The students were fascinated to learn firsthand from the 1860 Putney census that their

town was home to African Americans as well as people who had moved from Ireland, Canada, Scotland, Georgia, Illinois, and California. They learned that in addition to farm- ers, there were also people earning a living as mill workers, railroad workers, doctors, lawyers, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, and papermakers.

Taking Apart and Building Together

Using modern day media literacy techniques, we deconstructed advertisements from the 1860s. The students were curious about this rise of advertising and, along with it, the shift for many rural families from making and trading for just what was needed to purchasing what was wanted. Through a historical lens, the students learned about tech- nological innovations that directly impacted their town: changes in power (water, steam, coal, natural gas, electricity), changes in transportation (trains and canals), and changes in household tools (clothes washers, cast iron cookstoves, portable sawmills, and sewing machines). The day after discussing the New Home sewing machine, a student came to class with

photographs he had taken of an old sewing machine that had been serving as a table for his fish tank. He had evicted the fish (and their tank) to get a better look at the sew- ing machine. He described to us how the machine was foot-powered with a pulley that engaged gears in the machine and ultimately set the needle in motion. To pull all these ideas together, each student created a narrative from his or her

nineteenth-century character’s point of view. The goal was for students to synthesize the knowledge they had gained by analyzing multiple primary sources and then to piece together all the clues to tell the story of a nineteenth-century community. They used Google Docs as their writing platform to share their stories with classmates. Through a peer review process, they took advantage of their learning community by sharing affir- mations and suggestions as a means for improving their writing. Thanks to the modern innovation of “cloud” computing, students could openly share online the challenges and successes of their nineteenth-century community and its inhabitants: a marriage of tech- nology, history, and community. Students tend to think of technology as the culmination of electrical gadgets they have

at their fingertips. However, through their nineteenth-century personas, they experienced a broader view of technology as creative innovations that solved real-life community problems. !

courtesy of library of congress ©SYNERGY LEARNING • 800-769-6199 • MARCH/APRIL 2012

Jennifer Manwell has taught for many years in multi-aged classrooms using inquiry-based strate- gies. She is co-creating a history curriculum, Histori- cal Forensics: Investigating Untold Stories from 19th Century New England through Primary Sources. The project is sponsored in part by the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Eastern Region Program, coor- dinated by Waynesburg University. Jennifer lives, teaches, and researches in Hanover, New Hampshire.

Connect • PAGE 13

A marriage of

technology, history, and community.