When you were in school, many of the courses that you had to take may have seen miles away from your everday life and interest. When the lesson did seem to connect to you suddenly the information had more meaning. When your teachers or professors tried to explain the many great wars of history did you remember the statistics or the posters, music and images of those events.
History can be exciting with movies, audio recordings, movie posters, book covers, renactments forgotten history facts and exhibit items from and about different time periods. They can also give you a better understanding about the beliefs, attitudes, fears, hope and dreams of a generation.
This blog will present random ideas about how to use digital and traditional media to enhance a history lesson for learners of all ages.
Evey holiday season millions of people love to watch "A Christmas Story" (1983) a movie based on the works of Jean Shepherd. From the main character Ralphie, a viewer can pick up on the entertainment of the times. Favorite juvenile radio programs like Red Ryder, The Lone Ranger, and Little Orphan Annie are mentioned and we get a feel for what was exciting to a young boy in the late 1930s and 1940s.
Anyway the point that I am making is that it can be fun to give a young learner an idea of what a time peroiod was like by exposing them to the media of the period. I'll continue to use World War II as an example. Even before the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, wartime proganda ideas spread to every medium: comic books, box-office blockbusters, songs and radio "the theater of the imagination".
Image from Comic Vine http://www.comicvine.com/little-orphan-annies-junior-commandos/49-36002/
Almost every popular hero of the time faced off against the Axis powers. Radio and comic strip herione Little Orphan Annie led the fictional Junior Commandos. This concept of young people making a difference on the home front was was so popular that many local Junior Commando units were iniatied throughout the country. The Associated Negro Press praised Annie's creator, cartoonist Harold Grey, for including an African American in the comic version. The projects that young Americans contributed to include metal scrap drives and paper collections to add to resources overseas. An idea like the Junior Commandos can lead to a project in which young learners compare volunteering of the past to the present and create a new community service project.
The Green Hornet fought spies and saboteurs with his sidekick Kato on the NBC Blue (now ABC) network during the war. The Hornet was popular enought to appear his own comic book series. Most comics were aimed at young audiences and often featured brutal caricatures of Germans and especially the Japanese. Motion pictures and radio broadcasts were not much different. For learners over 14 years of age and older, war-time media of any kind can initiate a conversation about portrayls of ethic groups during wartime, a history of violence in media consumed by children and comparison to today's culture.
The most outstanding example from radio's golden age may be The Adventures of Superman (1940 - 1951) which featured the title hero in adventures against the Nazis and perceived postwar communists and un-American threats. The serial's famous 1946 "Unity House" story line featured the Man of Steel fighting the Ku Klux Klan; a storyline that might not have been possible a decade earlier as post-war America was now beginning to confront racism from within. The show's climax may have been "The Atom Man" story line of 1945 in which Superman was nearly killed by a Krytonite powered Nazi criminal. The "Batman's Great Mystery" episodes from 1947 are a good example of how juvenile audiences were beginning to be introduced to concepts that showed anti-semitic people as un-American and they can be heard at this link.
http://www.archive.org/details/Superman_page13
HERE ARE SOME DISCUSSION TOPICS.
- Media always shapes how we feel about the past, present and future. How does the media from the past make you feel about that time period?
- Is the media portrayl accurate and if not why any exaggeration?
- Are there any simularities between the media of this time period and media you are experiencing now?
- Is there any thing you would like to see re-emerge in our society? Not re-emerge?
- What do you think about the technology?
- Use Radio broadcasts of historical events to re-create the surprise and wonder of Americans. For example you can download the news bulletins of John F. Kennedy's assassination, the moon landing and Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have A Dream Speech" for a study of the 1960's.
Many radio programs are in the public domain (although for the best quality it much better to order from a radio drama company). The Internet Archive http://www.archive.org/ has hundreds of wartime broadcasts including news broadcasts, music and speeches which can be downloaded and incorporated into a presentation, or a blog.
- Audio clips can be mixed with visuals to create an effective presentation.
- Projects can be planned to recreate the entertainment style of a time period like recreating a war-time news or entertainment broadcasts using Voice Thread or Microsoft PowerPoint.
LINKS
Internet Archive Old-Time Radio Page
http://www.archive.org/details/oldtimeradio
Radio Spirits - America's leading seller of high quality old-time radio broadcasts.
www.radiospirits.com
Dont' Touch That Dial: Radio Programming In American Life: Wartime Radio 1939 -1945.
This is an impressive history that covers programs that adults would have also enjoyed.
http://jfredmacdonald.com/wartime.htm
I like this idea James. I am a bit of a History buff myself but I do struggle sometimes trying to give my fifth grader context in her Social Studies lessons. She is absolutely able to recall and understand more when there is something to make history "leap off the page" of her social studies textbook. Once in 2nd grade we did a replica of the Rosa Parks bus and put Barack Obama, Beyonce, Oprah and Tyra in the back with Hitler, James Earl Ray and Simon Cowell in the front. She got the message very quickly of what the Civil Rights Movement was all about!
ReplyDeleteI am a big fan of the idea: "USING VINTAGE JUVENILE RADIO PROGRAMS FROM WWII (Or Incorporating media from another time period into a lesson)". When I was in history class, I felt that the lessons were filled with taking notes, notes, and more notes. Even now as an adult I really enjoy watching documentaries that contain recordings and artifacts from the time. Listening to old radio programs will really engage the students.
ReplyDeleteI think that your ideas area great. I find that it is difficult for my students to imagine the world outside of the current time period and location. Many of my students haven't had the opportunity to travel much so that can make their world view smaller. Opening their eyes to history through many diverse resources is a great way for them to imagine what life was like in a different time and place. We must give them a lot of rich images to form their ideas of history accurately.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing!