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<TITLE>Teaching Dates in History -- Reading Revolutions</TITLE>
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    <blockquote><blockquote><font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1"><a href="learningactivities.html"><b>INDEX</b></a><br><br><font size="+1"><center><i>Reading Revolutions:  Ideas for Teaching</i><br><br><font size="+1">Learning Activities:&nbsp; Time Lines</center>
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	<p><b><font face="Verdana"><font size=-1>I Hate Dates</font></font></b>
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	One of the hardest things for students is the memory of dates.&nbsp;  But it is important to be able to relate events to time to see mutual and causal influences.&nbsp;  One way to help the students see progressions is to produce a timeline of the period studied.
	</p><p>Kurt Lewin in his theory of the Life Space said that one of the prime changes in an adolescent's life is the lengthening of their sense of history.&nbsp;  He hypothesized that as the adolescent's sense of the past lengthened beyond their personal experience, their sense of the future would also lengthen.&nbsp;  Time is not a natural concept, like length, but to achieve accurate estimates both must be experienced.&nbsp;  Remember how long a two hour drive was when you were young?&nbsp;  Lewin thought that was because children don't have enough experiences of time spans to judge the passage of time.   
</p><p>Lewin thought that history was an important subject for mid-childhood and adolescence, not only for the usual cultural reasons, but to ground them psychologically with past generations and thus with future generations.&nbsp;  When teaching dates and using timelines or other methods, it's important to remember the underlying reasons and that the dates are a means to an end.&nbsp;  If the student has a sense of time, they are more likely to develop concepts of causation, be able to see inter-relationships, and apply what they learn to both the present and the future.
</p><p>
	The timeline should be produced as the class is taught.&nbsp;  If your classroom has a printer, it's easy to use very large letters and write a simple event title on a piece of typing paper.&nbsp;  The date should be written on the back.&nbsp;  The timeline can grow along a wall as the unit progresses.&nbsp;  When you run out of space, have the students choose the most important event in the period timeline and add that to a second Master Timeline either above the first on the same wall or on another wall.&nbsp;  The rest of the items can be taken down and stored.&nbsp;  You then begin a new period timeline.
	</p><p>One of the most important things to keep constant is the scale.  Wrap the timeline around the room, if necessary, to avoid bunching dates.&nbsp;  If you have the right situation, you could take the kids outside and have them create their own scale using tape measures.&nbsp;  Get several 50 foot measures and let them spread out.  1492 should barely be able to see the year 2000 + *.
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<b><font face="Verdana"><font size=-1>Review</font></font></b><p>
	To use the timeline for review, take out the old detailed timelines and choose an appropriate number from different periods and have the students order them.&nbsp;  This can be done in teams or you can pass them out randomly and each student can have a sheet.&nbsp;  These timeline sheets shouldn't have their dates included on the back.&nbsp;  The students should work together to form a line in the order of the timeline.&nbsp;  They should have resources so that they can look up items when there is debate.
	</p><p><b><font face="Verdana"><font size=-1>Guessing Games</font></font></b><p>
	With older students (seventh grade and up) you can have them play guessing games.&nbsp;  Again each student is given an event with the date.&nbsp;  They tell their classmates the date and then describe what happened before and after the event on their timeline so the students can guess the event.&nbsp;  You can either include or exclude the "major" dates from the Master Timeline.
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	With younger students, you can staple the timeline events to sticks to make picket signs that they can carry as they line up according to event.
	</p><p>
	If you have very detailed timelines and you are in the second half of the year, you may want to change the game to an era game.&nbsp;  Again, working in teams, the students must place events in 25, 50, or 100 year timespans.&nbsp;  While arbitrary, it will help them understand the flavor of the 1700's versus the 1200's.
	</p><p>
	In any of the games, the emphasis should be on encouraging the students to explain why they have placed an item at a particular place.&nbsp;  Although they might be off in their estimate, they might be using a larger time frame as their reference and so be essentially correct.&nbsp;  The point of the exercise is not to remember dates, but to achieve a sense of context.
	<br><br><br>
	Marilyn Shea<br>
	Professor of Psychology<br>
	University of Maine at Farmington<br>
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