Five Ideas to Make Abraham Lincoln Come Alive for Middle Schoolers

Abraham Lincoln is an excellent historical figure for educators to focus on, for several reasons. One is the prominence given to him in the media as a result of the recently released film Lincoln. Another is the late president’s love of learning, and his ability to educate himself despite having few formal classroom opportunities. Yet another is the pivotal place that Lincoln occupies in American history. The United States was in many ways a completely different nation at the time of his assassination than it was when he was first elected.

Of course, communicating these facts to young minds can be something of a challenge. So here is a look at how a veteran teacher, Bill Kendrat of Belmont Ridge Middle School in Belmont, Va., engaged his middle school students in a presentation about Lincoln, using a combination of multi-media presentations, role play, and question and answer formats. His example provides other teachers with five excellent strategies for teaching their own students about the 16th president.

Strategy One: Engaging the Senses

Technology has equipped modern educators with tools that those of previous eras could only dream of. Kendrat makes full use of these resources by incorporating a running visual presentation into his lesson. But he doesn’t simply let the photos speak for themselves. He encourages his students to analyze images, such as a photograph of John Wilkes Booth, for insights from the subject’s choice of clothing, posture, facial expression, etc. Not only does this enrich the student’s knowledge of the era being studied, it also strengthens his or her observational skills.

Strategy Two: Taking a Trip Through Time

Kendrat builds on his visuals in another way: by using them as a time machine of sorts to remove his students from their 21st century surroundings and immerse them in the era that’s being studied. In doing so he trains them to evaluate historical characters and events from the perspectives of the time in which they occurred, rather than filtering past events through the lens of modern standards and sensibilities.

Strategy Three: Play Acting With a Purpose

Kendrat also engages his students in the subject by leading them in acting out the events surrounding Lincoln’s assassination. This adds to their level of immersion in the events being learned about, giving them a rich, three-dimension picture of history, rather than a dim view of it gained through dry lectures and textbook readings.

Strategy Four: Constant Interactivity

Throughout the video of Kendrat’s class session he keeps his students answering questions, making observations, and filling in their own mental pictures of the events surrounding Lincoln’s assassination. This changes them from passive recipients of the material into active players with it, giving them a model for lifelong learning that can enrich the rest of their lives.

Strategy Five: Positive Feedback

Kendrat expects a lot of his students, urging them to ask “why” questions, to think rather than simply memorize facts, and to get each one of them to actively engage with the material he’s teaching. But he rewards them for their efforts with constant encouragement and by keeping the atmosphere in the classroom positive and upbeat. His class benefits by seeing that learning can be “fun” in the best sense of the word: as a compelling, fascinating activity that can open their minds to a lifetime of discovery.

Conclusion

History does not have to be viewed as a boring look at a long-dead past. By emulating Kendrat’s approach to teaching, it can become a living, dynamic exploration of the events and persons who laid the foundations for our own time. The five strategies discussed above have enormous potential not only for teaching students about Lincoln, but for empowering them to use their minds to the fullest, no matter what directions their lives take them.