions included traveling in smaller groups, e.g. six students touring with one adult,
more time to explore each exhibit. While these are legitimate suggestions, each teacher
lacked knowledge about the site, which has specific parameters for school group tours,
e.g. school children are not allowed to travel in small groups or independently.
Knowledge of interdisciplinary instruction. The third challenge to
interdisciplinary instruction is teachers’ instructional knowledge, specifically with regard
to (a) defining the concept and (2) implementing this type of instruction. The
experimental teachers did not have experience with interdisciplinary instruction, and thus
they were unclear what it entailed. Kevin and Drew do not have practice planning or
implementing interdisciplinary lessons and units (history-literacy-visual arts or others).

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Additionally, because of their limited experiences, they did not fully recognize the
possibilities of interdisciplinary instruction.
Defining interdisciplinary instruction. In order to plan and implement
interdisciplinary instruction, teachers must have a working definition of the approach. In
the pre-interviews in the experimental school, Drew and Kevin admitted their
understanding of interdisciplinary instruction was a bit vague. According to Drew, “I
would say it is blending social studies, math, language arts, and science. If you are doing
social studies, there is writing involved. Why I use it because it comes natural” (PreInterview). In his post-interview, Drew continued to describe interdisciplinary
instruction as “natural to make the connection” but was more concrete. “It is cross
curricular, bringing in other subjects like language arts in social studies or art, like we did
in the unit.” He stopped short of describing how a teacher might bring school subjects
together in educative ways. Beyond the intervention unit, Drew described examples that
were not as rich in the purposeful use of disciplines to develop skills and enrich content
knowledge. For example, “writing things out like we did mean, median, mode in math,
and I had them write what they mean.” Drew went on to describe the possibilities of
implementing an interdisciplinary unit in an elementary classroom. “It would depend on
the teacher, but in the self-contained elementary classroom, it is easier. You can just
think about all the things you, and only you, have to do.”
Kevin described interdisciplinary instruction this way: “It’s a term . . .mm . . .
what does it mean? It reminds me of cross-curricular. So you have to read a math
problem. Kinesthetic, hands on approach in any class that you are doing . . .
manipulatives.” In Kevin’s post-interview he defined interdisciplinary teaching as “an

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approach of content through different sensory receptors, like visual with auditory. Lots
of kinesthetic. And I have seen the value of inter and intrapersonal interactions.” Kevin
focused more on cooperative learning and the power of group experiences. He did not
recognize the relationship in and among disciplines. Thus, he, like all of the teachers in
this study, followed distinct disciplinary lines in planning and instruction.
The challenge of defining interdisciplinary instruction was not unique to Drew
and Kevin. In the comparison school, Amanda defined interdisciplinary teaching as the
“blending of different disciplines together.” She identified this type of instruction as
simply “best practices” and that it is “better for students because I can do grouping to
help all levels of students – academically, socially, ethnically, etc.” When asked to
explain “best practices” Amanda defined them as “recommended ways of doing things. . .
usually they take a lot of class time. I am not sure if they are always realistic with all the
things I have to do.” In these cases, the descriptions are vague in regard to defining
interdisciplinary instruction and explaining why it is beneficial to students. The
descriptions also revealed her belief that while interdisciplinary instruction (and other
best practices) is important, they are also time-consuming and not always feasible.
Strict adherence to disciplinary lines. All of the teachers in this study presented
instruction in fairly strict disciplinary blocks. Amanda described her day as, “mornings
are taken up by other subjects--English, Math, Reading, and Spelling/Lang. Arts block.
This Language Arts block is three hours daily. Social Studies for us is done in the
afternoons from approx. 12:45/1-2 o'clock everyday except Wed. when we have library
from 12:45-1:15 when we start at 1:15.” Drew taught social studies Monday through
Thursday from 12:50-1:45 and Friday from 10:40 a.m.-11:30 a.m. Kevin taught social

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studies from 1:50-2:40 Monday through Thursday, and on Friday, he taught social studies
from 1:00-1:55 because the students had physical education from 2:00 p.m. to the end of
the day (2:45 p.m.). Teachers and their students are approaching unit tasks as social
studies and only social studies, even though ELA skills are being introduced and
reinforced for students. In addition, specific ELA GLCEs are identified in the lesson
plans. For example, in Lessons 2-4, students were asked to read informational texts
about the three kingdoms of medieval Africa and complete a graphic organizer with three
to five sentences summarizing three aspects of life: how people made a living, family
structures, and the growth of towns and trade. Students read the text and then began to
summarize. Both classroom teachers prompted their students to use bullet points instead
of sentences because, in Kevin’s words, “This is social studies, so get the ideas down.”
Although each teacher in this study identified the blending of content as an aspect
of interdisciplinary instruction, all maintained rather strict disciplinary organization in
their classrooms. As described above, generally Drew and Kevin teach social studies in
the afternoons. Due to his specials schedule, Drew does teach social studies on Friday
mornings prior to lunch.
In the post-interview, I asked Drew and Kevin: “did you think about
implementing any of these lessons during Literacy/ELA time?” Kevin spoke frankly.
First, he simply said, “No.” When I asked him why, he continued by saying, “I had other
obligations. I am still kind of a newbie as far as teaching goes. I see the benefit, but I
keep jumping around grades and schools. I need consistency before I could do that. It
would help if we were doing similar things in ELA.” The English/Language Arts skills
in the unit plan are part of the fifth-grade curriculum. In other words, skills Kevin is

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responsible to teach his students throughout the course of the academic year. Thus, the
study brings to light that teachers need to master the curricula they are responsible for
teaching, which I discuss in Chapter 6. As I pointed out earlier, Drew identified the
possibilities for interdisciplinary instruction in self-contained elementary classrooms
because the classroom teacher is responsible for all of the material being presented, thus
he or she has instructional autonomy. However, this can be challenging when teachers are
moved from grade level to grade level or school to school each academic year, which has
been the case with both Drew and Kevin.
Implementing interdisciplinary instruction. Drew and Kevin did not
consistently reinforce students’ literacy skills during this the unit. While working on
their mini-museum displays, Kevin told his students, “Remember that captions will tell us
more.” After which I asked, “Should the captions be in complete sentences?” thinking
about the language arts standards that have been addressed during the week’s instruction.
Kevin responded, “No, not for science or social studies. These are the conventions I
don’t really care about. Remember we talked about it yesterday.” Similarly, Drew began
to read The Traveling Man (Rumford, 2004) by displaying the book for his students on
the document reader. He stated, “If we were doing this for reading, we would look at the
pictures in more detail.”
My findings indicate there are both benefits and challenges to interdisciplinary
history-literacy-visual arts instruction, however I concluded that the benefits outweigh
the challenges. As I described, this type of instruction benefited both students and
teachers. Drew is looking forward to using the unit in the future. Kevin is also looking
forward to using the unit with the additions he made. In this study, both groups examined

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historical material in meaningful ways. The challenges are noteworthy, but transcend
issues of interdisciplinary curriculum. The benefits and drawbacks identified and
observed have implications for practitioners and teacher educators. I examine these
implications in the next chapter.

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Chapter 6
Conclusion

In this study, I explored the difference that participating in interdisciplinary
history instruction (with literacy and visual arts) makes in students’ achievement of the
history content expectations in the state social studies GLCEs. In particular, I examined
how the achievement (in historical content knowledge and skills) of students who
participate in a four-week (implemented over eight weeks) interdisciplinary historyliteracy-visual arts unit compares with that of students who participate in traditional,
subject-specific history instruction (over the same period of time). I found that students
who were taught using the interdisciplinary unit achieved at statistically significantly
higher levels than students who were taught using traditional instruction. Additionally,
students who were taught using interdisciplinary instruction showed high levels of
student engagement, exhibited a range of historical thinking skills, and demonstrated high
levels of aesthetic development skills.
However, the success of the interdisciplinary unit is only part of the story. Upper
elementary history instruction does not tend to use an interdisciplinary approach. As
such, it is essential to examine teachers’ perceptions of the feasibility and effectiveness of
implementing this curriculum. Teachers described the benefits of the curriculum in the
following ways: (1) it was engaging for students, (2) it promoted students’ higher-order
thinking skills, and (3) it expanded teachers’ repertoire of instructional strategies.
However, they also reported challenges, such as (1) the curriculum took far longer to
teach than traditional instruction, (2) they did not feel adequately prepared to enact the

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curriculum, and (3) they did not feel they had a solid understanding of interdisciplinary
instruction. In sum, I argue these challenges are important to acknowledge and consider
when designing and teaching interdisciplinary instruction but are surmountable and
outweighed by its benefits.
In this chapter, I summarize the findings of each research question and explain the
ways in which my findings build upon and contribute to the literature base on history
teaching, student engagement, and the development of aesthetic development skills.
Additionally, based upon my findings, I present several recommendations for teachers
teaching interdisciplinary instruction for history, literacy, and the visual arts and for
teacher educators presenting instructional ideas around interdisciplinary opportunities. I
acknowledge the limitations of my study and suggest possible areas of future research.
Last, I describe the educational significance of this study.
Summary of Findings
In this study, I investigated three questions: (1) How does students’ learning in
history change following their participation in an interdisciplinary history-literacy-visual
arts curriculum, and how does their learning compare to students who learn the same
content through traditional teaching approaches? (2) In what ways, if any, do students
who participate in an interdisciplinary history-literacy-visual arts unit demonstrate
engagement, historical thinking skills, and aesthetic skills during the unit? and (3) How
do teachers view the feasibility and effectiveness of implementing an interdisciplinary
history-literacy-visual arts curriculum? In this section, I summarize the major findings
for each research question. As a reminder, I refer to the students who participate in the

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interdisciplinary unit the experimental group and the students who participate in the
traditional history instruction as the comparison group.
Students’ achievement in history. When teachers employ interdisciplinary
instruction, they describe greater student involvement and interest, as well as increased
achievement (Kerekes, 1987; Martinello & Cook, 1992; Strubbe, 1990; Willis, 1994). In
this study, students in both the experimental and the comparison classrooms made
significant gains between the pre- and post-assessments. However, the experimental
students performed significantly better on the post-assessments than their peers in the
comparison group.
To measure student achievement in history, I needed to design the assessments
aligned with the GLCEs, since no valid assessments of these GLCEs existed. Thus, an
important contribution of this study is the creation of these assessments, which are
available to others to use or modify for use in their classrooms. In addition, my process
(of designing and checking their validity) may serve as a model for the design and
validation of other elementary social studies assessments.
My study reinforces and extends some of the empirical research on the influence
of alternative approaches (e.g., interdisciplinary, student-centered, inquiry-oriented)
history education on student learning. There is no singular methodological approach for
interdisciplinary learning: the unit plan I designed is an example of just one of these
approaches. I utilized Beane’s ideals of curriculum integration as a curriculum design
that promotes integration through the organization of curriculum around significant issues
and skills without limited regard of disciplinary lines. My study contributes to the body
of work demonstrating the promise of integrated approaches (e.g., Applebee, 2007; De La

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Paz, 2005; Monte-Sano, 2010: Solomon, 1987) by demonstrating evidence of student
involvement in intellectual work through their engagement and demonstration of higher
order thinking skills.
Students’ engagement, historical thinking skills, and Aesthetic Development.
My first research question demonstrated that the interdisciplinary unit was more
successful than traditional history instruction in raising students’ history achievement.
My second research question builds upon and extends the first. I describe what this kind
of historical thinking looked like in practice, as well as how engaged students were in the
unit and what kinds of aesthetic development skills they developed. This question was
answered using the study’s qualitative data (my field notes of observations of instruction,
student work, and teacher interviews). During the course of the intervention unit, I found
the students (1) engaged both substantively and procedurally in the instructional activities
associated with the interdisciplinary history-literacy-visual arts curriculum, (2)
demonstrated historical thinking skills authentically (i.e., to analyze the primary sources
used in the unit to gain new understanding), and (3) demonstrated various stages of
Aesthetic Development.
Student engagement. As previously discussed and for the purposes of this study, I
defined student engagement in terms of substantive and procedural student engagement
(Nystrand & Gamoran, 1992). Procedural engagement is students’ willingness to
participate in classroom routines (e.g., following classroom rules and completing required
academic tasks). Substantive engagement is the dedication to the content. Tasks that
tend to substantively engage students include small-group work and peer conferencing,
discussion, and writing tasks, such as journal entries and position papers. Generally most

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students tend to exhibit signs of procedural engagement, only some students exhibit
substantive engagement, which is a problem given that academic achievement relies more
strongly on substantive engagement. However, while the substantive engagement has a
stronger relationship to student achievement, procedural engagement is also important
because of its attenuated relationship to achievement. Substantive engagement depends,
at least in part, on students exhibiting procedural engagement—doing things like
completing their homework and participating in class activities (Nystrand & Gamoran,
1992, p. 282)
In my study, students demonstrated procedural engagement in two ways. First,
they actively participated during question-answer sessions in class. Second, they
completed tasks independently. Both Kevin and Drew noted that their students
demonstrated increased engagement during the interdisciplinary unit in terms of their
involvement in class activities and conversations, as well as in the ways they made
connections across lessons. Moreover, I noted that students often raised their hands to
share responses, particularly during the opening prompt of the lesson in which the teacher
presented a visual for students to comment on. In addition, students completed tasks on
their own. They engaged in reading and discussion of historical content and concepts
independent of direct teacher involvement.
As I stated, it is important to examine substantive engagement because it has a
much stronger and clearer relationship to student achievement than procedural
engagement (Nystrand & Gamoran, 1992). Substantive engagement tends to occur when
students—and not just teachers—“have input into the business of learning” (Nystrand &
Gamoran, 1992, p. 266). In my study, students demonstrated substantive engagement in

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several ways: making observations and assertions and asking questions that went beyond
the anchor image at the start of each lesson, and sometimes beyond the single lesson in
order to make sense of larger issues.
Demonstration of historical thinking skills. I utilize the five historical thinking
skills associated with the National History Standards to frame classroom observations
and student work samples. The historical thinking standards help teachers frame history
learning in terms of engaging in student-centered inquiry in which students use a variety
of evidence to answer questions. The five historical thinking skills/standards are (1)
chronological thinking, (2) historical comprehension, (3) historical analysis and
interpretation, (4) historical research, and (5) historical issues (Center for History in
Schools, 2011). The Michigan GLCEs (the state standards that drive the assessment and
instruction of this unit) are grounded in these five historical thinking skills. As such, it
makes sense to study the ways the students in this study demonstrated the historical
thinking skills in the intervention unit.
Throughout the intervention unit, there were many opportunities for students to
observe and model each of these historical thinking skills because my unit required them
to engage higher-order thinking skills. Students were able to make meaning of the
historical information presented through a variety of resources. Virtually every lesson
involved multiple resources (e.g. images and books), which meant students had to
synthesize information to better understand the historical event or concept being taught.
The intent was to use texts that would promote students’ historical thinking skills,
including chronological thinking, historical comprehension, historical analysis and
interpretation, historical research, and historical decision-making. In order to address this

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standard, students had to work with a variety of historical resources to differentiate
historical interpretations or varied perspectives on historical events. In this way, my
research confirmed earlier research (e.g., Solomon, 1987) that demonstrated how
interdisciplinary instruction promotes problem-solving skills.
Specifically, students became particularly adept in two areas: historical
comprehension and historical analysis and interpretation. First, they developed historical
comprehension skills. This is similar to the findings of VanSledright and Kelly (1998) in
which the use of multiple sources enhanced fifth-graders historical understanding.
Through the use of multiple text sources, students became historical thinkers and critical
readers of history.
Second, students demonstrated the engagement of historical analysis and
interpretation skills. Throughout the unit, students conducted historical analysis and
interpretation as they attempted to make sense of challenging texts. They referenced
readings from previous sessions, thus presenting varied perspectives on an historical
event, and they also compared perspectives and made evaluations. Students exemplified
skills to be used beyond this unit and the fifth-grade.
Aesthetic Development. A student/observer of art uses skills similar to historical
thinking when viewing art. Students make observations, assertions based on evidence,
and draw conclusions. Housen (1992) outlined five stages of Aesthetic Development: I.
Accountive, II. Constructive, III. Classifying, IV. Interpretive, and V. Re-creative. She
framed these stages as problem-solving strategies that help students (observers) think
about objects and images. Each stage represents a collection of aesthetic skills and
strategies that one gains through on-going experiences with artwork, i.e. those who have

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less experience looking at art have a smaller range of strategies for making sense of and
evaluating art. As a result, observers of art (in this case students) gain and continue to
utilize skills while they move among these stages and gain more exposure to art over
time. In order to promote Aesthetic Development, it is necessary to expose students to
art over time--in this case, over the course of the unit. With each purposeful experience a
student has with art, they become more adept in making meaning from the artwork.
Throughout this unit, students were given opportunities to be part of all these
stages (e.g. Eisner, 1992; Laney, 2007), but particularly Stage IV (Interpretive). For
example, each lesson started with a visual prompt with the following questions: what do
you see? (Accountive) and what do you think the artist is trying to tell you?
(Interpretive). Moreover, many of the lessons involved the study of primary and
secondary sources, thus the students made interpretations about historical material. The
Interpretive Stage overlaps with historical thinking skills, particularly historical
interpretation. Thus, in these ways, Aesthetic Development and historical thinking skills
reinforce one another (e.g. Gullatt, 2007; Winner & Hetland, 2000).
Feasibility of curriculum. My third research question shifts from the students
who participated in this study to the teachers, particularly those who implemented the
curricular intervention, though I also draw upon some data from interviews with the
comparison teachers. In observations of and discussions about implementing
interdisciplinary history-literacy-visual arts curriculum, the teachers identified and
described benefits and challenges that are not unique to my study, and thus I situate them
in the literature on interdisciplinary instruction.

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Benefits. The teachers in this study identify several benefits to implementing an
interdisciplinary history-literacy-visual arts curriculum, including (1) student
engagement, (2) demonstration of higher order thinking skills, and (3) teachers’ learning
of instructional strategies. Duerr (2008) noted that interdisciplinary instruction is
important as it allows students to learn discrete content knowledge and to effective
problem solving. Additionally, interdisciplinary experiences enrich a student’s lifelong
learning habits and academic skills.
First, teachers reported that the interdisciplinary history-literacy-visual arts
curriculum helped promote student engagement. This finding is consistent with my own
observations of the instruction: there was evidence of both substantive and procedural
student engagement (Nystrand & Gamoran, 1992). Stodolsky (1998) found that more
complex lessons involving higher order experiences elicited greater student involvement.
Also, classroom engagement leads to achievement and contributes to student
development (Finn, 1993; Newmann, 1992). Specifically, teachers reported observing
students’ active engagement in two ways: (1) increased participation (e.g. Duerr, 2008;
Marks, 2000) and (2) connections across lessons within the unit, between the unit and
other school subjects, and with the world beyond school (Jacobs, 1989).
Second, teachers reported students’ demonstration of higher order thinking skills.
Specifically, Drew and Kevin identified that their students were able to (1) make
inferences, (2) apply their knowledge, and (3) make evaluations. Each of these higher
order thinking skills is important in the study of history (e.g. Jones, 2010; Stodolsky,
1998).

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Third, Kevin and Drew benefited from this experience with regard to how it
expanded their repertoire of instructional strategies. Taylor (2008) concluded that
“Interdisciplinary work by both educators and students may broaden students' knowledge
of history and diverse cultures. Including the arts in social studies instruction may have
pedagogical benefits” (2008, p. 236). In retrospect, Kevin described the experience as
“an opportunity to grow.” Through their implementation of the history-literacy-visual
arts curriculum, Drew and Kevin became students alongside their students. Drew
explained his learning in terms of teaching strategies (e.g., using the visuals arts more
effectively and fostering classroom discussion.) Kevin explained his learning in terms of
content (e.g., the Columbian Exchange and primary source material).
Challenges. As described above, Kevin and Drew noted the benefits of
interdisciplinary instruction for their students and their own growth. Yet each was
tentative about continuing with interdisciplinary instruction because of several
challenges. Drew and Kevin’s challenges mirror my observations of the challenges
interdisciplinary instruction pose, which include (1) issues of time, (2) teacher
preparedness to teach the curriculum, and (3) teacher knowledge of interdisciplinary
instruction.
The time challenge was evident in two overlapping ways: the time of day that
social studies was taught and the number of minutes given to social studies instruction.
According to Rothman (2005), there is more time allocated for school subjects (language
arts and mathematics) evaluated on high-stakes assessments. Thus, social studies
instruction, including history, has suffered in terms of its academic time allotment
(Rothman, 2005). My findings exemplify Fitchett and Heafner’s (2010) study of the

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marginalization of social studies in elementary schools. As described earlier, social
studies was taught in these classrooms toward the end of the academic day. When asked
about these choices, Kevin explained, “the kids have to be focused for literacy, so it is in
the morning. We do social studies when everything else is done.” Drew pointed out, “I
have to get math and literacy in so I start with those. Social studies is after lunch.” Each
of these statements alludes to the level of importance social studies hold and how that is
reflected by the time of day that the subject is taught. To those outside of elementary
education, teaching social studies in the afternoon may not seem problematic. However,
there were often interruptions (e.g., administrative, behavioral, academic) and changes to
the daily agenda so that morning instruction was pushed to the afternoon, thus the time
allocation for social studies instructional time was shortened (e.g. VanFossen, 2005).
Teachers who employ an interdisciplinary approach have more flexibility in their
schedules. Teachers could have taught any other lessons in the intervention unit during
their morning literacy block because each lesson addressed an ELA GLCE with social
studies content and resources.
In addition to time issues, two aspects of teacher preparedness posed challenges in
implementing this interdisciplinary history-literacy-visual arts curriculum: (1)
implementing the lessons and (2) understanding of materials. Drew, and to a lesser
degree Kevin, did very little advanced preparation for implementing the lessons
associated with this unit. Each teacher explained that the instructions and materials were
already prepared, so they felt they did not need much time to prepare themselves. For
example, Drew stated that he only needed “a couple minutes to read over the lesson” in
advance of instruction. This lack of time for social studies preparation is not surprising.

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Elementary school teachers have very little free time (time when they are not directly
working with students) for planning and preparation. While I describe both Drew and
Kevin as veteran teachers, there were strategies in the unit neither were familiar with
(e.g., jigsaw) (Aronson & Patnoe, 1997). As a result, the lack of preparation led to
interruptions in and delays with some lessons.
A third challenge of implementing an interdisciplinary history-literacy-visual arts
curriculum was teacher knowledge and understanding of interdisciplinary instruction, a
finding confirmed by other studies (e.g., McBee, 2001). VanFossen (2005) found K-5
teachers had a lack of understanding about the goals and mission of social studies. While
Drew and Kevin were entrenched in their thinking about teaching discreet subjectspecific lessons to their students, they were open to approaching their instruction from an
interdisciplinary perspective. However, their knowledge and understanding of this type
of instruction was limited. Drew was able to verbalize the idea that through the use of
interdisciplinary instruction, teachers used content and skills across disciplinary lines.
On the other hand, Kevin consistently described interdisciplinary instruction in terms of
hands-on and experiential opportunities for his students. Each had a limited knowledge
and understanding of interdisciplinary instruction (Pappas et al., 1990; Shanahan,
Robinson, & Schneider, 1995).
In summary, I described benefits and challenges of interdisciplinary instruction.
Kevin and Drew identified this type of instruction as beneficial to their students’ learning
as well as beneficial to their own learning.

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Implications for Practice and Teacher Education
This study demonstrates the potential of teaching history in an interdisciplinary
way to improve students’ historical knowledge and thinking skills, to engage them in
learning, and to help them develop Aesthetic Development skills. Yet, as my discussion
of the challenges of this instruction shows, it is not easy. As such, I provide
recommendations for school-based practitioners and teacher educators who are
considering replacing traditional history instruction with an interdisciplinary approach.
Practitioners There are two implications for practitioners: (1) the need for
professional development in designing and teaching interdisciplinary instruction; and (2)
increased time for teachers to plan, gather resources, and evaluate instruction. According
to Darling-Hammond and McLaughlin (1995) “effective professional development
involves teachers both as learners and teachers, and allows them to struggle with the
uncertainties that accompany each role” (p. 598). Professional development involves
“deepening teachers’ understanding about the teaching/learning process” and “must begin
with pre-service education and continue throughout a teacher’s career” (p. 598).
With the development of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for
English/Language Arts, and states’ replacement of their own standards with the CCSS,
there may be a place for interdisciplinary instruction in history, literacy, and the visual
arts. Although the CCSS standards (or something similar to CCSS standards—work on
the Social Studies Assessment Curriculum and Instruction Imitative is underway) for
social studies have not yet been developed, the English/Language Arts standards include
those in “literacy in history/social studies, science, and technical subjects” (Council of
Chief State School Officers & the National Governors Association Center for Best

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Practices, 2010). Thus, as more schools rely on the CCSS, instruction may need to
become more interdisciplinary. This study provides an example of an effective
interdisciplinary unit that may serve as a guide for practitioners seeking to implement this
kind of instruction. In order to implement interdisciplinary instruction, professional
development is needed.
For in-service teachers, I suggest a multi-staged approach to professional
development in interdisciplinary instruction. To begin, the teachers would be introduced
to the principles of interdisciplinary instruction. This is an opportunity to define the
various ways (e.g. themes, issues) one might approach curriculum planning. I believe a
thorough presentation of these definitions and a critical evaluation is necessary for
teachers to internalize an interdisciplinary way of thinking about curricular design and
organization. Next, teachers would examine and evaluate examples of interdisciplinary
instruction (e.g. the intervention unit for this study, videos of teachers teaching with an
interdisciplinary approach). Through a careful examination, teachers would be able to
see examples of this type of design and begin to ask questions and express their concerns.
Then, teachers would create interdisciplinary lessons or unit for use in their classrooms.
It is essential to provide time for the development of these materials. As evidenced in
this study, the design and implementation of interdisciplinary curriculum is a time
consuming process. In addition, teachers would share their work with one another and
provide feedback. Finally, teachers would implement these lessons/units in their own
classrooms and reflect upon their feasibility and effectiveness with a professional
learning community.

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This multi-staged professional development process would be time and labor
intensive. However, as Linda Darling-Hammond (2008) argues, “At its root, achieving
high levels of student understanding requires immensely skillful teaching—and schools
that are organized to support teachers’ continuous learning” (p. 91). Significant work is
needed at the district, and more importantly, the school level where teaching and teacher
learning can happen on a daily basis. Once classroom teachers have participated in
professional development, I believe they should be given the time and resources to
effectively plan interdisciplinary opportunities for their students. Based upon my
findings, teachers at the same grade level or in the same content area should have (1)
common time during which they can collaboratively review standards documents and
content expectations (this is especially important as states adopt the CCSS.), (2) time and
access to investigate possible student materials, and (3) administrative support to develop
meaningful and purposeful interdisciplinary lessons and assessments.
Time to review learning outcomes through standards documents developed by the
state or district is invaluable. Teachers need to understand the curricular expectations.
“Teachers must design and implement curriculum based on the scope and sequence of the
integrated disciplines and be flexible enough to form and revise the curriculum according
to the students’ needs” (Jacobs, 1989, p. 9). The experimental teachers in this study are
not unique in that during their careers, they have each taught at several different grade
levels and in different schools. Thus, having time devoted to learning the expected
curriculum for the academic year is an essential first step for teachers who hope to
effectively implement interdisciplinary curriculum. Once teachers have expertise, or at
lease a strong working knowledge, in the expected curriculum, they would be able to

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recognize opportunities for meaningful curricular integration and to make educated
decisions about when these opportunities can take shape and most benefit their students.
As a result, teachers could create a scope and sequence of content and skills throughout
the academic year that makes sense to the development of their students.
When teachers have developed curricular expertise, common planning time
should be devoted to finding and evaluating resources for students. These resources can
be used to introduce, reinforce, or challenge students to think about the curricular ideas
associated with a unit of study. Regarding the text materials associated with the
intervention unit, Kevin said, “I don’t even know where I would find books like these. . .
not that I have time, unless I take my own time.” Following their participation in this
study, Drew and Kevin found a few minutes of common planning time to search for
resources to teach a unit on American colonization. Drew was very excited about the
materials they found and was proud to show me examples of his students’ work based on
the books he had found and brought into the classroom.
Once teachers have a solid understanding of the curricular expectations and
materials, they need time to develop meaningful interdisciplinary lessons and
assessments for their classrooms. This is an on-going process of evaluation and reevaluation of materials, methodology, and students’ learning. Also, teachers could
develop collaborative and supportive professional relationships that help further the work
they do with students.
Teacher education. Although my study did not focus on pre-service teachers, it
points to some possible ways teacher education programs may address interdisciplinary
learning. First, teacher educators may want to inform pre-service teachers about

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interdisciplinary instruction. Pre-service teachers could be educated on the various
definitions and manifestations of this teaching strategy, as well as its benefits and
challenges. I believe this information should be included in introductory education
courses with Dewey, Piaget, Bloom, and Vygotsky (to name only a few)—all of whom
provide way of thinking about and approaching curriculum.
For example as part of Michigan State University’s TE 803: Professional Roles
and Teaching Practice II, elementary level pre-service teachers develop a unit plan with a
high degree of integration. Through this assignment, pre-service teachers design
experiential unit plans that dissolve traditional subject boundaries. Students address
genuine problems rather than acquiring discrete facts and developing discrete skills
through class activities. This assignment presents an ideal opportunity to deepen students’
understanding of integration, its benefits and its challenges. Developing a firm
understanding of interdisciplinary instruction is an on-going process, thus pre-service
teachers’ experiences should not be isolated to one assignment or course. It should be
presented as a way of thinking, a disposition toward instructional design.
Second, pre-service teachers should have opportunities to observe effective
interdisciplinary instruction in K-12 settings or at the collegiate level in their teacher
education courses. As part of these observations, pre-service teachers should be given
opportunities to de-brief and discuss the instruction with the practitioner. Third, preservice teachers should develop interdisciplinary activities and receive formative or
summative feedback from course instructors or mentor teachers throughout their teacher
preparation experiences.

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As we know, teacher education does not end with a degree in teaching but occurs
throughout a teacher’s career. Teacher educators can work with in-service teachers
around interdisciplinary instruction as it more directly relates to a teacher’s specific
context and classroom. Interdisciplinary units should be shared and critiqued so that
various stalk holders (e.g. teachers, administrators, community members) have the
opportunity to contribute their knowledge and skills (Jacobs, 1989). This is an
opportunity for transparency in instructional practices.
Limitations
There are two key limitations to this study: (1) research bias, and (2) research
design (assignment of treatment to teachers; development of measures; and size of study).
While these limitations are important to acknowledge, I also took steps to mitigate some
of the problems associated with these limitations.
Biases. Given that I was the only researcher for this study, personal biases cannot
be ignored. I acknowledge a bias in favor of interdisciplinary teaching and learning, as
well as my beliefs about the importance and necessity for history, art, and meaningful
literacy in classrooms. As a former middle school teacher, I frequently used
interdisciplinary instruction to further student learning. As a teacher educator who
utilizes interdisciplinary instruction in her classroom, I often advocate for the benefits of
interdisciplinary instruction. By acknowledging my biases, I hope to manage my
subjectivity in approaching this research. There is also potential for bias in interviewing
from the research-designed questions to the participant responses. Gall, Gall, and Borg
(2007) believe that the researcher is an instrument of research. As a result, the
interpretations of a researcher shroud all the research stages. As the only researcher in

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this study, it is likely that personal bias is evident, thus I acknowledge a bias in favor of
interdisciplinary instruction.
Research design. Three aspects of this research design pose limitations to my
study. The three limitations are (1) the student measures, (2) teacher selection, and (3)
the sample.
First, for this study, I needed to use student measures that I designed myself since
no measures existed. I could not create psychometrically valid measures. However, I did
work with an assessment expert, Dr. Ed Roeber, in the development of the assessments.
In addition, I conducted an expert review of the relationship between the questions and
the GLCEs to help with construct validity. This review was conducted with two
advanced doctoral students.
Second, as stated in my methods section, I had planned to randomly assign the
treatment to the teachers; however, due to teacher interest, the assignment needed to
change. Two teachers (Drew and Kevin) expressed interest in teaching the unit, and the
other teacher (Amanda) was less interested in being involved in the study. As such, in a
sense, teachers self-selected their roles in the study. Self-selection can be problematic in
several ways (Shadish et al., 2002). Self-selected participants may have strong points of
view about the topic being studied. There may be a purposeful intent leading to selfselection bias. However, other types of selection bias may arise more unintentionally.
Additionally, the teachers’ participation was, to some degree, limited because
they were implementing a unit they did not design. I gave permission to each teacher to
make amendments to the lessons based on their knowledge and expertise of their students

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and to note changes in the lesson plans. And, as I discussed in Chapter 5, Kevin and
Drew cautiously changed the lesson plans.
The third limitation relates to the sample and sample size. The student sample
comes from just two schools in one school district. Thus, the sample is not randomly
selected, and my results are difficult to generalize beyond this setting. However, I believe
that the experiences of the teachers and students in this study are not unique to teachers
and students in many other settings; it is my hope that I have generated “transferability”
(Cziko, 1992) from my analyses. Second, the sample size is only 50 students. Due to the
small sample size, it can be difficult to find significant relationships with data based on
small samples because statistical tests often require a larger sample size (i.e., there is less
power with small samples). The fact that I did find significant differences is promising.
However, smaller samples tend to result in less precision.
Suggestions for Future Research
I suggest three areas for future research based upon my experiences conducting
this research and my findings. There two areas for future research are: (1) examinations
of other interdisciplinary curricula; and (2) an investigation of interdisciplinary curricula
that is co-constructed.
Interdisciplinary curricula. Further research might explore interdisciplinary
history-literacy-visual arts curricula in other contexts. One could investigate the impact
of this interdisciplinary unit in other fifth-grade classrooms. For example, using the
intervention unit from this study, researchers could investigate whether there are
statistically significant gains among students learning English or in high SES classrooms.
How might the change in student learning of history be different in a high SES context

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vs. a low SES context? In addition, further research needs to be done on the possibilities
of interdisciplinary (history-literacy-visual arts) instruction at other grade levels.
Co-constructed intervention units. In my findings, I identified both challenges
and benefits associated with teachers implementing the intervention I designed, from time
spent in preparation (a challenge) to teacher learning (a benefit). It would be interesting
to conduct a study in which the participating teachers take a more active role in the
planning process. A future study could investigate the same research questions using an
intervention unit co-constructed by the teacher(s) and researcher. An important question
to examine is whether a higher level of teacher involvement in the development and
planning stages would yield better results in terms of student mastery of the GLCEs.
Educational Significance
The increasing national attention on interdisciplinary instruction may have
particular importance for students of low-SES backgrounds. As Peggy Altoff, past
president of the NCSS stated, "kids in schools with higher levels of poverty are less likely
to get social studies than those in more affluent schools" (Zamosky, 2008). Altoff is
concerned that “with a discrepancy in exposure to social studies education comes the risk
of creating a society that is divided between those who know what a difference they can
make as citizens and those who don't. Some call it the civic achievement gap. Students
getting less social studies are less likely when they grow up to vote and less likely to
contribute,” Altoff continued, stating “These are things we see as barometers of
citizenship" (Zamosky, 2008)
With the marginalization of history in the elementary school curriculum
(VanFossen, 2005), we risk depriving students of the tools and understandings to be fully

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functioning participants in their communities (Zamosky, 2008). This timely study
reinforces what we know about interdisciplinary instruction in science and literacy.
There are necessary conditions for interdisciplinary instruction to be effective (Barab &
Landa, 1997; Black, 1997; Brophy & Alleman, 1991; Gatewood, 1998; Vars, 1991;
Willis, 1994). In addition, time, resources, and teacher knowledge and understanding are
necessary in the effective implementation of interdisciplinary curriculum. This research
study contributes to our understanding of the possibility of interdisciplinary instruction in
history, literacy, and the visual arts. It also contributes to the ways in which students and
teachers learn from the meaningful integration of disciplines.
As a result of my study, I know that interdisciplinary curriculum (in historyliteracy-visual arts) is associated with student learning, statistically speaking, in social
studies (in particular, history) at least in the two fifth-grade classrooms I studied. I have
learned that this increase can occur in the context of an interdisciplinary history-literacyvisual arts curricular unit. I also learned that this kind of instruction tends to engage
students, help develop their historical thinking skills during activities, and develop their
Aesthetic Development skills.
As such, my findings are significant in several ways. First, they might encourage
teachers to think about ways in which instruction could incorporate content and skills in
creative ways across disciplinary lines, and to develop other interdisciplinary units for
history in the upper elementary and middle school grades. Thus students will have the
opportunity to make meaning of complex concepts associated with an understanding of
history. Second, my study makes available a model of effective interdisciplinary
materials for fifth-grade history, literacy, and the visual arts (the unit could be

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implemented in total, or individual lessons could be selected for use). Third, my findings
may encourage administrators to plan professional development opportunities for
teachers to learn more about interdisciplinary instruction for potential implementation in
classrooms. My hope is that this study brings attention to the possibilities for meaningful
social studies experiences in upper elementary classrooms, particularly for children from
low-SES backgrounds.

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APPENDICES

150

Appendix A
Unit Plan Overview
Table 4
Unit Plan Overview
Monday
Week 1 5 – U1.3.1: Use maps
to locate the major
regions of Africa
(northern Africa,
western Africa, central
Africa, eastern Africa,
southern Africa).
(National Geography
Standard 1, p. 144)

Activity:
Concept Attainment:
Various ancient maps
of Africa, Americans,
and Europe. What do
these images have in
common?
Mapping of African
regions
.

Tuesday
5 – U1.3.2: Describe
the life and cultural
development of people
living in western
th
Africa before the 16
century with respect to
economic (the ways
people made a living)
and family structures,
and the growth of
states, towns, and
trade.
Activity: Read and
summarize.
Primary & Secondary
Sources: Grant, pg. 1819
Introduction Kingdoms
of West Africa (Mali,
Benin, Ghana)
Complete chart
describing “ways
people make a living”

Wednesday
5 – U1.3.2: Describe
the life and cultural
development of people
living in western
th
Africa before the 16
century with respect to
economic (the ways
people made a living)
and family structures,
and the growth of
states, towns, and
trade.
Activity:
Read and summarize.
Secondary Source:
textbook, pg. 53
Complete chart
describing “family
structures”

151

Thursday
5 – U1.3.2: Describe
the life and cultural
development of people
living in western
th
Africa before the 16
century with respect to
economic (the ways
people made a living)
and family structures,
and the growth of
states, towns, and
trade.
Activity:
Photo of Timbuktu
Read and summarize.
Primary Source:
Timbuktu, pg. 52
Complete chart
describing “growth of
states, towns, and
trade.”

Friday
Museum Preparation

Activity:
Create a small exhibit
project board with tabs
describing life in
western Africa before
th
the 16 c.
Review expectations
for Charles Wright
field trip using

Table 4 (cont’d)
Week 2 FIELD TRIP

Activity: Visit to Charles
Wright Museum of
African American
History – tour And Still
we Rise
Post-visit: complete L
and reflective
discussion.

5 – U1.4.1: Describe
the convergence of
Europeans, American
Indians and Africans
in North America
after1492 from the
perspective of these
three groups.

5 – U1.4.2: Use
primary and
secondary sources
(e.g., letters, diaries,
maps, documents,
narratives, pictures,
graphic data) to
compare Europeans
and American Indians
who converged in the
western hemisphere
after 1492 with
respect to
governmental
structure, and views
on property
ownership and land
use.

5 – U1.4.2: Use
primary and secondary
sources (e.g., letters,
diaries, maps,
documents, narratives,
pictures, graphic data)
to compare
Europeans and
American Indians
who converged in the
western hemisphere
after 1492 with
respect to
governmental
structure, and views
on property
ownership and land
use.

5 – U1.4.3: Explain
the impact of European
contact on American
Indian cultures by
comparing the
different approaches
used by the British and
French in their
interactions with
American Indians.

Activity:
Europeans (Haskins &
Benson, p. 6-9)
Africans (Haskins &
Benson, p. 10-11)
Native Americans
(Mann,)
Jigsaw activity –
create venn diagram
with tabs (foldable)

Activity:
Primary/Secondary
Sources Centers
(approximately 60
mins + OR possibly 2
days)

Activity: Diego Rivera
murals

Activity:
Concept Map book

152

Table 4 (cont’d)
Week 3 5 – U1.4.4: Describe
the Columbian
Exchange and its impact
on Europeans, American
Indians, and Africans

Activity: Introduction –
What is the Columbian
Exchange?
Week 4 5 – U2.2.1: Describe
Triangular Trade
including
• the trade routes
• the people and goods
that were traded
• the Middle Passage
• its impact on life in
Africa

5 – U1.4.4: Describe
the Columbian
Exchange and its
impact on
Europeans,
American Indians,
and Africans

Activity: Foldables –
Cause and effect

5 – U2.2.1: Describe
Triangular Trade
including
• the trade routes
• the people and goods
that were traded
• the Middle Passage
• its impact on life in
Africa

5 – U2.2.1: Describe
Triangular Trade
including
• the trade routes
• the people and
goods that were
traded
• the Middle Passage
• its impact on life in
Africa (National
Geography Standards
9, and 11; p. 160 and
164E)
Activity: Artifact
examination (manilla)
Map comparison to
Columbian Exchang
5 – U2.2.2: Describe
the life of enslaved
Africans and free
Africans in the
American colonies.
(National Geography
Standard 5, p. 152)

153

5 – U2.2.1: Describe
Triangular Trade
including
• the trade routes
• the people and
goods that were
traded
• the Middle Passage
• its impact on life in
Africa (National
Geography Standards
9, and 11; p. 160 and
164E)
Activity: Simulation
(approximately 60
mins)

5 – U2.2.1: Describe
Triangular Trade
including
• the trade routes
• the people and goods
that were traded
• the Middle Passage
• its impact on life in
Africa (National
Geography Standards
9, and 11; p. 160 and
164E)

5 – U2.2.2: Describe
the life of enslaved
Africans and free
Africans in the
American colonies.
(National Geography
Standard 5, p. 152)

5 – U2.2.2: Describe
the life of enslaved
Africans and free
Africans in the
American colonies.
(National Geography
Standard 5, p. 152)

Activity: Simulation
de-brief using grand
conversation

Table 4 (cont’d)
Week 4

Activity:
Reading (Grant, p. XX)

Activity:
Amos Fortune
interactive reading

Activity: Overview of
Africans in America.
Data analysis creating charts and
graphs

Activity:
Four square flip book

Activity:
Four square flip book

Week 5

Activity: Creating
Museum Exhibits

Activity: Creating
Museum Exhibits

Activity: Test
Submit exhibit
description of the
exhibit
program/brochure

Activity: Final
rehearsals

Activity: Public
showing of museum
exhibits

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Appendix B
Grade Level Content Expectations
Table 5
Social Studies
5 – U1.3.1

5 – U1.3.2

5 – U1.4.1

5 – U1.4.2

5 – U1.4.3

5 – U1.4.4
5 – U2.2.1

5 – U2.2.2

Use maps to locate the major regions of Africa (northern Africa,
western Africa, central Africa, eastern Africa, southern Africa).
(National Geography Standard 1, p. 144)
Describe the life and cultural development of people living in western
th
Africa before the 16 century with respect to economic (the ways
people made a living) and family structures, and the growth of states,
towns, and trade. (National Geography Standard 10, p. 162)
Describe the convergence of Europeans, American Indians and Africans
in North America after1492 from the perspective of these three groups.
(National Geography Standard 10, p. 162)
Use primary and secondary sources (e.g., letters, diaries, maps,
documents, narratives, pictures, graphic data) to compare Europeans and
American Indians who converged in the western hemisphere after 1492
with respect to governmental structure, and views on property
ownership and land use. (National Geography Standard 12, p. 167, C,
E)
Explain the impact of European contact on American Indian cultures by
comparing the different approaches used by the British and French in
their interactions with American Indians. (National Geography
Standard 10, p. 162, C, E)
Describe the Columbian Exchange and its impact on Europeans,
American Indians, and Africans.
Describe Triangular Trade including
• the trade routes
• the people and goods that were traded
• the Middle Passage
• its impact on life in Africa (National Geography Standards 9, and 11;
p. 160 and 164E)
Describe the life of enslaved Africans and free Africans in the American
colonies. (National Geography Standard 5, p. 152)

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Table 6
English/Language Arts
R.IT.05.01

R.IT.05.02

Analyze the structure, elements, features, style, and purpose of
informational genre including advertising, experiments, editorials, and
atlases.
Identify and describe informational text patterns including
compare/contrast, cause/effect, and problem/solution.

R.CM.05.02 Retell through concise summarization grade-level narrative and
informational text
R.CM.05.04 Apply significant knowledge from grade-level science, social studies,
and mathematics texts.
L.RP.05.01 Listen to or view knowledgeably and discuss a variety of genre and
compare their responses to those of their peers.
Respond to and go beyond the information given by a speaker, making
inferences and drawing appropriate conclusions.
W.PR.05.02 Apply a variety of pre-writing strategies for both narrative and
informational writing (e.g., graphic organizers such as maps, webs,
Venn diagrams) in order to generate, sequence, and structure ideas (e.g.,
role and relationships of characters, settings, ideas, relationship of
theory/evidence, or compare/contrast).
L.RP.05.05

Michigan Department of Education (2007). English language arts grade level content
expectations. Lansing, MI: Author. Retrieved from
http://michigan.gov/mde/0,1607,7-140-28753_38684_28758---,00.html.
Michigan Department of Education (2007). Grade level content expectations: Social
Studies. Retrieved from http://michigan.gov/mde/0,1607,7-14028753_38684_28761---,00.html

156

Appendix C
Student Assessment Form A

Figure 7. Map of Africa

1. Label the following regions on this map of Africa. You can use the letter and/or
name of the region.
a) Northern Africa
b) Western Africa
c) Central Africa
d) Eastern Africa
e) Southern Africa
157

Circle the correct answers to the following questions.
th
2. How did people make a living in western Africa before the 16 century?
a. Building
b. Exploring
c. Fishing
d. Trading
3. Many West African societies lived in extended family groups. Which of the following
best defines this practice?
a. Several generations lived in one household.
b. The male chiefs were required to have a female assistant to supervise the affairs
of women.
c. Men moved to distance city-states.
d. Kinship was traced through the female line.
4. What caused states and towns to grow in western Africa before the 16
a. Immigration from the New World
b. Education
c. Trade
d. Fertile soil

th

century?

5. An environmental effect of the interaction among Africans, American Indians, and
Europeans was
a.
b.
c.
d.

A more diverse population living in North America.
The adaptation of new plants in North America.
The trading of finished products.
A competition for allies.

6. A political effect of the interaction among Africans, American Indians, and Europeans
was
a. A more diverse population living in North America.
b. The adaptation of new plants in North America.
c. The establishment of markets in Europe.
d. A competition for allies.
7. A cultural effect of the interaction among Africans, American Indians, and Europeans
was
a. A more diverse population living in North America.
b. The adaptation of new plants in North America.
c. The establishment of markets in North America.
d. A competition for allies.

158

Read the following passage about Europeans’ and American Indians’ ideas about
government, property, and land use.
Table 7
Prompt 1, Form A
Line
1 During the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th
centuries, European monarchs encouraged and subsidized
3 expeditions to the New World. None were more active or
made greater impact than the English. In the name of their
5 monarchs in the Tudor and the Stuart lines, the English
established thriving colonies in North America.
7

9
11
13
15
17

Under English law, discoveries were made in the name of the
sovereign and all lands belonged to the monarch, to be
disposed of at the will of the crown. Joint stock companies
received charters from the crown and parceled out land.
Royal favorites also received territories to be parceled out as
they saw fit. However, these lands that had been
"discovered" and distributed by the English had been
occupied for centuries by various Indian nations. In time, the
Indians and the Europeans discovered that each had quite
different ideas about land ownership—a cultural difference
that had a profound effect on the history of the United States.

Definitions

Subsidized: to
buy with help.
Thriving: being
successful.

Sovereign: a king
or queen.
Parceled: give
out

19 There were a great many Native American tribes in the
Americas, and each understood itself to be a nation, with a
different language and culture than all others. Native
21 Americans had their own names, their nations, and each
name usually translated as, simply, "The People." However,
23 although Indian cultures were quite varied, most shared a
similar understanding of the meaning and the stewardship of
25 land.
27 Long before the first European settlers came to America,
Indians had developed an advanced economy. Indian tribes
traded extensively with each other, and many had some form
29 of money. None, however, had any institution like the "land
title" of the Europeans. They had no tradition of "alienating",
31 or relinquishing all rights, to land. Many thought that this
showed Indian social development to be more primitive that
33 that of the Europeans. But the Native Americans had
developed sophisticated legal systems that incorporated
35 treaties, elaborated rights and specified ways to resolve
disputes.

159

Relinquishing:
giving up

8. In this passage, the “stewardship of land” (line 27) means
a. Native Americans took care of the land.
b. Europeans took care of the land.
c. Native Americans owned the land.
d. Europeans owned the land.
9. In Europe the government was led by a
a. President.
b. Mayor.
c. Chief.
d. Monarch.
10. For Native Americans land was used for
a. Trading.
b. Survival.
c. Alliances.
d. Mining.

Read the following passage.
Table 8
French and British Relations with the Native Americans
Line
1 The British had little respect or kindness for the Native Americans of the New
World. Far from respecting the Native Americans right to land, freedom, and
3 health, the British did not even recognize the Native Americans as people. The
Native Americans were thought to have the soul of animals. Therefore, the
5 English's view of the Native Americans was that they were little but unorganized,
argumentative individuals and were comfortable with their elimination.
7
The French on the other hand took a different view and therefore their
relationship with the Native Americans was different. They told the Native
9 Americans that while the British were there for colonization and land the French
merely wanted to get rich and get out. Their interest was in the fur trade. Besides
11 that the French were very interested in Native Americans culture and customs.
The French took the time to learn the Native American languages, learn their
13 habits, and really meet their people. In some cases, Frenchmen even married
Native American women and were integrated into the tribes.
15

160

11. Based on what you read on page 4, complete the table below.
Describe how the British interacted with
American Indians
1)

Describe how the French interacted with
American Indians.
1)

2)

2)

3)

3)

161

NEW WORLD
• Foodstuffs: corn,
potatoes, beans, cocoa,
beans
• Precious metals: gold,
silver
• Tobacco

The Columbian Exchange

OLD WORLD
• Foodstuffs: wheat, sugar,
rice, coffee beans
• Livestock: horses, cows,
pigs
• Diseases: smallpox,
measles, influenza,
typhus

Figure 8. The Columbian Exchange

12. The diagram above shows the Columbian Exchange. The Columbian Exchange
describes which of the following?
a. How people came to North America.
b. The exchange of foods and animals.
c. Why people went to war in Europe.
d. The sharing of resources.
13. In what way did the Columbian Exchange affect Europeans?
a. New diseases were introduced that killed many people.
b. New crops were introduced to the European continent for farming.
c. New livestock was introduced to Europeans which promoted permanent
settlements in the New World.
d. New modes of transportation were developed.
14. In what way did the Columbian Exchange affect American Indians?
a. New diseases were introduced that killed many people.
b. New crops were introduced to the European continent for farming.
c. New livestock was introduced which promoted permanentsettlements in the Old
World.
d. New modes of transportation were developed.
15. In what way did the Columbian Exchange affect Africans?
a. New diseases were introduced that killed many people.
b. New crops were introduced to the continent for farming.
c. New livestock was introduced which promoted permanent settlements.
d. New modes of transportation were developed.

162

Figure 9. World Map
15. Complete this map about Triangular Trade Routes.
a. Identify the continents/regions involved in the Triangular Trade Route.
b. Using arrows ( ), draw the trade routes involved in the Triangular Trade Route.
c. Label each route with at least two goods that were traded.

163

Figure 10. Diagram from the slave ship Brookes, 1788

16. This picture shows the inside of a ship. Describe what you see. What do you think
the artist is trying to tell? (3-5 sentences)

164

17. The Middle Passage was part of the Triangular Trade Route in which people
a. Traveled through North America.
b. Exchanged goods.
c. Were taken from Africa to the New World.
d. Left Europe to travel to Africa.
18. The Atlantic Slave Trade had an impact on life in Africa by
a. Increasing the population.
b. Leading to the enslavement of far greater numbers of Europeans.
c. Leading to the enslavement of far greater numbers of Africans.
d. Increasing raw materials.
Read the following passage adapted from An Account of the Slave Trade by Dr.
Alexander Falconbridge, 1788
Table 9
Prompt 3, Form A
Line
1 Some wet and blowing weather having occasioned the portholes to
be shut, and the grating to be covered, fluxes and fevers among
3 the slaves ensued. My profession requiring it, I frequently went
down among them, until it became so extremely hot as to be only
5 sufferable for a very short time. But the excessive heat was not the
only thing that rendered their situation intolerable. The deck,
7 that is the floor of their rooms, was so covered with the blood and
mucous which had proceeded from them in consequence of the
9 flux, that it resembled a slaughter-house. It is not in the power of
the human imagination to picture to itself a situation more
11 dreadful or disgusting. Numbers of the slaves having fainted, they
were carried up on deck, where several of them died and the rest
13 were, with great difficulty, restored...
19. What was the author’s role on this ship?
a. Captain
b. Deck hand
c. Doctor
d. Slave owner

165

Definitions
Grate: grid
Flux: unrest

Render:
cause to be
Intolerable:
impossible

20. Summarize what you just read. (3-5 sentences)

21. Describe life in the Americas for enslaved Africans and free Africans in 1750. (3-5
sentences)

166

Sources
Prompt 1: “Land and Freedom” http://www.landandfreedom.org/ushistory/us1.htm
Prompt 2: “French and British Relations with the Native Americans”
http://lauren557.tripod.com/indianrelations
Prompt 3: (First published in London, 1788, from Pope-Hennessy, p. 102) SOURCE:
Colonial Triangular Trade: An Economy Based on Human Misery, Perspectives on
History Series Edited by Phyllis Raybin Emert, Discovery Enterprises, Ltd.

167

Appendix D
Student Assessment Form B

B

A

C

Figure 11. Map of Africa
1. Identify each region of the map above.
a) __________________________________________________________
b) __________________________________________________________
c) __________________________________________________________
d) __________________________________________________________
e) __________________________________________________________

168

Circle the correct answers to the following questions.
th
2. How did people make a living in western Africa before the 16 century?
A. Fishing
B. Hunting
C. Manufacturing
D. Mining
3. In many West African societies, several generations lived together in one household.
This practice is often called
a. Extended family groups.
b. City-states.
c. Kinship.
d. Caravans.
th

4. What caused states and towns to grow in western Africa before the 16 century?
a. Immigration from the New World
b. Strong leadership
c. Good natural harbors
d. Fertile soil
5. An environmental effect of the interaction among Africans, American Indians, and
Europeans was
e. A less diverse population living in North America.
f. The adaptation of new crops in Europe.
g. The establishment of trade relationships.
h. A competition over territory.
6. A political effect of the interaction among Africans, American Indians, and Europeans
was
a. A more diverse population living in North America.
b. The adaptation of new plants in North America.
c. The establishment of markets in Europe.
d. A conflict over territory.
7. A cultural effect of the interaction among Africans, American Indians, and Europeans
was
e. The spreading of Christianity to North America.
f. The adaptation of new plants in North America.
g. The establishment of a president in North America.
h. A competition for allies.

169

Read the following passage about Europeans’ and American Indians’ ideas about
government, property, and land use.
Table 10
Prompt 1, Form B
Line
1 During the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th centuries,
European monarchs encouraged and subsidized expeditions to the
3 New World. None were more active or made greater impact than
the English. In the name of their monarchs in the Tudor and the
5 Stuart lines, the English established thriving colonies in North
America.
7

9
11
13
15
17

Under English law, discoveries were made in the name of the
sovereign and all lands belonged to the monarch, to be disposed of
at the will of the crown. Joint stock companies received charters
from the crown and parceled out land. Royal favorites also
received territories to be parceled out as they saw fit. However,
these lands that had been "discovered" and distributed by the
English had been occupied for centuries by various Indian nations.
In time, the Indians and the Europeans discovered that each had
quite different ideas about land ownership—a cultural difference
that had a profound effect on the history of the United States.

Definitions

Subsidized
: to buy
with help.
Thriving:
being
successful.

Sovereign:
a king or
queen.
Parceled:
give out

There were a great many Native American tribes in the Americas,
19 and each understood itself to be a nation, with a different language
and culture than all others. Native Americans had their own names,
their nations, and each name usually translated as, simply, "The
21 People." However, although Indian cultures were quite varied, most
shared a similar understanding of the meaning and the stewardship
23 of land.
25 Long before the first European settlers came to America, Indians
had developed an advanced economy. Indian tribes traded
27 extensively with each other, and many had some form of money.
None, however, had any institution like the "land title" of the
Europeans. They had no tradition of "alienating", or relinquishing
29 all rights, to land. Many thought that this showed Indian social
development to be more primitive that that of the Europeans. But
31 the Native Americans had developed sophisticated legal systems
that incorporated treaties, elaborated rights and specified ways to
33 resolve disputes.

170

Relinquish
ing: giving
up

8. Based on what you read on page 3, compare Europeans’ and American Indians’ ideas
about government, property, and land use. (3-5 sentences)

171

Read the following passage.
Table 11
Prompt 2, Form B
Line
French and British Relations with the Native Americans
1 The British had little respect or kindness for the Native Americans of the New
World. Far from respecting the Native Americans right to land, freedom, and
3 health, the British did not even recognize the Native Americans as people. The
Native Americans were thought to have the soul of animals. Therefore, the
5 English's view of the Native Americans was that they were little but unorganized,
argumentative individuals and were comfortable with their elimination.
7
The French on the other hand took a different view and therefore their
relationship with the Native Americans was different. They told the Native
9 Americans that while the British were there for colonization and land the French
merely wanted to get rich and get out. Their interest was in the fur trade. Besides
11 that the French were very interested in Native Americans culture and customs.
The French took the time to learn the Native American languages, learn their
13 habits, and really meet their people. In some cases, Frenchmen even married
Native American women and were integrated into the tribes.
15
9. Based on what you read above, describe how the British interacted with the American
Indians. (2-3 sentences)

172

10. Based on what you read above, describe how the French interacted with the American
Indians. (2-3 sentences)

173

Figure 12. The Columbian Exchange, Prompt 3

11. The diagram above shows the Columbian Exchange. The Columbian Exchange
describes which of the following?
e. How people came to North America.
f. The trade of animals and precious metals.
g. Why people went to war in Europe.
h. The marketing of enslaved people.
12. In what way did the Columbian Exchange affect Europeans?
e. New diseases were introduced that killed many people.
f. New cash crops were introduced to the European marketplace.
g. Precious metals were mined in Europe.
h. New modes of transportation were developed.
13. In what way did the Columbian Exchange affect American Indians?
e. New livestock were introduced that promoted permentant settlements.
f. New crops were introduced to the European continent for farming.
g. New modes of transportation were developed.
h. Precious metals were mined in Europe.
14. In what way did the Columbian Exchange affect Africans?
e. New diseases were introduced that killed many people.
f. New crops were introduced to the African continent as cash crops.
g. New livestock was introduced which promoted permentant settlements.
h. New modes of transportation were developed.

174

Figure 13. The World Map

15. Complete this map about Triangular Trade Routes.
a. Identify the continents/regions involved in the Triangular Trade Route.
b. Using arrows ( ), draw the trade routes involved in the Triangular Trade Route.
c. Label each route with at least two goods that were traded.

175

Figure 14. Slave Deck of the Bark “Wildfire” Illustration, Prompt 4

176

16. This picture shows the deck of a ship. Describe what you see. What do you think the
artist is trying to tell?

177

17. The Middle Passage was
a. Part of the Columbian Exchange.
b. The exchange of goods.
c. Part of the Triangular Trade Route.
d. The departure from Europe.
18. The Atlantic Slave Trade had an impact on life in Africa by
a. Decreasing the European population.
b. Leading to the enslavement of far greater numbers of Native Americans.
c. Leading to the enslavement of far greater numbers of Africans.
d. Increasing raw materials.

178

Read the following passage adapted from An Account of the Slave Trade by Dr.
Alexander Falconbridge, 1788
Table 12
Prompt 5, Form B
Line
1 Some wet and blowing weather having occasioned the portholes to
be shut, and the grating to be covered, fluxes and fevers among
3 the slaves ensued. My profession requiring it, I frequently went
down among them, until it became so extremely hot as to be only
5 sufferable for a very short time. But the excessive heat was not the
only thing that rendered their situation intolerable. The deck,
7 that is the floor of their rooms, was so covered with the blood and
mucous which had proceeded from them in consequence of the
9 flux, that it resembled a slaughter-house. It is not in the power of
the human imagination to picture to itself a situation more
11 dreadful or disgusting. Numbers of the slaves having fainted, they
were carried up on deck, where several of them died and the rest
13 were, with great difficulty, restored...

Definitions
Grate: grid
Flux: unrest

Render:
cause to be
Intolerable:
impossible

19. This passage is an example of a
a. Captain’s log.
b. Primary source.
c. Secondary source.
d. Ship manifest.
20. Based on what you just read, describe life on a slave ship. (3-5 sentences)

179

21. Complete the chart below by comparing life in the Americas for enslaved Africans
and free Africans in 1750.
Table 13
Student Response, Form B, Q21
Enslaved Africans

Free Africans

Property
Ownership

Family Life

Opportunities

Sources
Prompt 1: “Land and Freedom” http://www.landandfreedom.org/ushistory/us1.htm
Prompt 2: “French and British Relations with the Native Americans”
http://lauren557.tripod.com/indianrelations
Prompt 3: Columbian Exchange Map
http://www.vhinkle.com/modern/studyguide33.html#map
Prompt 4: Slave Deck of the Bark “Wildfire” Illustration Original caption: Slavery:
Slave deck of the bark “Wildfire” captured b y the U.S. Steamer Mohauk. Woodcut,
1860.
Prompt 5: An Account of the Slave Trade by Dr. Alexander Falconbridge, 1788
(First published in London, 1788, from Pope-Hennessy, p. 102) SOURCE: Colonial
Triangular Trade: An Economy Based on Human Misery, Perspectives on History Series
Edited by Phyllis Raybin Emert, Discovery Enterprises, Ltd.

180

Appendix E
Construct Matching
Table 14
Construct Matching
Reviewer Name:
GLCE
Descriptor

5 – U1.3.1

5 – U1.3.2

5 – U1.4.1

5 – U1.4.2

5 – U1.4.3

5 – U1.4.4
5 – U2.2.1

5 – U2.2.2

Question(s)
Assessment
Form A

Use maps to locate the major regions of Africa
(northern Africa, western Africa, central Africa,
eastern Africa, southern Africa). (National
Geography Standard 1, p. 144)
Describe the life and cultural development of people
th
living in western Africa before the 16 century with
respect to economic (the ways people made a living)
and family structures, and the growth of states,
towns, and trade. (National Geography Standard 10,
p. 162)
Describe the convergence of Europeans, American
Indians and Africans in North America after1492
from the perspective of these three groups. (National
Geography Standard 10, p. 162)
Use primary and secondary sources (e.g., letters,
diaries, maps, documents, narratives, pictures,
graphic data) to compare Europeans and American
Indians who converged in the western hemisphere
after 1492 with respect to governmental structure,
and views on property ownership and land use.
(National Geography Standard 12, p. 167, C, E)
Explain the impact of European contact on American
Indian cultures by comparing the different
approaches used by the British and French in their
interactions with American Indians. (National
Geography Standard 10, p. 162, C, E)
Describe the Columbian Exchange and its impact on
Europeans, American Indians, and Africans.
Describe Triangular Trade including
• the trade routes
• the people and goods that were traded
• the Middle Passage
• its impact on life in Africa
Describe the life of enslaved Africans and free
Africans in the American colonies. (National
Geography Standard 5, p. 152)
181

Comment,
Questions

Table 14 (cont’d)
Reviewer Name:
GLCE
Descriptor

5 – U1.3.1

5 – U1.3.2

5 – U1.4.1

5 – U1.4.2

5 – U1.4.3

5 – U1.4.4
5 – U2.2.1

5 – U2.2.2

Question(s)
on
Assessment
Form B

Use maps to locate the major regions of Africa
(northern Africa, western Africa, central Africa,
eastern Africa, southern Africa). (National
Geography Standard 1, p. 144)
Describe the life and cultural development of people
th
living in western Africa before the 16 century with
respect to economic (the ways people made a living)
and family structures, and the growth of states,
towns, and trade. (National Geography Standard 10,
p. 162)
Describe the convergence of Europeans, American
Indians and Africans in North America after1492
from the perspective of these three groups. (National
Geography Standard 10, p. 162)
Use primary and secondary sources (e.g., letters,
diaries, maps, documents, narratives, pictures,
graphic data) to compare Europeans and American
Indians who converged in the western hemisphere
after 1492 with respect to governmental structure,
and views on property ownership and land use.
(National Geography Standard 12, p. 167, C, E)
Explain the impact of European contact on American
Indian cultures by comparing the different
approaches used by the British and French in their
interactions with American Indians. (National
Geography Standard 10, p. 162, C, E)
Describe the Columbian Exchange and its impact on
Europeans, American Indians, and Africans.
Describe Triangular Trade including
• the trade routes
• the people and goods that were traded
• the Middle Passage
• its impact on life in Africa (National Geography
Standards 9, and 11; p. 160 and 164E)
Describe the life of enslaved Africans and free
Africans in the American colonies. (National
Geography Standard 5, p. 152)
182

Comments
Questions

Source: Michigan Department of Education (2007). Grade level content expectations:
Social Studies. Retrieved March 1, 2011, from http://michigan.gov/mde/0,1607,7-14028753_38684_28761---,00.html

183

Appendix F
Evaluation Rubric For Researcher-Created Assessment, Form A
Table 15
Evaluation Rubric, Form A
GLCEs To Be Mastered:
History

Meeting Expectations
4

A. Q1
5 – U1.3.1 Use maps to locate the
major regions of Africa (northern
Africa, western Africa, central
Africa, eastern Africa, southern
Africa).

Accurately uses maps to
locate all of the major
regions of Africa
(northern Africa,
western Africa, central
Africa, eastern Africa,
southern Africa).

B. Q2- Q4
5 – U1.3.2 Describe the life and
cultural development of people
living in western Africa before the
th
16 century with respect to
economic and family structures,
and the growth of states, towns,
and trade.
C. Q 5-7
5 – U1.4.1 Describe the
convergence of Europeans,
American Indians and Africans in
North America after1492 from the
perspective of these three groups.

Responds accurately to
questions 2, 3, AND 4.

Responds accurately to
questions 5, 6, AND 7.

Approaching
Expectations
3
Accurately uses maps to
locate four (4) or three
(3) of the major regions
of Africa (northern
Africa, western Africa,
central Africa, eastern
Africa, southern
Africa).
Responds accurately to
two of the following
three questions 2, 3, or
4.

Beginning to Address
Expectations
2
Accurately uses maps to
locate two (2) or one (1)
of the major regions of
Africa (northern Africa,
western Africa, central
Africa, eastern Africa,
southern Africa).

Does Not Meet
Expectations
1
No Evidence

Responds accurately to
one of the following
three questions 2, 3, or
4.

No Evidence

Responds accurately to
two of the following
three questions 5, 6, or
7.

Responds accurately to
one of the following
three questions 5, 6, or
7.

No Evidence

184

I Don’t Know

I Don’t Know

I Don’t Know

Table 15 (cont’d)
D. Q8-10
5 – U1.4.2 Use primary and
secondary sources (e.g., letters,
diaries, maps, documents,
narratives, pictures, graphic data)
to compare Europeans and
American Indians who converged
in the western hemisphere after
1492 with respect to governmental
structure, and views on property
ownership and land use. (National
Geography Standard 12, p. 167, C,
E)
E. Q11
5 – U1.4.3 Explain the impact of
European contact on American
Indian cultures by comparing the
different approaches used by the
British and French in their
interactions with American
Indians. (National Geography
Standard 10, p. 162, C, E)
F. Q12-15a
5 – U1.4.4 Describe the
Columbian Exchange and its
impact on Europeans, American
Indians, and Africans.

Responds accurately to
questions 8, 9, AND 10.

Responds accurately to
two of the following
three questions 8, 9, or
10.

Responds accurately to
one of the following
three questions 8, 9, or
10.

Presents at least two
ways in which the
British and at least two
DIFFERENT ways in
which the French
interacted with the
American Indians.

Presents at least one
way in which the British
and at least one
DIFFERENT way in
which the French
interacted with the
American Indians.

Presents at least one
No Evidence
way in which the British
and ways in which the
I Don’t Know
French interacted with
the American Indians.

Responds accurately to
questions 12, 13, 14,
AND 15.

Responds accurately to
three of the following
questions 12, 13, 14, or
15.

Responds accurately to
one or two of the
following questions 12,
13, 14, or 15.

185

No Evidence
I Don’t Know

No Evidence
I Don’t Know

Table 15 (cont’d)
5 – U2.2.1 Describe Triangular Trade including
Average of question groups 15b, 16, 17-19, 20
• the trade routes
• the people and goods that were traded
• the Middle Passage
• its impact on life in Africa (National Geography Standards 9,
and 11; p. 160 and 164E)
Meeting Expectations
Approaching Expectations
Beginning to Address
4
3
Expectations
2
Accurately identifies
Accurately completes two of the Accurately completes one of the
a. Q15b
continents/regions, draws at
following three: (1) identifies
following three: (1) identifies
least three routes, and labels at
continents/regions, (2) draws at continents/regions, (2) draws at
least two goods that were traded least three routes, and (3) labels least three routes, and (3) labels
as part of the Triangular Trade
at least two goods that were
at least two goods that were
Route.
traded as part of the Triangular
traded as part of the Triangular
Trade Route.
Trade Route.
Uses the image to thoroughly
Uses the image to describe the
Describes the image
b. Q16
describe the Middle Passage as
Middle Passage.
part of the Triangular Trade
Route.
Responds accurately to two of
Responds accurately to one of
c. Q17-19 Responds accurately to
questions 17, 18, AND 19.
the following questions 17, 18,
the following questions 17, 18,
or 19.
or 19.
Accurately summarizes the
Accurately summarizes the
Accurately summarizes the
d. Q20
paragraph including: (1) the
paragraph including two of the
paragraph including one of the
weather, (2) the role of the
following three: (1) the weather, following three: (1) the weather,
author (doctor), and (3) the
(2) the role of the author
(2) the role of the author
conditions of the slaves.
(doctor), and (3) the conditions
(doctor), and (3) the conditions
of the slaves.
of the slaves.

186

Does Not Meet
Expectations
1
No Evidence
I Don’t Know

No Evidence
I Don’t Know
No Evidence
I Don’t Know
No Evidence
I Don’t Know

Table 15 (cont’d)
G. Average of a-d:
H. Q21
5 – U2.2.2 Describe the
life of enslaved Africans
and free Africans in the
American colonies.
(National Geography
Standard 5, p. 152)

Thoroughly describes the
life of enslaved Africans
and free Africans in the
American colonies.

Describe the life of
enslaved Africans and/or
free Africans in the
American colonies.

187

Vaguely describe the
life of enslaved
Africans and/or free
Africans in the
American colonies.

No Evidence
I Don’t know

Appendix G
Evaluation Rubric For Researcher-Created Assessment, Form B
Table 16
Evaluation Rubric, Form B
GLCEs To Be Mastered:
History
A. Q1
5 – U1.3.1 Use maps to
locate the major regions of
Africa (northern Africa,
western Africa, central
Africa, eastern Africa,
southern Africa).
B. Q2- Q4
5 – U1.3.2 Describe the
life and cultural
development of people
living in western Africa
th
before the 16 century
with respect to economic
(the ways people made a
living) and family
structures, and the growth
of states, towns, and trade.

Meeting Expectations
4
Accurately uses maps to
locate all of the major
regions of Africa (northern
Africa, western Africa,
central Africa, eastern
Africa, southern Africa).
Responds accurately to
questions 2, 3, AND 4.

Approaching
Expectations
3
Accurately uses maps to
locate four (4) or three (3)
of the major regions of
Africa (northern Africa,
western Africa, central
Africa, eastern Africa,
southern Africa).
Responds accurately to two
of the following three
questions 2, 3, or 4.

188

Beginning to Address
Expectations
2
Accurately uses maps to
locate two (2) or one (1) of
the major regions of Africa
(northern Africa, western
Africa, central Africa,
eastern Africa, southern
Africa).
Responds accurately to one
of the following three
questions 2, 3, or 4.

Does Not Meet
Expectations
1
No Evidence
I Don’t Know

No Evidence
I Don’t Know

Table 16 (cont’d)
C. Q 5-7
5 – U1.4.1 Describe the
convergence of
Europeans, American
Indians and Africans in
North America after1492
from the perspective of
these three groups.
(National Geography
Standard 10, p. 162)

Responds accurately to
questions 5, 6, AND 7.

D. Q8
5 – U1.4.2 Use primary
and secondary sources
(e.g., letters, diaries,
maps, documents,
narratives, pictures,
graphic data) to compare
Europeans and American
Indians who converged in
the western hemisphere
after 1492 with respect to
governmental structure,
and views on property
ownership and land use.
(National Geography
Standard 12, p. 167, C, E)

Compares Europeans’ and
American Indians’ views
on all of the following:
governmental structure, and
views on property
ownership and land use.

Responds accurately to two
of the following three
questions 5, 6, or 7.

Responds accurately to one
of the following three
questions 5, 6, or 7.

Compares Europeans’ and
American Indians’ views
on two of the following:
governmental structure, and
views on property
ownership and land use.

Compares Europeans’ and
No Evidence
American Indians’ views
on one of the following:
I Don’t Know
governmental structure, and
views on property
ownership and land use.

189

No Evidence
I Don’t Know

Table 16 (cont’d)
Presents at least two ways
Presents at least one way in Presents at least one way in No Evidence
E. Q9-10
5 – U1.4.3 Explain the
in which the British (Q9)
which the British (Q9) and which the British and ways
impact of European
and at least two
at least one DIFFERENT
in which the French
I Don’t Know
contact on American
DIFFERENT ways in
way in which the French
interacted with the
Indian cultures by
which the French (Q10)
(Q10) interacted with the
American Indians.
comparing the different
interacted with the
American Indians.
approaches used by the
American Indians.
British and French in their
interactions with
American Indians.
(National Geography
Standard 10, p. 162, C, E)
Responds accurately to
Responds accurately to
Responds accurately to one No Evidence
F. Q11-14
5 – U1.4.4 Describe the
questions 11, 12, 13, AND three of the following
or two of the following
Columbian Exchange and 14.
questions 11, 12, 13, or 14. questions 11, 12, 13, or 14. I Don’t Know
its impact on Europeans,
American Indians, and
Africans.
G. 5 – U2.2.1 Describe Triangular Trade including
Average of questions 15-20
• the trade routes
• the people and goods that were traded
• the Middle Passage
• its impact on life in Africa (National Geography Standards 9, and 11; p. 160 and 164E)

190

Table 16 (cont’d)
Meeting Expectations
4

Approaching Expectations
3

a. Q15 Accurately identifies
continents/regions, draws at
least three routes, and labels at
least two goods that were
traded as part of the Triangular
Trade Route.

Accurately completes two of the
following three: (1) identifies
continents/regions, (2) draws at
least three routes, and (3) labels at
least two goods that were traded
as part of the Triangular Trade
Route.
Uses the image to describe the
b. Q16 Uses the image to thoroughly
describe the Middle Passage as Middle Passage.
part of the Triangular Trade
Route.
Responds accurately to
Responds accurately to two of the
c.
questions 17, 18, AND 19.
following questions 17, 18, or 19.
Q1719
Accurately summarizes the
d. Q20 Accurately summarizes the
paragraph including: (1) the
paragraph including two of the
weather, (2) the role of the
following three: (1) the weather,
author (doctor), and (3) the
(2) the role of the author (doctor),
conditions of the slaves.
and (3) the conditions of the
slaves.
Average of a-d:

191

Beginning to Address Expectations
2

Accurately completes one of the
following three: (1) identifies
continents/regions, (2) draws at least
three routes, and (3) labels at least two
goods that were traded as part of the
Triangular Trade Route.
Describes the image

Does Not
Meet
Expectations
1
No Evidence
I Don’t Know

No Evidence
I Don’t Know

Responds accurately to one of the
following questions 17, 18, or 19.

No Evidence
I Don’t Know

Accurately summarizes the paragraph
including one of the following three:
(1) the weather, (2) the role of the
author (doctor), and (3) the conditions
of the slaves.

No Evidence
I Don’t Know

Table 16 (cont’d)
Meeting Expectations
4
H. Q21
5 – U2.2.2 Describe the
life of enslaved Africans
and free Africans in the
American colonies.
(National Geography
Standard 5, p. 152)

Describes the life of
enslaved Africans and
free Africans in the
American colonies in
reference to property,
family, and
opportunities (4 of 6).

Approaching
Expectations
3
Describes the life of
enslaved Africans and
free Africans in the
American colonies in
reference to property,
family, and
opportunities (at least 3
of 6).

192

Beginning to Address
Expectations
2
Vaguely describe the
life of enslaved Africans
and/or free Africans in
the American colonies
(at least 2 of 6).

Does Not Meet
Expectations
1
No Evidence
I Don’t know

Appendix H
Teacher Pre-interview Protocol
Purpose: The purpose of this interview is to better understand the teacher’s point off view
on interdisciplinary teaching and learning as well as his/her feelings on the specific
disciplines associated with the intervention unit.
Thank you for agreeing to participate in this interview about interdisciplinary teaching
(history, content area literacy, and the visual arts) in elementary classroom, perspectives
on history, content area literacy, and visual arts.
What is your name?
Describe your educational background (content area of expertise).
How long have you taught? What grades?

First, I am going to ask you questions about interdisciplinary teaching.
1. How do you define interdisciplinary teaching?
2. Do you use interdisciplinary teaching in your classroom? If YES: Why? In what
ways? Please give examples. If NO: Why not?
3. In you opinion, is interdisciplinary teaching important in the elementary classroom?
Why?
Next, I am going to ask you about your perspectives on specific classroom subject
areas including history, literacy, and visual arts.
1. Do you teach history in your classroom?
IF YES to #1: How much time is devoted to history per day or week?
IF NO: move on to #2.
2. What is the history you study in the elementary classroom?
3. Is the study of history important for elementary students? Why (not)?
4. In your opinion what are the most important historical topics for elementary students
to be exposed to?
5. In your opinion what are the most important historical concepts for elementary
students to be exposed to?
6. Do you teach literacy in your classroom?
IF YES to #6: How much time is devoted to literacy per day or week?
IF NO: move on to #7.
7. What is literacy study/instruction in the elementary classroom?
8. Is the study of literacy important for elementary students? Why (not)?
9. In your opinion what are the most aspects (skills and content) of literacy for
elementary students to understand?
10. What types of reading material are most important for your students to read? How
available are these types of text?
11. Do you teach the visual arts in your classroom?
IF YES to #10: How much time is devoted to visual arts per day or week?
IF NO: move on to #11.

193

12. What is the study of visual arts in the elementary classroom?
13. Is the study of visual arts important for elementary students? Why (not)?
14. In your opinion what are the most aspects of the visual arts for elementary students
understand?
15. In your opinion, what types of art would be most interesting to your students for
observation? For creation of their own artwork?
16. Are there opportunities to teach history, literacy, and the visual arts together in the
elementary classroom? Explain.
17. If one taught history, literacy, and the visual arts using interdisciplinary methods,
what would the benefits for teachers? For students? What would be the drawbacks
for students? For teachers?
Thank you again for agreeing to participate. Is there anything you would like to
add based on our conversation? Is there anything you would like to ask me? Thank
you!

194

Appendix I
Teacher Post-Interview Protocol
Purpose: The purpose of this interview is to better understand the teacher’s perspective
on interdisciplinary teaching and learning as well as his/her beliefs about the specific
disciplines associated with the intervention unit following to the intervention unit being
administered.
Thank you for agreeing to participate in this interview about interdisciplinary teaching
(history, content area literacy, and the visual arts) in the elementary school classroom.

1. Name:
2. How do you define interdisciplinary teaching?
3. Do you use interdisciplinary teaching in your classroom? If YES: Why? In what
ways? Please give examples. If NO: Why not?
4. In your opinion, is interdisciplinary teaching important in the elementary school
classroom? Why?
5. Are there opportunities to teach history, literacy, and the visual arts together in the
elementary school classroom? Explain.
6. If one taught history, literacy, and the visual arts using interdisciplinary methods,
what would the benefits for teachers? For students? What would be the
drawbacks for students? For teachers?
7. You implemented an interdisciplinary unit. What stands out to you about that
experience?
8. What were the challenges of implementing the unit?
9. What were the benefits to implementing the unit?
10. In your opinion, what skills were most emphasized in the unit?
11. In your opinion, what content was most emphasized in the unit?
12. Did you think of teaching lessons from this unit during your literacy or ELA
time? Why or why not?
13. What was the role of the researcher during the implementation of the unit?
14. Any final thoughts on the implementation of the unit or interdisciplinary
instruction?
15. Thank you!

195

Appendix J
Grade Level Content Expectations and Assessment Questions
Table 17
Grade Level Content Expectations and Assessment Questions
GLCE

Descriptor

A. 5 –
U1.3.1

Use maps to locate the major regions of Africa (northern
Africa, western Africa, central Africa, eastern Africa,
southern Africa). (National Geography Standard 1, p. 144)
Describe the life and cultural development of people living
th
in western Africa before the 16 century with respect to
economic (the ways people made a living) and family
structures, and the growth of states, towns, and trade.
Describe the convergence of Europeans, American Indians
and Africans in North America after1492 from the
perspective of these three groups.
Use primary and secondary sources (e.g., letters, diaries,
maps, documents, narratives, pictures, graphic data) to
compare Europeans and American Indians who converged
in the western hemisphere after 1492 with respect to
governmental structure, and views on property ownership
and land use.
Explain the impact of European contact on American
Indian cultures by comparing the different approaches used
by the British and French in their interactions with
American Indians. (National Geography Standard 10, p.
162, C, E)
Describe the Columbian Exchange and its impact on
Europeans, American Indians, and Africans.
Describe Triangular Trade including
• the trade routes
• the people and goods that were traded
• the Middle Passage
• its impact on life in Africa
Describe the life of enslaved Africans and free Africans in
the American colonies. (National Geography Standard 5,
p. 152)

B. 5 –
U1.3.2

C. 5 –
U1.4.1
D. 5 –
U1.4.2

E. 5 –
U1.4.3

F. 5 –
U1.4.4
G. 5 –
U2.2.1

H. 5 –
U2.2.2

196

Assessment
Questions
Form A Form B
(n= 22) (n = 21)
1
1

2, 3, 4

2, 3, 4

5, 6, 7

5, 6, 7

8, 9, 10

8

11

9, 10

12, 13,
14, 15a
15b, 16,
17, 18,
19, 20

11, 12,
13, 14
15, 16,
17, 18,
19, 20

21

21

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197

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