King Hutch aka John H.

OK, so how many of you would ever jump over a fence at the United Center just to take your picture with the Michael Jordan statue? Now how many of you would take a cab to the United Center at 11:30 pm to get your picture with a statue? Well that’s the adventure that “Kick Stand” (or is that Tri-Pod or Junior) & I enjoyed after failing to walk the 2 1/2 plus miles from our dorm room.  Well that was just the end of another remarkable day/evening/night in the life of King Hutch.

 The day began with my radio stating that even the meteorologists don’t understand the weather pattern hitting Chicago right now. They have been consistently wrong everyday with their weather predictions and today was no exception. It was wet and overcast, yet better than yesterday’s wet and below 70 chilly temperatures that surprised everyone! We again hit the coffee shop before making our way to the Redline (subway) for the trip to the Chicago History Museum. This day we were honored to listen to Chip of the DBQ Project. This project is really exciting if we can get our administers to buy the book(s). It starts with an overall lesson theme and question that students should eventually be able to answer using primary sources. It has different levels so that a teacher can differentiate the instruction depending on student ability. A teacher can pick parts of the unit or choose to complete the entire unit. Teachers can adjust the time they want/need to have students spend on every aspect of each unit. In other words, this DBQ Project is very teacher friendly!

 One of the biggest challenges we face as teachers is getting our students to master the ability to write proper historical papers. Students like to recite facts and narratives but have lots of trouble with planning, defining, organizing, as well as actually writing their papers. I have always used the Jonathan Rees statement that a paper is not worth writing if you can’t make a valid, understandable argument supported by at least 3 facts that support the argument for that topic! But kids always struggle with what is an argument or support. I loved the DBQ’s idea of buckets. I will begin using these buckets at the start of the new year. I will begin by providing the students with names for each bucket as teach them how to write a proper paragraph and eventually a paper. As the year goes on I will begin pulling the names away & teach them one at a time to identify facts and arguments. This is a method of scaffolding. The goal will be for my students to find their own arguments, classify and organize data, primary documents, and thoughts into clear and structured paragraphs and papers.

The afternoon was a bit disappointing. We walked a tour of the “Old Town” and saw countless buildings. I guess that I expected more clearly historical sites but most were historical only to someone who lives or comes from Chicago. The names of the people who lived in 90% of the buildings where “just names” to me. Although our guide was very knowledgeable, I really felt that my time could have been used much better than at the walking tour.    

 After dinner, we met with others in our group (14 total) at The Second City, a world famous comedy club. Many famous artists such as John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd got their start here. The anticipation was intense and the show didn’t disappoint! The show was great and everyone who went with us seemed to really enjoy themselves. After the show my sidekick, or was that “Kick Stand” or “Mini Tri-Pod” and I somehow got our pictures of MJ and here I am finishing this blog. What a day, what a week, and what an adventure!