History As Mystery

Challenge students to explore several important unexplained events that helped shape history. Students use primary source materials, posters, and simulations to find clues and to make informed decisions about these events. There are no right or wrong answers. These real-life mysteries encourage students to research, think, debate, and form conclusions.

Presenting U.S. history as contested interpretations of compelling problems, this text offers a clear set of principles and strategies, together with case studies and "Mystery Packets" of documentary materials from key periods in American history, that teachers can use with their students to promote and sustain problem-finding and problem-solving in history and social studies classrooms. Structured to encourage new attitudes toward history as hands-on inquiry, conflicting interpretation, and myriad uncertainties, the whole point is to create a user-friendly way of teaching history "as it really is" ─ with all its problems, issues, unknowns, and value clashes. Students and teachers are invited to think anew as active participants in learning history rather than as passive sponges soaking up pre-arranged and often misrepresented people and events. New in the Second Edition: New chapters on Moundbuilders, and the Origins of Slavery; expanded Gulf of Tonkin chapter now covering the Vietnam and Iraq wars; teaching tips in this edition draw on years of teacher experience in using mysteries in their classrooms.

Offering a philosophy, methodology, and examples for history instruction that are active, imaginative, and provocative, this text presents a fully developed pedagogy based on problem-solving methods that promote reasoning and judgment and restore a sense of imagination and participation to classroom learning. It is designed to draw readers into the detective process that characterizes the work of professional historians and social scientists ─ sharing raw data, defining terms, building interpretations, and testing competing theories. An inquiry framework drives both the pedagogy and the choice of historical materials, with selections favoring the unsolved, controversial, and fragmented rather than the neatly wrapped up analysis of past events. Teaching World History as Mystery: Provides a balanced combination of interestingly arranged historical content, and clearly explained instructional strategies Features case studies of commonly and not so commonly taught topics within a typical world/global history curriculum using combinations of primary and secondary documents Discusses ways of dealing with ethical and moral issues in world history classrooms, drawing students into persisting questions of historical truth, bias, and judgment

Shares information on different historical mysteries and rumored oddities, including the Bermuda triangle, Bigfoot, and the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa.

"A lively tour through our past and an ingenious primer in the art of historical detection." --Robert A. Gross, author of The Minutemen and Their World Did Leif Ericsson beat Columbus to America? What happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke? Did Pocahontas really save John Smith? Did Davy Crockett die at the Alamo? What really happened to Amelia Earhart, and was she a spy? Who killed JFK? Unsolved Mysteries of American History re-creates the most mystifying events of our past, following some of our greatest historians as they search for the elusive answers. Spanning more than five centuries--from Leif Ericsson and Columbus through Watergate and Iran-Contra--Aron makes sense of all the latest discoveries and speculations. Here is everything you could ever want from a detective story: dramatic twists and turns, intellectual challenges, frustrating dead-ends, murderous mayhem, and thrilling espionage. "Stimulating and pleasurable, fair and objective . . . recommended for both the history buff and the fan of true-life mysteries."--Kirkus Reviews "Everyone loves a mystery and a history mystery best of all. Aron has assembled an impressive array of 'whodunits.'" --Ivor Noel Hume, former director, Department of Archaeology, Colonial Williamsburg author of The Virginia Adventure "A welcome gateway for historical exploration." --Booklist "Aron performs something of a minor miracle: He zeroes in on the very core of historical mysteries and provides new insights for reconsidering mystifying events." --Allan W. Eckert, author of Sorrow in Our Heart

"A lively tour through our past and an ingenious primer in the art of historical detection." --Robert A. Gross, author of The Minutemen and Their World Did Leif Ericsson beat Columbus to America? What happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke? Did Pocahontas really save John Smith? Did Davy Crockett die at the Alamo? What really happened to Amelia Earhart, and was she a spy? Who killed JFK? Unsolved Mysteries of American History re-creates the most mystifying events of our past, following some of our greatest historians as they search for the elusive answers. Spanning more than five centuries--from Leif Ericsson and Columbus through Watergate and Iran-Contra--Aron makes sense of all the latest discoveries and speculations. Here is everything you could ever want from a detective story: dramatic twists and turns, intellectual challenges, frustrating dead-ends, murderous mayhem, and thrilling espionage. "Stimulating and pleasurable, fair and objective . . . recommended for both the history buff and the fan of true-life mysteries."--Kirkus Reviews "Everyone loves a mystery and a history mystery best of all. Aron has assembled an impressive array of 'whodunits.'" --Ivor Noel Hume, former director, Department of Archaeology, Colonial Williamsburg author of The Virginia Adventure "A welcome gateway for historical exploration." --Booklist "Aron performs something of a minor miracle: He zeroes in on the very core of historical mysteries and provides new insights for reconsidering mystifying events." --Allan W. Eckert, author of Sorrow in Our Heart

From a Hans Christian Andersen Award-winning author, a mystery that begins with clues in a school in modern-day Brazil and continues through the ages to ancient Egypt, a medieval wizard's castle laboratory, and the ships that sailed from Europe to discover the New World Gaming whizz Will, along with his friends Sonia, Miguel, Matt, and Faye, gets an A for a group history project. But when their teacher reads from their work, none of them recognizes the piece. This is the first of a number of mystery messages which appears in their homework and emails, on their phones, and on their computer screens. Someone from the past is trying to communicate with them, and they must decipher the messages--the strange words from years ago--and figure out how to respond. The messages from Nefertiti, Marco Polo, and the other voices all have one thing in common: they all have to do with the importance of being able to read, and of history living on through the written word.

A series of reproducible vignettes concerning American history.

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