High School DBIs
Focusing on the labor struggles in the Couer D'Alene Mine Strikes and Riots of the late 1800s, this DBI presents the groups active in this historic labor and class conflict. Students are challenged to identify the groups, their motivations, their actions, and the consequences to those decisions from the historical record.
Author: Adam Pritchett
Essential Question: How do groups struggle for happiness?
Attitudes toward immigration have been fairly constant throughout American History. Even during the late 19th century, loud factions opposed immigration citing concerns of un-American values, moral decay, overcrowding, and cheapening of labor. At the same time, other factions valued the growing labor force, identified themselves as immigrants, and championed the American Dream. In any era, the immigration question has traditionally been presented as binary. This DBI will take students through a variety of documents to show that the answers have always been about one’s perspective and that continues to be true today.
Author: Rob Reader
Essential Question: How was immigration viewed by various groups in the late nineteenth century?
Teaching the Civil War can be a daunting task. This DBI is designed to guide students through a variety of sources in order to to identify the main causes of the American Civil War.
Author: Shellie Smith
Essential Question: What were the root causes of the Civil War, and how does it relate to today?
This DBI has been designed to frontload key contextual information for the novel Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo. The texts explore historical events such as the Mexican Revolution and Cristero War as well as cultural context such as Mexican muralism of the early 20th century, folk Catholicism, and other core issues that are foundational to understanding the desolate ghost town of Comala. This is part of a larger unit for IB HL Language and Literature Year II and anchored on the HL Essay assessment.
Author: Karly Bryant
Essential Question: How does past conflict shape identity going forward?
The purpose of this DBI is to explore the way that historical events are transformed into narratives and how those narratives become culturally meaningful. This DBI also helps us to explore points of conflict in American history and challenges to democracy in the West. The DBI examines the tragic death of two game wardens in southern Idaho and the unlikely narrative of a heroic outlaw that became attached to the man that killed them. From initial reports to made for television movies, this DBI is packed with engaging texts!
Author: Caleb Mattravers
Essential Question: What are the greatest threats and pillars to American Democracy?
Embedded in an argument unit that explores the ways language shape ideas and society, this DBI primes learners to think about what censorship is, how it happens, and why it matters. Learners will explore many types of censorship before honing in on book banning. The culminating project asks students to write a letter that convinces either the school board or a parent group to remove or keep a challenged book in their school library.
Author: Jasmine Wilhelm
Essential Question:
The Dawes Act changed America forever, including how indigenous tribes are treated in this country. What is the Dawes Act, and how did it influence these changes? The purpose of this DBI is to bring more awareness to the Dawes Act and its effects on not just the land, but the people as well. This DBI is meant to fit into a State and Local Unit of a high school American Government class, but it can also fit into a high school History curriculum.
Author: Heidi Renk
Essential Question: How does the historical treatment of "others" affect the way we treat "others" today?
This DBI will assist in the understanding and identification of implicit bias and how those biases may lead to microaggressions. It includes ideas on how to handle microaggressions and become a better ally. It will also includes examples of microaggressions faced in real life with stories of how those impacted the life experience of recipients.
Author: Leanne Thurston
Essential Question: Have political parties changed and developed into the factions that Washington feared?
One of the challenges we all face in the classroom is nuturing the balance between honoring the identities and voices of our students, while also exposing them to the identities and voices of people who may not be "on their radar"; helping students to recognize the existence and validity of marginalized voices is challenging, especially in today's political and social landscape. This presentation will include strategies, materials, and activities that are adaptable to many grade levels and subjects, with the goal of empowering teachers to foster student identity AND student empathy.
Author: Andy Porter
Essential Question: How and why is it essential to identify myself? How and why is it equally essential to learn to "decode" the identities of others?
America is polarized, and thus, in a battle of ideology. However, the true battleground, according to this DBI, is in the language that all sides use to evoke or to provoke. This DBI is designed to take a deeper look into how people, institutions, politicians and other groups from various perspectives use language as a way to conceal or to reveal, to attract or to repel. The culminating activity is a story exchange and a Socratic Seminar.
Author: RT Duke
Essential Question: What gives a word power?
Primary sources add texture and nuance to historical discussions, but they seem to be written in a galaxy far, far away and meaningful analysis in the classroom can be difficult. This presentation will include where to find "out of this world" sources for documents, pictures and photographs as well as specific strategies to help all students engage with the materials.
Author: Kelly Richmond
Essential Question: How and why has the history of slavery in America been simplified?
"It is as necessary for me to be as vigorous in condemning the conditions which cause persons to feel that they must engage in riotous activities which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. And in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear?” - April 14, 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr. speech entitled “The Other America” at Stanford University
America’s Declaration of Independence proclaims that we are endowed with the Inalienable Rights of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, but to what extent are there two Americas ?
So how do we as teachers we best teach students to inquire and seek understanding with historic and ongoing contentious issues of America?
Author: John Coulthard
This DBI Centers around historical events in which teenagers played an active role in pursuing change. It's the initial lesson in a larger unit that ends with students completing independent research on a topic of choice. Beginning with the Children's March in Birmingham to The Freedom March in Chicago in 1963, and concluding with Malala Yusefazi's campaign to promote girls' education, students will interact with documents and multimedia to see how teens have used their voice to advocate for themselves and others.
Author: Lennie Freeman
Essential Question: How can you use your voice to make your world a better place?
Author: Jerry Hendershot
Essential Question: How can we develop empathy and understanding for those who differ from us?
To Be a Patriot? What Does Patriotism Mean to Americans?
This DBI will explore the topic of What patriotism mean to Americans by sharing bumper stickers, memes, quotes and other short tests from US history and the present day that express the range of attitudes, both historically and currently, about the various meanings of patriotism to Americans - as well as an exploration into the provenance and reasons for these different attitudes. Participants will engage in various activities like paired discussion, see-think-wonders, in role writing, etc. to engage with the topic and with each other, and to share and represent their ongoing thinking about the diverse views of Americans about what it means to be a patriot, and how we might interrogate and address issues that arise.
Author: Jeffrey Wilhelm