Unit Description
The Boxer Rebellion, if covered during school at all, is often just a passing reference, a paragraph in a textbook. When told, accounts of the Boxer Rebellion seem particularly one sided. There is much, however that can be learned by taking a closer look at this event. Author Gene Yang's new graphic novels, Boxers & Saints offer a unique way to teach students about this event. Two separate books, Boxers & Saints show readers what the Boxer Rebellion looked like from the perspective of a young boy from the countryside in Boxers and from a young girl who has been taken in by missionaries and has converted to Christianity in Saints.
This unit, Re-examining History, has three major components. Part one involves demonstrating the need to look at history from multiple perspectives through the example of the Boxer Rebellion. Part two serves to model the inquiry process. Equipped with background knowledge from Boxers & Saints, students generate questions about the Boxer Rebellion. The teacher provides resources and guides the students in the gathering, analysis, and synthesis of information. Finally, in part three, the scaffolding is removed and students may research their own compelling question about another event in history that needs to be re-examined.
This unit, Re-examining History, has three major components. Part one involves demonstrating the need to look at history from multiple perspectives through the example of the Boxer Rebellion. Part two serves to model the inquiry process. Equipped with background knowledge from Boxers & Saints, students generate questions about the Boxer Rebellion. The teacher provides resources and guides the students in the gathering, analysis, and synthesis of information. Finally, in part three, the scaffolding is removed and students may research their own compelling question about another event in history that needs to be re-examined.
- Part 1- Read Boxers & Saints and keep a journal. Set up the need for examining history from multiple perspectives.
- Part 2- Model the Inquiry Process Researching the Boxer Uprising through Primary and Secondary Documents
- Part 3 - Students engage in PBI through the eWISE Research Model
Objectives
Learn the importance of global awareness.
The Boxer Rebellion, if covered during school at all, is often just a passing reference, a paragraph in a textbook. When told, accounts of the Boxer Rebellion seem particularly one sided. There is much, however that can be learned by taking a closer look at this event. Author Gene Yang's new graphic novels, Boxers & Saints offer a unique way to teach students about this event.
"When students become engaged in the world, its people or issues, they become excited and engrossed—as authentic knowledge and tasks of real life citizens are intrinsically interesting" (Merryfield, 2008, p.366).
"When students become engaged in the world, its people or issues, they become excited and engrossed—as authentic knowledge and tasks of real life citizens are intrinsically interesting" (Merryfield, 2008, p.366).
Interpret historical events and synthesize.
The AP World History Curriculum requires students to make historical interpretations and to synthesize. Historical thinking involves the ability to describe, analyze, evaluate, and create diverse interpretations of the past — as revealed through primary and secondary historical sources — through analysis of evidence, reasoning, contexts, points of view, and frames of reference. Students will read excerpts from primary source documents to understand and appreciate multiple perspectives.
"Revolutions, civil wars, riots, disturbance and other events in history will always be reappraised. This is not only because of man's shifting interests and viewpoints. The discovery and release of hitherto unsighted historical documents also stimulates new studies and interpretations" (Marchant, 1970, pg. xvii). - From the preface to The Siege of the Peking Legations, A Diary by Lancelot Giles, a British Official who served as Student Interpreter in the British Consular Service.
"Philosophers have written lengthy theoretical treatises on what historians do. What I propose in this book, as a practicing historian, is to explore the issue through an actual historical case, the Boxer uprising of 1898-1900 in China. When I first began to study history, my conception of what historians "did" was very different from what it is now. I used to think of the past as, in some sense, a fixed body of factual material which it was the historian's job to unearth and elucidate. I still think of the historian as a person whose main object is to understand and explain the past. But I now have a far less invent view of the process-- and problems-- involved. I now see the reconstructive work of the historian as in constant tension with two other ways of "knowing" the past-- experience and myth that, in terms of their bearing on ordinary human lives, are far more pervasive and influential" (Cohen, 1997, pg. xi).
"Since the Boxer uprising was a movement indigenous to China, reliance upon Western sources alone will obviously not furnish an adequate explanation of its origin and nature or the thoughts and acts of the Chinese Government during the crisis" (Tan, 1967, p. v).
"Revolutions, civil wars, riots, disturbance and other events in history will always be reappraised. This is not only because of man's shifting interests and viewpoints. The discovery and release of hitherto unsighted historical documents also stimulates new studies and interpretations" (Marchant, 1970, pg. xvii). - From the preface to The Siege of the Peking Legations, A Diary by Lancelot Giles, a British Official who served as Student Interpreter in the British Consular Service.
"Philosophers have written lengthy theoretical treatises on what historians do. What I propose in this book, as a practicing historian, is to explore the issue through an actual historical case, the Boxer uprising of 1898-1900 in China. When I first began to study history, my conception of what historians "did" was very different from what it is now. I used to think of the past as, in some sense, a fixed body of factual material which it was the historian's job to unearth and elucidate. I still think of the historian as a person whose main object is to understand and explain the past. But I now have a far less invent view of the process-- and problems-- involved. I now see the reconstructive work of the historian as in constant tension with two other ways of "knowing" the past-- experience and myth that, in terms of their bearing on ordinary human lives, are far more pervasive and influential" (Cohen, 1997, pg. xi).
"Since the Boxer uprising was a movement indigenous to China, reliance upon Western sources alone will obviously not furnish an adequate explanation of its origin and nature or the thoughts and acts of the Chinese Government during the crisis" (Tan, 1967, p. v).
Explain the connection between anti-colonial movements to revolution and reform in history.
The AP World History curriculum (Key Concept 5.3: Nationalism, Revolution and Reform) requires educators to use either the Indian Revolt of 1857 or the Boxer Rebellion to illustrate the causes and effects of anticolonial movements. This illustrates how the increasing discontent with imperial rule propelled reformist and revolutionary movements around the world.
Use the eWISE Research Model.
WCPSS Instructional Technology & Library Media Services has adopted a new, county-wide research process model - eWISE. eWISE stands for evaluate, wonder, investigate, synthesize and express. eWISE is a variation of the PBI model. Students pose a compelling question during the wonder phase, gather and analyze information during the investigate phase, synthesize, evaluate, and express with a public act. Students will engage in a PBI during the third part of the unit, where they will investigate an event in history to try to "re-examine" it from multiple perspectives.
Learn the importance of Visual Literacy.
"If we want students to close-read sequential art, we need to first give them the language to engage in such
analysis. Numerous terms related to visual design can give us access to visual literacy and can be studied in depth
through Boxers & Saints. Many of these design elements (e.g., centering, gaze, placement, perspective,
point of view, coloring) can also be joined with techniques related to comics (e.g., panel, gutter) as well as
those techniques more often studied in film (e.g., panning, zooming, cuts). Many excellent resources exist to
help students to unpack how the illustrations help the narrative, including Adventures in Cartooning series by
James Sturm, Andrew Arnold, and Alexis Frederick-Frost (for students looking for a rudimentary introduction)
or Drawing Words and Writing Pictures and Mastering Comics both by Jessica Abel and Matt Madden (for
those students looking for a more sophisticated understanding) and Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics.
Having resources like these in either your classroom or in the school library can help support your instruction in
Boxers & Saints, and they may also help you to learn some language important to analysis of sequential art." (Brian Kelley, a Ph.D.)