Propaganda Posters get some mileage - and great attention

The Class

One of my favourite assignments was developed by an Education professor and me specifically for her class. The Archives has over 80 World War One recruitment, war bond, and Canada Food Board posters available both originally and digitally for our students. This assignment makes the most of the posters, relating them directly to the grade-school curriculum and using them as a teaching tool.

We bring the students to the Archives for a workshop with the posters. Using a few examples that I have pre-selected, the students work through the questions on their assignment as a practice run. The assignment is two-fold: one, the students answer questions from the perspective of students taking a secondary school history class; and, two, the students put together a lesson plan from the perspective of a teacher for that history class. Both the original and the digital posters are used in the assignment. (Here is the address for the posters: http://openarchive.acadiau.ca/cdm/landingpage/collection/ww1posters)

The Conference

In October 2013, this assignment was the basis of a presentation made by the professor and me at the Nova Scotia Teachers Union conference for the Social Studies Teachers Association. Our presentation discussed the method for creating the assignment, the lesson plan, and the material needed. We also provided advice for practicing teachers who may want to adopt a similar assignment. Some attendees were former students who had done the assignment a few years ago and could speak from personal experience. I hope that more teachers will find these posters a helpful tool for instruction.

Note: An excellent secondary source to accompany the propaganda posters assignment is Selling Canada: Three Propaganda Campaigns that Shaped a Nation by Francis Daniel (2011).

Dietetics Adventure=Archives Discovery

In August, I gave a session at a conference for critical dietetics. It was a small but totally engaged group of academics that came to the Archives for a session. Remember the first Nutrition class that came to the Archives in September 2012? (see posting http://classroomarchivist.blogspot.ca/2012/10/snapshot-impressions-1-first-class-of.html) This conference session recreated parts of that lesson plan (posted here http://archivallessons.blogspot.ca/2012/10/nutritional-archival-sources-now-being.html) so that participants could share the students’ experience.

We had a delightful afternoon learning about the history of nutrition at Acadia and the development of the teaching of nutrition/home economics/hygiene in grade schools. I hope that the participants were inspired to find ways to use historical sources in their own classrooms and build relationships with the university archivists.

Discover Deeper Meanings: Just Add Archives

or, the session at WILU. 

[Much to my shock and dismay, WILU does not stand for Wendy’s Information Literacy Universe!?!]

On 8 May, Amber Klatt and I were fortunate to make a presentation to ten, enthusiastic participants at the Workshop for Instruction in Library Use (WILU) on the campus of the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton. We had 45, carefully-planned, jam-packed minutes to unfold our research. Here’s the nutshell version.

Everyone introduced themselves and told us briefly about their favourite teacher; why was that person your favourite? This provided some good insights for us all. After a quick review of the agenda, it was “get to work” time. We divided the participants into smaller groups. Our handout had two sets of questions and the participants were given reproduced archival material that matched one of those sets. This allowed us to reproduce an activity that would normally happen when students come to the Archives. [Curious? Here is the history activity; here is the biology activity.] The activity ended with a larger discussion on the question, “Why would a third year student seek out these resources?” Conscious of the clock, Amber launched into a short lecture on the benefits of our research to students, faculty, us and the Archives. [I picked up at that point, bragging that since 2007, 1400 students have had an Archives class! But, I digress.] I briefly explained the six methods that we used to deliver our classes to students and the factors that unconsciously structured our choices. Finally, it was the participants turn to think about ideas for their own classes. Amber explained an activity whereby everyone would write down a class delivery idea, then share it with someone, and then share both of those ideas with someone else. In this way, participants would come out of the session with four, new ideas to bring home with them.

Amber and I structured the session to provide an experience for the participants—not a lecture. We wanted them to step into the shoes of a student for the activity, then step back into the educator role to examine that activity, and finally leave with some new ideas. Our evaluation slips reflected that we were successful in doing just that. Thanks to everyone who participated for making it such a great session.

Here are some of my parting thoughts that I shared with the group, and will now share with you:

·         Archives are not passive places.

·         Archives are relevant to curriculum at the university level. Our research has proven that!

·         Archives can contribute to literacy instruction in meaningful ways.

·         With the right tools and partnerships, an Archivist can be an active educator. Amber Klatt (now a graduate of the B.Ed. program) added a depth to the classes and questions that I could not have done alone.

On June 8th, at the Association of Canadian Archivists' conference in Whitehorse, I shared one of my interactive, guided class examples with delegates.  I called it "The Case of the Controversial Calendar".  It will be available as a podcast on the ACA members website. Thank you to everyone who participated.  Thank you to everyone who encouraged me to share my research endeavours via this blog.  As promised, I will use this blog to disseminate the research and practice of AIL.  Exciting times are ahead!