History in Context

As a junior at The Emery/Weiner School, I am taking the Advanced U.S. History course, taught by Ms. Cara Bendayan. However, this course is different than any other one I’ve taken because it is taught thematically and not chronologically like most History classes. I interviewed Bendayan to learn more about the difference and its importance. 

Bendayan told me she used the blueprint from Rosalie Metro’s Teaching US History Thematically, and created each unit with its own theme, as Metro does in the book. These themes include ones such as "democracy" and "state vs. federal power." In each unit, students take the respective theme and look at events across the entire timeline of US history. Then they study how different events relate to the theme with a guiding essential question such as, "What is American democracy and what should it be?" 

Next, Bendayan created lessons that included “a five minute lecture, one document for analysis, and an activity,” she told me. These lessons began to become a mashup of Metro’s curriculum and Bendayan’s past teaching experience, as she had the freedom to pick and choose if she wanted to do the same documents or activities as Metro did. 

Bendayan told me that she had been looking for ways to “get out of the method of hitting a topic once and never coming back to it again.” With Bendayan’s curriculum, students will revisit the same events while working with different themes. Each time students revisit an event, they re-learn the details of it leading to better retention of the information. 

She also said, “I find that contextualization of information is way stronger [than previously] because students are pulling context from stuff we’ve already done.” Furthermore, because students are looking at such an expansive timeline, there is a lot of room to strengthen skills that have to do with comparing change and continuities. 

This new method not only helps students retain information, but also better fits Emery’s new grading policy, which is heavily based on student progression and only uses letter grades as opposed to numbers. This new policy was put in place last year. “[I was] struggling because all my units were separate from one another and didn't build… by doing [my curriculum] this way it allows for information to build better and I can grade easier within the grading system,” stated Bendayan. 

However, Bendayan still needed to make sure this new curriculum would help to prepare her students for the AP exam in May. This led to the specific organization that she implements in her classes. Bendayan’s students use two separate binders, one filled with chronological notes and the other with work for each unit. “I wanted to have students be able to return to the material and not physically lose the information.” She also had to take out some of the more creative topics in Metro’s curriculum or implement them in separate activities. 

The response from students has also been positive. “I like it better because of the focus on themes of events that we sometimes don’t pay attention to,” said junior, Hannah Klaff. 

With student support and many benefits, this method is definitely going to continue in Bendayan’s classroom and I am so grateful for the opportunity to talk to her about it. I look forward to reaping the benefits of this curriculum for the rest of the year.