Are You a High School Teacher Who Likes to Write?

If so, ever try producing a written work designed to teach the world about the content you teach, with your students conducting the needed research?

I’m a US History teacher who likes to write, though until recently, I never produced a work designed to teach the world about the content I teach.

And certainly, I have never asked my students to conduct the research needed for anything I’ve written?

But all that changed this past summer when one of my U.S. History students asked for an opportunity to research the topic of the “Railroad Chinese” (the 15,000–20,000 contracted immigrants from Asia responsible for the laying of nearly 700 miles of track during the construction of the transcontinental railroad.)

I not only said yes to the student, permitting him to research the topic, I also gave the entire class permission to join the student in that research.

Then when the students had completed their research and produced a work that revealed what they had learned, I decided to further research the topic, with this research resulting in a lengthy blog post entitled The Chinese Railroad Workers and the Donner Pass Tunnels: For those wanting to learn about the thousands whose backbreaking work in California’s High Sierras changed America.

I then wrote a college application letter of recommendation for the students who provided me with the research I needed to produce my blog post, with these letters of recommendation emphasizing (among other things) the students’ ability to:

• Locate reliable sources (via online research and emails to “experts)
• Evaluate the effectiveness of said reliable sources to answer a student-driven research question
• Integrate the research from various sources in a way that makes sense for the audience
• Properly cite the sources they’ve used while maintaining a specific format.

I’m still unsure what to make of all this except for two things: (1) I thoroughly enjoyed the work, and (2) my students have reported thoroughly enjoying the class (which may or may not be linked to the research they conducted.)

Other than that, yes, I am tempted to do something similar next year, but not just with my APUSH students . . . with my APGov and AP Macro students as well.

Specifically, I’m thinking about asking my students to research a topic of their choosing (though I’ll suggest a few); then provide me with a script for a TED-Ed Lesson, with me then to edit this script before submitting it for consideration to the folks at TED-Ed (with this submission to credit as a “co-author” the student whose script I edited.)