1. My School Community:
Washington Heights
History and Geography at The
Cloisters
Community PowerPoint
Presentation
Rachel A. Walton
EDUC 513
June 2009

2. The Hudson River
NCSS Standard: People, Places, and
Environments
I want my students to understand:
Content Specific:
*The Hudson River has had a considerable impact on the growth
and development of New York City. When viewing the impact
New York City's proximity to the Hudson River has had on its
growth, it is important to consider issues of trade, immigration,
economic developments and human capital.
Global Statement:
*Geography, within the context of a broader social studies curriculum,
must include both an exploration of people's use of geogrpahy and
geogrpahic facts (Sprague Mitchell, 1934).

3. Fort Tryon
NCSS Standard: Power, Authority and
Governance
I want my students to understand:
Content Specific:
*The American Revolution was fought over the
ideal that authority and governance over a
place and its citizens could not occur without
fair representation. Global Statement:
*The difficulties experienced by the colonists *quot;Conflict is characteristic of the growth and
and their struggles to obtain a fair form of development of individuals and of civilizations
governance are experienced by individuals as a whole,quot; (Taba, 1971).
today.
*History must do more than focus on
chronological order. Instead, it should be a
process that goes back-and-forth from the
historical to the present in an attempt to find
similarities and analogies that bridge history and
historical figures to contemporary situations
(Zinn, 2007).

4. Emerging Questions
*How do we engage students in an exploration of geography that allows them
to discover relationships between geography and people, both historical and
contemporary? (Sprague Mitchell, 1934)
*How does geography contribute to the variation of people? (Taba, 1971)
*How do we accurately present the issues of individuals who might not
otherwise be heard (such as the Native American tribe, the Lenape tribe , who
inhabited the area known as Fort Tryon before the colonists)? (Lee, 2007)
*How do we explore the experiences of Margaret Corbin, the first woman to
fight in the Revolutionary War, without establishing her as a token figure? (Lee,
2007)
*Are there points of view we might be missing in our explorations of this
historical event? (Lee, 2007)
*How do we move beyond objectivity on historical issues? How can we help our
students? Why is it important to our students? (Zinn, 2007)

5. References
Lee, Enid. (2007). Taking multiculutral, anti-racist education seriously. In W. Au, B. Bigelow & S.
Karp
(Eds.), Rethinking our classrooms: Teaching for equity and justice, (pp. 15-17). Milwaukee, WI:
Rethinking Schools.
Sprague Mitchell, L. (1934, 1991). Young geographers: How they explore the world and how they
map
the world. New York: Bank Street College Publications.
Taba, H., Durkin, M. C., Fraenkel, J. R. & McNaughton, A. H. (1971). A teacher's handbook to
elementary
social studies: An inductive approach . Philippines: Addison-Wesley.
Zinn, H. (2007). Why students should study history. In W. Au, B. Bigelow & S. Karp (Eds.), Rethinking
our classrooms: Teaching for equity and justice, (pp. 179-185). Milwaukee, WI: Rethinking Schools.