Teaching Second Graders Local History

through a Disciplinary Literacy Lens

La Crosse Players -

An iconic statue that sits in downtown La Crosse that greets visitors and

beckons our past.

Photo Courtesy of Lisa Altreuter

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Teaching Second Graders Local History

through a Disciplinary Literacy Lens

Kristin McDaniel- DPI, Social Studies

Sandra Brauer - Principal, Northwoods International School, La Crosse School District

Katherine Erickson- 2nd grade teacher, Hamilton Elementary, La Crosse School District

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Why We Started This Project

We had a version of this book that served us well but it had a definite European slant to it.

There were some valid concerns from the cultural groups represented in the book.

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The Key to Our Success

The Members *Ho-Chunk Nation *Hmong Community

*University Staff *MVAC archeologist

*Community Members *Social Studies Reps K-5

*LMC *Administration

*DPI

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The Process (or, how our 1 week project turned into 2 years.)

The large committee researched every option.

Cultural Groups-

Ho-Chunk, Hmong, African American, Women, European Settlers.

We then created the sections we wanted to have our students learn about.

From these sections, we created the Essential Questions.

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Disciplinary LiteracyThis project came about at the same time our district

adopted the Common Core Standards for ELA and Math.

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The sections we created were to give an overview of the

history of La Crosse. *We quickly realized there was too much to include and relied

on our teacher manual to carry a lot of the detailed info.

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The Writing *Gathered information

*Categorized into Essential Questions

*Used the Teacher Manual for more information/complicated

learning *Reached out for more resources

and photographs *Old fashion cut and paste of

book *Implemented our Checks and

Balances in the community

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Checks and Balances We had many team members and

community members who regularly came together to check for

accuracy, edits and wording.

*Ho - Chunk members *Local Archeologists

*University Professors *Local Historians

*School District Staff *DPI

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ResourcesIt was important that we used as many authentic resources as we could.

The process included revision after revision.

Thus the reason our 1 week project turned into a 2 year project.

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