Historical Forensics Where History, Science, and Community Intersect


by Jennifer Manwell “ W


hat is it?” “How does it work?”


This winter, I investigated technology with middle schoolers at Putney Central School


in Vermont. This was not just any technology, but the cutting edge of technology: nine- teenth-century innovations. Two days a week, I joined Connie Bresnahan in her classroom and we traveled back in time to nineteenth-century Putney. The students lived dual lives. Within a simulation that I created as part of a Historical


Forensics curriculum, the students each adopted a nineteenth-century persona who lived in a representational town. The students, working in small groups, were each assigned a local family from 1850 and 1860 census records. Each group created a backstory for their family using the information they gathered from the census. Then each student chose one particular family member to represent. While creating a historical fiction narrative, students also worked within the nonfiction


world as present-day historical forensic scientists whose mission it was to piece together clues from primary sources and artifacts to better understand what life was like for their historical alter egos. In our classes, we spent time poring over inventories (catalogue of every item in a deceased person’s estate), census information, letters, advertisements, books on farming, images from the Library of Congress, and photographs of artifacts from Billings Farm & Museum and The Henry Sheldon Museum.


Household Tools Reveal Nineteenth-Century Details


What can be learned about a nineteenth-century family based on the tools they owned? How were the tools used? How have farming and household tools changed over time? What effects did these changes have on rural New Englanders? As we proceeded with this unit, the students came to realize and appreciate the huge changes that took place in that era and the stream of resulting innovations. We started the inquiry-based Historical Forensics unit by analyzing inventories. As


we tried to decode the spidery handwriting of the time and translate names of objects into images and functions that we could understand, a gallery of actual artifacts took over the classroom. First was a niddy noddy I had borrowed from an octogenarian friend. Intended as a hook to pique the students’ curiosity, the unfamiliar tool did just that. Two boys were particularly intrigued. They kept asking probing questions to gather clues about the pos- sible uses of the mystery tool. Having successfully figured out the function of the tool, they proudly announced their discovery to the class. Little did they know, they had just modeled for their peers the value of the inquiry process and how their own curiosity drew them to collect, analyze, and synthesize clues until they had created a new understanding. This led to two wonderful outcomes. Discovering that a niddy noddy


offered a way to make skeins of yarn led us backwards into an investiga- tion of spinning and spinning wheels. This gave a new meaning to the inventory items: “large wheel” and “small wheel.” Additionally, once hooked, the “niddy noddy boys” continued the circle by bringing in arti- facts of their own to share: horseshoes of various sizes. This inspired another student to bring in a horseshoe that had been used during winter


©SYNERGY LEARNING • 800-769-6199 • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012 Inquiry learning


transforms learning away from a linear, top-down approach confined to the


classroom into a student-centered approach . . .


Niddy noddy used to wind skeins of yarn


Connect • PAGE 11


jen manwell


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