IN FOCUS: Contextualization // January 2024

I starting using contextualization as much as possible because I realize how important it is for students to master different scales of analysis. I referred to this topic in this thread.

I teach Mansa Musa when I cover Threshold 7 Agriculture and we learn about the expansion of agriculture in Africa. I use this activity that I borrowed from someone in this community. But now that I read this new contextualization activity about Mansa Musa I will implement it in the unit of Expansion and Interconnection during the Post-Classical Malthusian Cyle (1,000-1,300 C.E.) to illustrate the importance of networks of exchange and the diffusion of goods and ideas. Maybe I will modify it due to time constrictions, but what I like is the graphic representation of funnels of contextualization, from larger to smaller. I think that it will help students visualize the different scales of analysis. 

I really like how OER does the Thesis and Context Writing activities!.  I am currently teaching the Industrial Revolution to AP students and will be using this activity before I have them practice with the Japan vs. Russia DBQ prompt.  Context seems so easy to me, and I use the Star Wars Crawl, Fresh Prince of Bel Air beginning, and others, but students need so much help with this writing skill.  Using timelines with the students have also helped.

Thanks so much for posting this Kathy Hays . Traditionally, I start with the contextulaization activiities at the start of the year in both on-level and AP. That said, conetxtualization is a major focus in the AP class throughout the course where as I typically breakdown my Units/Eras into three categories when introducing a new topic. I call these the three W's: What is happening, why and Where? The focus of these is to help provide contextualization and allows the learners to focus on indivudual pieces of the puzzle rather than the whole puzzle. 

Jeffrey Boles , the 3 W's is a brilliant way to simplify this and make it accessible to students. Thanks for sharing.

My pleasure John Vidoli .

The students do really appreciate this as part of the introduction to each section or topic. It breaks down the big idea and allows them to dig deeper after we start here. 

For the most part I have been using a combination of resources and the "old" WHP Contextualization Tool (with some editing down) to have students read and pull out the context information. Usually I begin with an intro with The Crying Frenchmen and one with a non-historical examples before practicing using historical examples and mostly just follow the contextualization tool. However, after seeing this post I am 100% going to try the sorting with How Was Industrialization Possible after we read the Industrial Revolutions article and stations about the Agricultural Revolution, Britain's Geography, New Tech, and Global Economy. (Came at the perfect time as we are starting our IR unit this week!) I like that this is a bit more "hands on." I'm more so using this as a synthesis of multiple assignments activity to hit home why it happened in Britain when it did! 

I threw together a slides version for students to be able to work on their chromebooks or on our touch screen TV. Link below if anyone is interested (adapted it a bit and will use it as a base to hold class discussion/partners working together)

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ltd8IxuO7k7gdHRBtPJiOs9Y9_lZiES4tT8u9wW21aA/edit?usp=sharing

Thank you Amanda Johnson for sharing your slides. Your post reminded me to save a copy of this contextualization activity for the Industrial Revolution. It will be a great addition to my Big History class.

Great thoughts everyone.  I try to get my students comfortable using the word circumstances in our conversations and in our questions.  

Thanks Amanda Johnson I have a Jamboard activity similar to this, but Jamboard is going away so you just saved me!  And, this will be perfect for our review of Unit 5 in a couple of weeks!

It worked out really well! A lot of kids came with dead chromebooks so I actually ended up just displaying my slide on our touch screen and had them come up to the board to move it into broad or narrow and justify it verbally.