Luciana C. de Oliveira | "History Doesn't Count": Challenges of Teaching History in California Schools | The History Teacher, 41.3

"History Doesn't Count": Challenges of Teaching History in California Schools

Luciana C. de Oliveira
Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana

BEING A TEACHER is a multifaceted process situated in contexts that deeply influence one's experiences and development. History teachers face a number of challenges while simultaneously holding particular goals for history teaching. Drawing on interview data from focus teachers with different levels of teaching experience, this article presents the challenges that these history teachers face, with a particular emphasis on the issues they encounter when they address writing in history classes in California. Questions such as "What challenges do history teachers who work in highly diverse neighborhoods face?" and "How do these challenges affect the teaching of writing in history?" are explored in this article.

The place of history in schools has been a topic of debate in recent reform efforts, which have been motivated by the low performance of students on history sections of national standardized tests such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) (Lapp, Grigg, & Tay-Lim, 2002) and have included a growing emphasis on accountability and standards. Improvement of history education has been at the center of the reform movement, including not only the Bradley Commission on History in the Schools and the national standards movement but also reform efforts in a number of individual states (Downey & Fischer, 2000).

According to the National Council for the Social Studies (2004) standards, the primary purpose of the social studies is to help "young people develop the ability to make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world" (Introduction). Yet, the content area of the social studies is not an emphasis in recent legislations. For example, Burroughs, Groce, and Webeck (2005) investigate the impact of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation on the teaching of the social studies in three U.S. states. They found that the legislation emphasizes the development of standards and assessment systems in reading, mathematics, and science but leaves out other core subjects, such as history and other areas of the social studies. The study concludes that many social studies educators are hesitant to request the addition of the social studies in NCLB, even though they are unhappy with its omission from the legislation. The social studies educators investigated in their study accepted that attention to this content area will only be provided if federal or state assessments call attention to it. These reform efforts, along with an increasingly diverse student population, have placed high demands and challenges on history teachers in particular.

Method

Participants and Setting

Four history teachers from two school districts in the Sacramento region of California participated in this study. Three of these teachers taught in District 1 and one teacher taught in District 2. District 1 serves a racially and ethnically diverse student population of over 12,000 K-12 students, with a high number of Hispanic (21%), African-American (19%), and Asian (13%) students. District 2 is among the ten largest school districts in California, serving about 50,000 K-12 students. The district's student ethnic demographics include 29% Hispanic, 23% Asian, 22% African-American, and 22% white. At the time of the study, these school districts had partnerships with the University of California, Davis' History Project (HP), a professional development provider that has offered programs with a standards-based historic content and curriculum focus since it was established in1991. Monthly sessions and a summer institute focused on teaching American history have been offered by the HP for four years. The History Project is part of the California History-Social Science Project (CH-SSP).

All four teachers had participated in History Project events at different points in their careers. These teachers were all committed to their profession, based on my assessment of their participation in History Project-related institutes and activities. They represented the diversity of teaching experience, professional preparation, and professional involvement within the History Project. At separate times, they attended a literacy program offered by the HP that provided models of curricula that integrate literacy and content development, focusing on discipline-specific literacy strategies.

Maggie Taylor^* teaches tenth and eleventh grades in District 1. Maggie had taught for 21 years at the time of the study, including teaching seventh, eighth, tenth, and eleventh grades in different years throughout her career. She has taught eleventh-grade U.S. History since 1999 and Advanced Placement History since 2003.

Peter Russell teaches tenth and eleventh grades in District 2. Peter had taught for 20 years, all subjects in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades from 1985 until 1995. He then moved to his current school district and taught history in tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grades. From 2002 until 2004, Peter taught World History and Advanced Placement World History. Since then, he has taught Advanced Placement U.S. History and Advanced Placement World History.

Tom Marble, who teaches eighth grade in District 1, taught U.S. History in addition to Physical Science when he started teaching in 2001. From 2002–2004, Tom also taught a seventh-grade corrective reading program.

Jerry Michaels is an eighth-grade teacher in District 1 and has been teaching eighth-grade U.S. History for five years. This information on each person's teaching experience is also presented in Table 1.

Table 1 Experience Information on Focus Teachers
Teacher	Grade	Years Teaching	Years with District

Maggie	10^th and 11^th	21	16
Peter	10^th and 11^th	20	10
Tom	8^th	4	4
Jerry	8^th	5	5

Data Sources and Analysis

This article reports on data part of a larger study (de Oliveira, 2006) that focused on the challenges and expectations of expository writing in history education. Each of the four teachers was interviewed twice by the researcher. The interviews were semi-structured and lasted at least 70 minutes. In the first interview (see Appendix I), teachers were asked general questions about the teaching of history and about their experiences with teaching writing in history. The second interview (see Appendix II) was a discourse-based interview where the teachers looked at student writing samples and discussed students' historical knowledge and how their historical understanding was being demonstrated through writing. Even though the second interview was not set up to gather data about challenges that history teachers face, focus teachers brought up several issues in the context of the discussion of students' writing and, therefore, the second interview is relevant for the present article.

Each interview was audiotaped and subsequently transcribed and analyzed. Analysis followed the constant comparative method, which involved a constant comparison of one unit of data with another, comparison of new data to existing codes, organization of emerging concepts into categories, and comparison of units of data with emerging conceptual categories (Merriam, 1998; Strauss, 1987). The interviews were analyzed by identifying recurrent themes, which were constituted by phrases in which teachers shared information about teaching challenges or articulated an issue or problem in addressing writing in their classes. A theme was considered recurrent if the issue, problem, or challenge was articulated at least twice in a teacher's interviews and if it appeared in the interviews of other teachers as well. The examples presented below demonstrate that some themes were not mutually exclusive, and some statements could fit into more than one theme.

Challenges in Teaching History

Many history teachers encounter a difficult reality at their schools: the diminished status of history in comparison with other school subjects. This section highlights the challenges that history teachers face, and the implications these challenges have regarding the teaching of writing in school history. The findings are divided into themes that emerged from the data, as described above. Teachers reported challenges and concerns that broadly fit under three themes:

"History doesn't count." This theme relates to the low status of history as a content area in California.
Students' limited skills and background. This theme relates to the limited skills students bring to the history classroom. It seemed to be particularly important due to the characteristics of the teachers' school districts: low-income, highly diverse communities.
High demands of the history curriculum and the teaching of writing. This theme encompasses the demands of the history curriculum and their implications for the teaching of writing in history.

Teachers are expected to deal with institutional pressures to develop standards-based curriculum and to prepare students for standardized tests. The teachers in this study are aware of such forces and are particularly wary of how they influence the teaching and learning of history. These expectations have a clear effect on how teachers conduct their history classes. In each of the following sections, I highlight the language that teachers used to assess their situations. In addition, I highlight the teachers' juxtaposition of what students cannot do and what they need to do, constructed in the teachers' language.

"History Doesn't Count"

Teachers highlighted issues related to the low status of history in schools. In Maggie's view, attention to reading and math leads to a problematic reality for the school subject of history, especially for eleventh-grade history teachers. Because history is not a major focus in the middle-school curriculum, Maggie reported her struggles to try to catch up on several aspects of the curriculum that students should have learned in lower grades:

We get kids from a junior high who have had little or no U.S. History or World History in the seventh or eighth grade, they've been concentrating on reading and math, sometimes they get one semester of each, sometimes they get one semester of one or the other, sometimes they get nothing.

Maggie highlighted, through her use of the negative markers little or no U.S. History or World History and nothing, the lack of students' background in history. Similarly, Peter reported that students see the practicality and applicability of other school subjects, such as math, reading, and science, but often do not see the importance of history. His struggle was in helping students see that history needs to be respected, which may be an issue because of the greater institutional value placed on the other subjects. Peter considered it especially challenging to get students interested in history:

[F]or most of them and a lot of people in our society, math and reading and science are the big things, history doesn't count, I'm not going to be a historian, I'm not going to do history the rest of my life.

Here, we see the language of negation as well. Peter emphasized that history doesn't count from students' perspectives. Peter believed that students bring a certain attitude to the history classroom that is partly due to the status of history in society. According to Peter, many students claim that, because they are not going to be historians or do history after high school, they are not interested in history as a school subject.

Jerry placed emphasis on getting his students to "think like historians," looking at the "processes that historians go through when they are trying to find out about the past and [asking] what are the thinking habits that they have." Jerry believed that this is very difficult for his students because some are still struggling with finding history an important subject. Jerry, like Peter and Maggie, stressed:

[A] lot of times students, I think they get the sense that, some of them get a sense that history is not as important as math and language arts, in fact I think sometimes they hear that message and it's challenging to overcome that because that throws up an obstacle.

The noun obstacle shows Jerry's assessment of this situation, one he considered challenging. Again, we see that history does not have the same status as other school subjects and, according to these teachers, students are getting that message. This idea is influencing students' attitudes toward history and oftentimes creating an obstacle for history teachers. Students, therefore, implicitly or explicitly, are exposed to the message that history is not a valuable school subject.

Students' Limited Skills and Background

Teachers highlighted some challenges related to the limited skills students bring to the history classroom. This was a particularly salient theme due to the characteristics of the teachers' school districts as low income and highly diverse communities.

Students' limited reading skills. In talking about reading in history, Maggie found that "getting students to read" is a great problem in today's schools. Maggie was especially aware of the importance of reading in history classes and mentions students' inability to access texts as a major challenge for her in teaching history, stating, "the vast majority of the students that I get are not good readers so they don't enjoy reading." Maggie's use of the negative markers are not good readers and they don't enjoy reading reflects students' lack of these skills while at the same time points to the need to develop these skills, especially in history.

Jerry also recognized the significance of reading for teaching and learning school history and found it difficult to deal with kids who cannot read the textbook: "These kids in this area, they simply tune it out. They do not read it [the history textbook], it's really obvious that they don't read and to take history class in US history you gotta be able to read books about history." Jerry, like Maggie, also utilized the language of negation, expressed in they do not read it and they don't read, to discuss students' limited reading skills. Here we see the juxtaposition of what students are not able to do—they do not read it—and what they need to do—be able to read books about history. Both Maggie and Jerry recognized that history teaching and learning is highly dependent on students being able to access texts. Students' limited reading skills are seen as a major challenge in teaching history, since history is largely dependent on texts.

Students' limited foundation in history. A limited foundation in history refers to a lack of historical background knowledge and an inability to perform particular historical skills appropriate to grade level. For instance, Maggie reported that students coming to her eleventh-grade class lack historical background knowledge partly due to a focus on other requirements, such as reading and math, in previous years:

Many of them have not had any kind of social studies at all since maybe sixth grade, we don't have a requirement in this district for ninth grade, their knowledge of geography is just appalling. It's not uncommon for high school students to not be aware that California is not a country. I'm serious, they live in the Sacramento region and yet they can't tell you what the capital is, they do not understand the use of the word state in United States or as foreign states. I had one person a year or so ago that absolutely could not wrap her head around the fact that there was Mexico and there was New Mexico.

Here Maggie linked history to the importance of other areas of the social studies. This issue was especially difficult for her due to the characteristics of her district. Maggie explained her students' limited foundation: "I've had kids come into my class where we are supposed to start with Reconstruction after the Civil War, and their response is 'What is the Civil War?'" In Maggie's view, students' lack of historical background, coupled with the number of state requirements history teachers need to cover, is especially problematic. For Maggie, there was a close connection between students' experience with history and their historical knowledge development. She believed students are not to blame for their lack of content knowledge but attributed this problem wholly to their lack of experience with history in previous grades. According to Maggie, because history was not a major focus in her district, students were not exposed to history as often as they should be. Maggie acknowledged, "[their] foundation is very limited when they get to me and I don't get them until they're in eleventh grade. It's really, really difficult sometimes to get them to make the connection." Maggie's use of the intensifier really twice and the adjective difficult shows the relationship between students' inadequate background and the challenges she faced as a history teacher.

For Peter, challenges in instructional issues are in the area of teaching analysis in history. He claimed that students come to his classroom with notions that they do not have to write complete sentences or whole paragraphs that require "higher order thinking skills." For Peter, getting students to analyze the information presented in history was of extreme importance. Peter voiced concern about some teachers requiring students to provide simple answers just because it was easier to correct. For instance, the answer to "What was the center of the Roman Empire?" is a one-word response. If teachers ask more complex questions, they need to take the time to read students' answers carefully:

If you were to say ... did Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal contain elements of fascism and communism or was it pretty much middle of the road type of policies? Explain why. You can't just answer. You need to understand all those things and then explain those things to get your point across. You can't just give that to somebody else to grade. You have to read them.

Moving students from simple answers to more complex analysis requires time and effort on the part of history teachers. In addition, Peter believed it was challenging for history teachers to give assignments that are more involved because students require "immediate" feedback. Middle and high school teachers typically have 150 students across five classes, so providing this immediate feedback is a challenge for them.

Tom felt the major difficulty in teaching history was "getting kids to understand long, drawn out concepts, from the Enlightenment versus the Great Awakening versus trade issues," which he believed is a major part of history learning. Tom found additional difficulties helping students understand and make connections between different historical agents and their motivations to act a certain way. He recognized that some students are able to make connections and understand these concepts, but many of his students were not able to establish these types of relationships. Tom differentiated between developing historical understanding and memorizing dates, contending that some of his students were "still trying to remember 1776."

Jerry considered students' lack of prior knowledge in history the biggest challenge he had to deal with:

Lack of prior knowledge. The kids that do best in history are the ones that can demonstrate some prior knowledge where they've heard of the Civil War, they've heard of the Declaration of Independence. They even might know what's in it more or less, things like that. There are some that literally have not heard of those things and you can't fault them for that. They may have come from other countries or just have backgrounds where there's no exposure to that, so when they come into it, the ones that have low prior knowledge, low levels of prior knowledge, they don't do as well because they can't connect to context quite as much. Just kind of an off the top of my head example would be, let's say that we're studying something like what I call the freedom documents like the Magna Carta,... if I can start out with something like Thomas Jefferson was instrumental in the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, can anybody else tell me what else he really contributed to a lot? Declaration of Independence. The kind of kids that raise their hand and they understand that Jefferson participated strongly in the Declaration will therefore understand a little bit about his point of view and they will know that he's bringing certain attitudes to the table in this new thing, whereas the kids that don't know Thomas Jefferson, it won't mean anything. It's like there's this dude named Thomas Jefferson, so what? And so that's the contrast between high prior knowledge and low prior knowledge. There's even prior knowledge within the context of one class. In other words, some kids are gonna do better at remembering that four months ago we studied the Constitution and it has these amendments and some are much more able to connect those, whereas others have completely forgotten about them, or more likely didn't learn it in the first place.

Like Maggie, Jerry considered students' lack of historical background knowledge as the major challenge in teaching history. Jerry also did not hold students responsible for this issue. These teachers blamed the system and recognized that students have not had opportunities to develop their historical background. Nonetheless, it is clear that this is still a barrier because students with limited history experience may struggle more to connect concepts they talk about in class to other historical events. It is easier for students to make connections when they have some historical background on certain topics and events.

High Demands of the History Curriculum and the Teaching of Writing

In addition to students' limited skills and background, the content area of history as a discipline poses challenges for teaching, especially as it relates to the teaching of school history writing. History as a content area places high demands on teachers, especially in terms of institutional pressures to develop standards-based curriculum and prepare students for standardized tests. This has implications for the teaching of writing in history, and these expectations have a clear effect on what teachers select to include in their history classes.

Maggie considered the many state requirements a major challenge for what teachers must do and cover in history. She was particularly critical of the history-social science standards: "Whoever it was that put together those standards was interested in coverage more than understanding, quite obviously because there's way too much." Her criticism of coverage being more valued in state requirements than students' understanding is mirrored by research in history teaching that claims that there is an "addiction to coverage" common in high schools, especially in history (Newman, 1988, p. 346). This issue was especially difficult for Maggie due to the characteristics of her student population, where students lacked background knowledge. In addition, she believed that the standards are "unrealistic":

It's really tough because you know you can mention something and touch on it, but that doesn't mean that the kids understand what it's about and there are just so many things that they've got into in the standards that I think are of dubious value, quite honestly. They are not the most important things that I think the kids have to understand, so it's difficult for me. When you talk about the whole frontier experience and what that, the effect that that has had on the character of the American people, they need time to understand what that experience was, and they don't.

Maggie contrasted the expectations upon teachers to teach range vs. depth, constructed through her language, you can mention something and touch on it, but that doesn't mean that the kids understand. The connector but draws a distinction between mentioning something and understanding it. Maggie also contrasted so many things... in the standards that... are of dubious value, things that she considers unnecessary for students to know, with other, more important and relevant historical issues and concepts that students need time to develop. Some standards were not what she valued as a history teacher. Maggie's use of the adjectives tough and difficult to describe history teaching shows her assessment of the situation and the challenges with which she had to deal. Maggie saw the issue of time as an extremely important component of history teaching, necessary for in-depth teaching and assessment instead of just coverage and simple memorization of information.

Peter also discussed the high demands of the history curriculum, focusing primarily on how they affect history teachers' teaching of school history writing. Peter found that many history teachers do not believe they are responsible for addressing writing in the history classroom. They often find they either lack adequate resources to address writing or just do not have enough time to focus on writing because of the many demands placed on them by state requirements and standards and the realities of the classroom.

State requirements and standards also had a clear effect on Tom's classroom, especially in regard to the writing assignments that he required. In answering a question about assigning research papers in his classes, Tom noted:

I don't have enough of any one thing or of any general topic to really spend a lot of time doing research with, and plus we are so pressed to do standards-based education that a lot of times we just don't get to the research part.

Like Maggie, Tom felt that not enough time can be spent on any one topic because of the many state requirements and standards that history teachers must cover. He framed this as a challenge to develop longer projects with his students and wished he had more time to spend on extended assignments. Tom saw that history teachers were pressed to use standards. His use of this word implied an outside force that clearly affects his teaching and may prevent him from doing certain tasks that he might do if this particular influence were not present. Tom, in talking about his own challenge in teaching, stated:

I probably don't use it [writing] enough, or I fall off somewhere along the year doing it. A lot of the problem I have is staying consistent through the year about what I'm doing. A lot of times I start strong, then start dropping off when things get tense and tight, I don't get enough written.

This may be quite common for teachers at the early stages in their career. Tom's use of when things get tense and tight shows how the high demands of the history curriculum clearly affected his teaching and, consequently, the learning opportunities of his students. In addition, Tom's use of the word pressed in the previous extract is closely related to tense and tight, showing both external and internal influences on his teaching. The use of these words suggests challenges that have affected Tom's teaching.

Jerry, like Peter and Tom, described the challenge of grading students' writing on a regular basis. Having to teach approximately 150 students, he assigned writing but found an alternative to looking at every student's assignments every week:

Because I think what happens is that when you have as many kids as I have, I've got 150 kids, it hovers between 150, 160, there's no way I can read all of them. It just wouldn't work. If I had 80 kids, I can probably do it, but just sort of given the school system and the practicalities of it, there's a way in which I kind of have to say I'm gonna look through this stack of homework and I'm gonna read some of them thoroughly and look at a few of them kind of cursorily and hope that a lot of that averages, will mean that I look at one kid's paper at some point during the year. It's unfortunate, but that's the reality of modern day public school teaching.

From this example of Jerry's experience, it is clear that he found it challenging to attend to his students' writing because of the school realities. In this extract, Jerry juxtaposes his wishes and the school realities, a juxtaposition expressed by several teachers throughout this study. Jerry contrasted what he wishes he had, through the use of the conditional clause If I had 80 kids, with the reality of the school system, I've got 150 kids. Jerry discussed how there's no way he could read all of his students' writing assignments and there's a way that he found to solve this problem. Jerry considered it difficult to address writing issues in the classroom, saying, "Sometimes there isn't time to do that" due to the many demands of the school history curriculum. Jerry thought this situation was unfortunate, which shows his judgment of this condition.

Accomplishing Goals, Overcoming Challenges: Supporting History Educators

This study highlights the importance of challenges in the instructional decisions teachers make. All four focus teachers reported how the challenges affected how much they could focus on writing in history. Though they all highlighted the importance of reading, writing, and analysis in school history, they found it particularly difficult to instruct on these skills effectively because of many curricular constraints, lack of time, and students' limited abilities. A significant finding is that the teachers felt that a systemic priority given to reading and math in state requirements created a major hurdle for the teaching and learning of history. Since history is not emphasized much in school, the implicit and explicit message conveyed to both history teachers and students is that "history doesn't count."

The focus teachers raised instructional issues on reading, writing, and analysis and wished for fewer standards to cover so more time could be spent on the development of these skills. The teachers indicated that there is not enough time to fully develop students' historical understanding due not only to the many standards and state requirements but also to students' lack of content knowledge of history, in part attributable to their limited exposure to history in previous schooling experiences. Considering the growing emphasis on accountability and standards, California teachers are especially pressed to develop standards-based instruction, perhaps without much direction on how to design curriculum that is historically relevant. The results of this study suggest that teachers may need assistance in conceiving of standards with broad, historically significant themes.

Students' difficulties with reading, which were cast as part of the explanation for their limited experience, background information, and understanding of history, demand more time to cover concepts needed to understand subsequent concepts and periods. Despite these challenges, the focus teachers recognized that writing enhanced the potential to attain their goals for the learning of history. Writing is an integral skill for history teaching and learning (Schleppegrell & de Oliveira, 2006), and students are often asked to demonstrate their historical understanding through writing.

Emphasizing the value of history early in schooling seems to be an important step in accomplishing the goals that history teachers hold and overcoming the current challenges they face. In most American schools, history is not introduced until the fifth grade. History and other areas of the social studies, as Burroughs, Groce, and Webeck (2005) found, are not taught enough in today's policy and high stakes testing context. It is important to recognize the context in which history teachers are doing their work—an atmosphere where history is not emphasized and reading, math, and science are "the big things," as Peter stated.

Furthermore, arming students with enough historical background to be able to develop their historical understanding is crucial. This can only be achieved when history is considered an essential subject in school. As VanSledright (1997) argues, "the more one knows the more one is in a position to learn, for the outcome of previous learning provides the context within which fresh learning may occur" (pp. 4–5). Providing teaching conditions and school environments that support and sustain student learning is a key aspect of education (Darling-Hammond, 2004). An increase in students' historical skills and background knowledge can only happen when the system recognizes the potential of history to improve students' learning in general.

Acknowledgement

This research was completed with the cooperation of the History Project at the University of California, Davis, and teachers from California schools. I gratefully acknowledge their contributions.

References

Burroughs, S., E. Groce, & M. L. Webeck. (2005). Social studies education in the age of testing and accountability. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice 24(3), 13–20.

Darling-Hammond, L. (2004). Inequality and the right to learn: Access to qualified teachers in California's public schools. Teachers College Record 106(10), 1936–1966.

de Oliveira, L. C. (2006). Knowing and writing history: A study of students' expository writing and teachers' expectations. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Davis.

Downey, M. T. & F. Fischer. (2000). Responding to the winds of change in history education. The History Teacher 34, 21–28.

Lapp, M., W. S. Grigg, & B. S.-H. Tay-Lim. (2002). The nation's report card: U.S. History 2001 (National Center for Education Statistics Publication No. NCES-2002–483). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Education Publications Center.

Merriam, S. B. (1998). Qualitative research and case study applications in education (Rev. and expanded ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

National Council for the Social Studies. (2004). Expectations of excellence: Curriculum standards for social studies [Electronic version]. Retrieved March 21, 2006, from http://www.socialstudies.org/standards/.

Newman, F. M. (1988). Can depth replace coverage in the high school curriculum? Phi Delta Kappan, 69(5), 345–348.

Schleppegrell, M. J. & L. C. de Oliveira. (2006). An integrated language and content approach for history teachers. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 5(4), 254–268.

Strauss, A. L. (1987). Qualitative analysis for social scientists. New York: Cambridge University Press.

VanSledright, B. (1997). On the importance of historical positionality to thinking about and teaching history. International Journal of Social Education 12(2), 1–18.

Appendix I

Interview 1 Questions

Interviewer: Luciana de Oliveira	Date/Time/Location: _________________
Interviewee: _________________	Grades taught: ______________________

I'd like to thank you again for completing the questionnaire and for agreeing to meet with me today. I really appreciate your taking time to answer these interview questions. As you know, I'm interested in teacher practice in history classes and the challenges students face in history. So, the questions I'm going to ask you today are related to those topics. I'm going to ask you to be really honest in your answers. I'm not here to evaluate you or your teaching; I'm here to learn as much as I can from you.

What is the most rewarding aspect for you in being a history teacher?
What is the most challenging aspect for you in being a history teacher?
Could you tell me about the kinds of evaluation you use in your classes?
Could you tell me a little bit about your experience teaching English learners in your classes?
Many history teachers say that students have a lot of problems when they write, what do you think is the central problem (or problems) in student writing?
What kinds of writing assignments do you give students? Could you describe them?
In your questionnaire, you mentioned ...... can you tell me a little more about ......
In your questionnaire, you mentioned ...... can you tell me a little more about ......
Is there anything else you would like to add?

Appendix II

Interview 2 Questions

Interviewer: Luciana de Oliveira	Date/Time/Location: _________________
Interviewee: _________________	Grades taught: ______________________

I'd like to take a look at the prompt before we start talking about the essays.
Could you please read the whole prompt?
When you look at the question that students were supposed to address......What would the best answer to this question be? In other words, what would you expect students to include in their answer?
After that, students were asked to ...... Based on the kinds of things you addressed in class with them, what would you expect their answer to cover?
Under 'task,' students were asked to 'provide a clear thesis.' What might that look like to you?
Students were also asked to 'provide evidence.' What would you expect students to include here?
Students were also asked to 'analyze how that evidence supports your thesis.' For this topic, what do you think students should include?
Students are often asked to construct a well-organized essay. What do you think the elements are for such "well-organized essay?" In other words, what would constitute "good organization" for you based on your experience?
Now let's look at the essays you selected as strong, weak, and middle. Can you show me the strong ones? Why did you select this one? Why do you think it is strong?
Can you point to specific aspects of the essay that make it strong? Why is that?
What demonstrates students know (or don't know) the topic/subject here in this essay?
Now let's look at the essays that you consider weak or needing more work.
Why did you select this one? Why do you think it needs more work?
Can you point to specific aspects of the essay that make it weak? Why is that?
What demonstrates students know (or don't know) the topic/subject here in this essay?
Now let's look at the essay that you consider middle.
Why did you select this one? Why do you think it sort of in the middle? Can you point to specific aspects of the essay? Why is that?
What demonstrates students know (or don't know) the topic/subject here in this essay?
The last time we talked and on your questionnaire, you mentioned two problems that students often have when they write in history: ...... Could you identify any of these problems in the essays you read for today? Or were there other issues you'd like to discuss?
On your questionnaire you mentioned that ...... Could you expand on the problems you identified here and maybe show me some examples from these students' essays?
Based on the things we talked about today, what do you think can be done for students and their writing skills in history?
When you think about what professional development services could provide you, what comes to your mind when you look at these essays now that you have some ideas about their strengths and things students need to improve? Kind of a wish list for professional development providers.

Notes

^*�Teachers' names are pseudonyms

Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.