Document Based Questions

Many high schools are transitioning their social studies curriculum from the traditional system of memorization to a more thought-based program involving DBQ’s.  We at MJDS are in full swing in that transition process.

As part of our focus on immigration, we have worked extensively on utilizing Document Based Questions (DBQ) in the classroom since December.  DBQs are simple: students receive select primary sources (often in the form of letters, photos, laws, quotations), analyze the documents (looking for relationships, context clues), create a thesis after having synthesized the documents (summarizing their thoughts on the topic), which then answers an essential question (which is their driving question they are working on answering).  Students have had ample practice time analyzing primary source documents so as to answer questions related as to how immigrants were treated in American history from the mid-1800’s to the early 1900’s.

Once students achieved a mastery of the skills of working on other’s DBQs, they began to put those skills into effect.  All students have now completed creating their own Essential Question (focused on immigration trends/events from the 1980s – present), found their own primary and secondary sources, and developed sets of questions to further expand one’s understanding of the importance of each document.  Some of these student-created DBQ’s exhibit higher level thinking and problem solving, which is amazing to think about.  Please feel free to ask your child to view their DBQ they created (either alone or with a partner).

Please be mindful that what the students are doing is higher-level work; something many high school kids would struggle to do.  Their work reflects not only their growth thus far, but also how much they still have left to learn.  Be sure to encourage them and help them to grow by simply asking questions and allowing them to explain their process and understanding.

Below are two article explaining what a DBQ is and its purpose in today’s educational system.

https://blog.prepscholar.com/what-is-a-dbq-document-based-question
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/do-you-know-what-a-dbq-is/2013/05/12/a010e906-b845-11e2-92f3-f291801936b8_story.html?utm_term=.62e9056a2218&noredirect=on

The Gathering 10/31

It was such a worthwhile expereince to prepare, serve, and clean up breakfast for community members at The Gathering.  The students got up at the crack of dawn (and to school more importantly by 6:30 am) and we headed off to prepare breakfast.  After preparing breakfast, we got on the serving line and began to hand out food for the guests.  All of our students who partook really had a positive experience and hopefully this action of helping those in need resonates with them and they continue to give back.

 

The Gathering 1/22

 

Our 8th grade students served breakfast at The Gathering on January 22, 2018 to start the new year off right.  Overall, we helped prepare the meal, serve the meal, and clean up afterward.  We helped provide 130 meals for people in need in the City of Milwaukee.

Repairing the world together

Throughout the year, 7th and 8th grade students from Milwaukee Jewish Day School will work together with 8th grade students from Milwaukee College Prep and Bruce Guadalupe to do our part to repair the world together.  Forging the cross-community and cross-cultural relationships at a young age is an amazing growth opportunity for our students (and their students) in that we are able to work together for a common goal to make the world a better place.

We divided our students into two groups.  One group went to the Urban Ecology Center.  When there, students helped build a retention pond (prevent runoff into the Milwaukee River and provide water for plants and animals), planted native plant species, pulled invasive plant species, learned about Native American culture, and played a collaborative game of lacrosse.   Student really had a chance to meet others and work toward improving our physical environment, while also sprinkling in some physical activities.  At the Hunger Task Force Farm (which provides food for 10,000 people on a weekly basis, half of which are people age 13 or under), students partook in three different activities: meet with a Native American educator (part of the Menominee tribe) and learned some of his language and culture, wrapped apple trees in plastic to prevent deer and mice from destroying the tree (we did wrap 60 trees, in addition to sneaking some apples to taste), and picked sweet peppers (over 800 pounds of peppers, all of which will be delivered to local food banks today).

Provided is the link of the photos/videos we took from our respective field trip.  An additional set of photos is located here (password is Repairing)