Connecting CCOT to Students' Lives

I have had student assume the identity of people throughout time including younger people their age.  Assume the identity of a Roman citizen, I German during WWII or a European explorer during the Age of European Exploration.  As they assume their new identity students write letters, create a diary entry or even have a conversation with me or a classmate on their life giving their perspective on the events taking place at that time. 

I think it's also engaging to ask students what they think the average teenager would have thought and felt for just about any time period  or event.

I think for this one you really need to connect it to what they know and stuff they deal with.  Like how you had the Rosie the Riveter from the COVID era; most kids would recognize that and be able to connect to their own lives and then start to think about how that image has continued and changed.  When looking at Industrialization in my US history class I like to start with the apps on their phones.  When students think about the positive and negative aspects of those apps and then how they have continued to provide a service or else completely changed that service that makes it a lot easier to talk about the change in steel production in the late 19th century.  

A great way is with a hypothetical situation.  For example, "What would you do if someone kidnapped your best friend's husband or wife?"  From this, students could compare their action to that of the myth of Troy.  Once the students saw the similarities, it was easy for them to buy into the rest of the lesson.

I will definitely use the Rosie the Riveter connection of CCOT to students' lives.  This gets students engaged, while also modifying these activities to fit the class and student's needs.  These types of activities that show patters of historical change are a great way to connect the past to the present and show students that history hasn't changed that much over a few hundred years.

For World I History warm-up assignments, I often have students take the place of one of the affected Roman citizens to help them connect to ancient history. For instance, for the Fall of the Republic lesson, I had students write what actions they would take as a Roman soldier who comes home to find his lands destroyed after the Punic Wars. Therefore, students are more emotionally invested in the lesson. I also use the same strategy with post-notes, reflection assignments. For example, all the parties affected by Julius Caesar, put him on trial for being a king, such as the Gauls and Roman poor. Whereas this may be unrealistic, it was an effective method for students to be emotionally invested, and therefore engaged in the lesson.

I think certain aspects of historical empathy (placing them in the roles of ethically and emotionally sound historical actors) could be a good way to allow them to identify these sort of similarities and differences to other historical eras. Obviously, this has a ton of drawbacks to ensure that students are not placed in emotionally overwhelming, or ethically unfair positions during these role-plays, however, a couple of small ways that I've done this is in historical letter writing. In these cases, like with the Reformation, I've taught students the material and then had them write a letter from someone during that time where they can connect to their own feelings if placed in the position of these historical actors, but also connect to the differences in the ideas of the past. I believe that this sort of role-taking does humanize aspects of history (at least those worthy of being humanized by students). Other ways to connect to students lives are in looking for these patterns within society of today, and consistently using current events to connect to events of study in class. 

I think this is a really important part of learning in history. I am always reminding my students in World 1 about how "all good things must come to an end" and empires rise and they fall because that is what we talk so much about in this course. We see the same patterns repeat in all of the civilizations we talk about. As we do this, students start to make connections to current events today. Just yesterday students were completing a simulation on the Mongols and had to decide whether or not to keep or eliminate the Chinese bureaucracy based on the stakeholder group they represented. Students started making connections to the US government today and how as one empire rises it is going to effect what was there before. I think the big thing is repetition in these themes that we keep seeing so students don't forget them and start to recognize them in other places.  

One of the most important things we can do as educators is help students see the relevance of historical change to their own lives. To connect  to students' experiences, I incorporate current events and trends into the lesson. I might ask students to compare social, political, or technological changes from the past with similar developments happening today. By drawing connections between historical patterns of change and modern issues, students can see that the forces shaping history still affect the world they live in. I also encourage students to reflect on how their own lives or communities have experienced change and continuity, helping them understand that history isn’t just something from the past, but a living, ongoing process that continues to shape the present and future. This approach fosters a deeper understanding of CCOT and demonstrates that history isn't just a subject to study, but a lens through which to view the world around them.

Seeing the relevancy of what we study to their own lives is one of the most challenging parts of teaching ancient history (especially to 14 year olds!).  It has become part of our daily routine to reflect on how (insert whatever empire we are studying) impacts us today--many students started the year being very literal (like the invention of farming impacts me because I ate corn last night) but over time they have made some better connections to themes.  Being able to build on chains of impacts helps too...they see how the modern impacts are the latest stop in a flow chart of impacts but ultimately things will continue to evolve as time moves forward.

As a part of my classroom routine for World I, students complete a look and learn warm-up at the beginning of every class. Students are asked to look at an image of an artifact relating to the content we are learning in class and they answer the following questions: 1. What is it? 2. Why is it significant? 3. How does it connect to the world today? This follows the see, think, wonder thinking routine and students are able to make a lot of connections about class content to the modern world. Some are very simple like we still have some of the items today and some are as in depth as the similarities between the U.S. and Roman Senate.