Local Histories Syllabus

Local Histories: The Community Preservation Project
Trillium Charter School
2008/9 Semester 1
Instructor: Ken Gadbow
Email: Ken@TrilliumCharterSchool.org
Phone: 503-348-9849 (mobile), 503-235-8307 (home)
Blog: http://ken-trillium.blogspot.com

Course Structure:
Students will be expected to participate in many ways: through writing, reading, listening, and small group activities. There are short listening and writing assignments each day, which may include read-alouds. Students will keep a log book of what we do each day in class and save all material they create in their files.

Course Objectives:
Students will acquire a greater knowledge about the 20th century history of Portland, and the Pacific Northwest. Students will develop their skills as listeners. Students will develop greater abilities to express themselves through writing. Students will be able to tell historically accurate tales about specific places in and around Portland.

Course Overview:
This class focuses on developing the student’s knowledge and appreciation for firsthand experiences of senior members of our community. We will study national and international events through the lens of local historical happenings. Through interviewing community members and researching relevant events, students will come to better understand the personal impacts of the Great Depression, World War II, the Civil Rights Movement, the Labor Movement, and the Vietnam War, among many others.

Code of Conduct:
All students are expected to know and uphold the Rights and Responsibilities of the Trillium Constitution. We will use the non-violent conflict resolution process that includes conversations, mediations, and agreements.

Grading:
Participation: 50%
Projects 30%
Presentations: 20%

Participation will be graded according to the student’s involvement in daily class activities. Your logbook will be evidence of your participation in class.

Attendance Policy:
The majority of your grade in this class comes from your participation. If you are not here, then you cannot participate. If you cannot participate, then you cannot meet the expectations of the class. If a student must miss a class, ze must communicate with Ken beforehand. Ken’s contact information is listed at the top of this syllabus. Please use it. Failure to attend class, or to communicate clearly with Ken, will be a problem.

Course Schedule:
This semester long class is divided into 5 sections: Listening, Looking, Gathering, Recording, and Synthesizing. Through Listening, and then Looking, we will spend the first part of the semester honing our skills as “perceivers”. We will concentrate on that which we can personally hear and see in our own community, then bring that information back to the classroom to discuss the why’s and how’s of those findings. During the Gathering unit, we will uncover strange, important, and unique events that have happened right in our neighborhoods through both walking and virtual field trips, as well as primary source archival research, using diaries, journals, newspapers, and other firsthand accounts to learn about the places around us. During the Recording unit, we will then use our improved listening and looking skills to conduct interviews with senior members of the community at the Marie Smith Center on North Albina Street. We will conduct a series of interviews there, record what we learn, then use that information to create picture books based on the senior’s personal experiences. The Synthesizing unit is designed to support students in creating a coherent story, based on historical events, and first-person narrative and personal observation. The books students create will be the final project of the semester and will be offered as gifts to the seniors upon whose life stories they were based.

Weeks 1-3 (September 8-25): Listening, with week 3 field trip.
September 24-26: Upper School Campouts.
Weeks 4-5 (Sep 29 – October 8): Looking with week 5 field trip.
October 9: Staff Development Day. No school.
Weeks 6-8 (October 13-30): Gathering with week 8 field trip.
Week 9 (November 3-6): Recording, Interview Skills.
November 3-7: Mid-Semester Point. Parent conferences begin.
Weeks 10-11 (November 10-20): Recording, Marie Smith Center visits.
November 24 – 28: Thanksgiving Break. No school.
Weeks 12-15 (Dec. 1 - Jan. 15): Synthesizing.
December 22nd – January 2nd: Winter Break. No school.
Weeks 16-17 (January 12th-22nd): Working on projects.
Week 18 (January 26-29th): Presentations
Last week of term. All projects due.
Thursday, January 29th: Upper School Exhibition Day