Reading Historical Children’s Letters Using the SCIM-C Strategy To view the entire Learning Experience go to:

Model Activity Understanding Goal Words have power. How might children’s letters influence adult actions? Investigative Question

Introduction 1.Think of a letter that you wrote as a child. What was the purpose of the letter and what was the outcome or result? 2.Share with a partner your name and your response to #1. 3.Brainstorm three positives (+)s and three negatives (-)s of communicating through letters with your partner.

Step 1: Choose an interesting letter Folder color BlueRedYellowPurple Type of letterExpressing an opinionDescribing late 1800sRequesting Conversing 1942 Theme for folder color Writing to influential peopleExpansion and Industrialization Great DepressionJapanese Internment A Letter from Pupils of Notre Dame to Alexandra Graham Bell, undated correspondence, Nebraska Prairie Letter from Lillie Oblinger, Laura Oblinger to Uriah W. Oblinger Letter to Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, Greensboro, NC, February 12, 1938 Letter to Clara Breed from Margaret and Florence Ishino, Poston Arizona, December 21, 1942 B Letter, Grace Bedell to Abraham Lincoln, Thursday October 18, 1860 Girl at Sea Maxon, Maud Letter, 1870 Letter to Mrs. Roosevelt, Alerta, Alabama, January 1, 1936 Letter to Clara Breed from Louis Ogawa, Poston Arizona, January 6, 1942 C Letter, Billy Gobitas to Minersville, Pennslyvania school directors, November 5, 1935 Yes, Virginia Letter September 21, 1897 Letter to President, and Mrs. Roosevelt, Metheun, MA, March 31, 1935 Letter to Helen McNary from Fusa Tsumagari, Arcadia, California, August 9, 1942 D Letter to Mrs. Roosevelt, Flushing, NY, March 22, 1934

Write an Investigative Question Use one of the Investigative Questions from the table or create your own Investigative Question to guide your research. Why do children write to influential adults? How might adults respond to letters from children? What were common concerns and observations made by children in the1800s? How were children impacted by expansion and industrialization in the late 1800s? What might the cause and effect have been of children turning to Eleanor Roosevelt during the Great Depression? How did children adapt during economic hardship? How did children adapt to life in Internment camps? What were the hopes of children affected by Japanese Internment?

Group by color of folder and letter 1.Find the other people with your folder color and letter. For example, all blue As sit together, all red Cs sit together. 2. Take out the letter on the left side of your folder. 3. Locate a SCIM-C analysis tool. 4. Read and analyze the letter using the SCIM-C analysis tool working together as a group. Each group member should record on their own tool the ideas of the small group.

The phases of the SCIM-C Strategy “should be viewed as a precise, recursive, and thoughtful approach to historical inquiry.” Peter Doolittle, David Hicks, and Tom Ewing, 2005 Peter Doolittle, David Hicks, and Tom Ewing, 2005 This is the SCIM-C Analysis Tool 1. Start here 2. Then work from the center

Use additional resources to think about the letter 1. Take out additional resources from folder and an analysis table. 2. Arrange additional resources around the letter. 3. Make connections between the resources and the letters. Use the bibliographic information. 4. Summarize how the additional resources challenge or confirmed your thinking about the letter and your Investigative Question.

Regroup by folder color and number 1. Regroup so that you are sitting with others with the same color and same number of folder. 2. Locate the Step 3 Note Taking Chart. 3. Take turns sharing your Investigative Question, letter, and current answer to your Investigative Question. 4. Take notes during each person’s sharing in one of the boxes on the chart. 5. Summarize thinking about everything that you have learned to answer the question, “How might children’s letters influence adult actions?”.

Post Reading – Formal Assessment Create a movie with Primary Access to communicate your research findings. 1.Go to 2.Search the Instructional Materials (green folder) for the Learning Experience, Children’s Letters. 3.Transfer the resources from the Learning Experience to Primary Access. 4.Make a movie that communicates an answer to your Investigative Questions and helps the audience to recognize how children’s letters influence adult behavior.

More examples of SCIM-C Spiraling Questions

SCIM-C Spiraling Questions All questions do not need to be answered at each stage. Summary Stage: 1.What type of historical document is it? 2.What specific information or details does the document provide? 3.What is the subject, audience or purpose of the document? 4.What does it directly tell us?

Contextualizing Stage: 1.Who produced the document? 2.When, why, and where was it produced? 3.Do we need to find out more about its origins to answer this question? 4.What was happening locally, nationally, and globally at the time the document was produced?

Inferring Stage: 1.What is suggested by the document? 2.What conclusions can be drawn from the document? 3.What biases are indicated in the document? 4.What contextualizing information, while not directly evident, may be suggested from the document?

Monitoring Stage: 1.What is missing from the document in terms of evidence that is needed to answer a question. 2.What ideas, images, or terms need further defining in order to understand the context or period in which the source was created? 3.How reliable is the source? 4.What questions from previous stages need to be revisited in order to analyze the source satisfactorily?

Corroborating stage: 1.What other resources could be found that relate to this document? 2.How might these resources confirm or conflict with this document? 3.What similarities and differences exist between sources? 4.What gaps appear to exist that hinder the final interpretation of the source?