SHEG Lessons - East Asia

[Donna Jamshidnejad]

I made a few references to Stanford History Education Group, or SHEG, in my seminar, and thought it appropriate to review the website. SHEG offers fully developed lesson plans that you can use as is, or modify for your classes. The lessons come with a powerpoint introduction, a packet of documents for students, worksheets for analysis, and a PDF of teacher instructions. They have lessons from ancient to modern history that can be used in any Social Studies class. Regarding East Asia, I always use the lesson on the "Invasion of Nanking." It is a great lesson on perspective, bias, and thinking historically. Students look at different textbooks and compare Chinese and Japanese textbooks' view on the massacre. There are also lessons on the Cultural Revolution, Chinese Immigration and Exclusion, Japanese Segregation in SF, Japanese American incarceration, and the Korean War. SHEG offers lessons for both World and US history, ranging from the first civilizations to Hurricane Katrina. I highly recommend these resources. Best of all, they are free.

 

https://sheg.stanford.edu/

[Daniel Horowitz]

Thank you for posting. I attended a Stanford History workshop titled "Reading like a Historian", which had a strong emphasis on multiple perspectives. I was able to find the "Invasion of Nanking" lesson by searching "Nanking". This shows how different textbooks from different countries portray the event quite differently. I will use this with my students as an excellent example of secondary source spin as well.

[Margaret Siryj]

Harvard University's website, SHEG is a valuable site for History educators and historians.  It is geared primarily to high school students, but I have a colleague that uses it and scaffolds the content for his 6th World History students.  The website features many articles and peer reviewed information and curriculum that can be directly used in the high and middle school classroom.  They printed a book, "Reading like a historian" that uses DBQ (Data/Document Basaed Questions) that I use in my World History and Geographgy class.  Also, the Nanking Invasion is featured on the website with an accompanying lesson plan that includes resources.  The Invasion is interesting because the site can be used in my classroom to teach students how perspective works, and how it is vitally important to honor and respect different cultures.  I use this website frequently and suggest it to other middle and high school teachers for ideas and content.

[Jimmy Martinez]

The Stanford History Education Group is a priceless resource that I have been using since one of my colleagues recommended it to me in my first year of teaching. I have gone back again and again to retrieve great lesson plans and input them into my units. One of the first lessons is the "Lunchroom Fight" lesson that teaches students about multiple perspectives. The students love this activity/lesson because it deals with real life issues and is very relatable. This lesson on the Korean War has students read different historical accounts and allowing students to compare and contrast these fidnings. I would recommend SHEG to any fellow historian/teacher because the lessons are really engaging and the students love them. 

https://sheg.stanford.edu/history-lessons/korean-war

[Author]

Posts