Student Becomes Historian: Connecting Neighborhood and World History

Created Feb. 7, 2024 by Kathryn Shaughnessy

NHPRC QIH Assignment Title:

Student Becomes Historian: Connecting Neighborhood and World History

NOTE: This assignment was created by the participant educator named below as part of the Queens Immigration History curriculum development project funded by a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission division of the National Archives (grant #DH-50022-16).  For more information on this grant project, please visit the Queens Immigration History website  at https://queensimmigrationhistory.wordpress.com     

NHPRC QIH Assignment Creator:

Created by NHPRC Teacher Participant/Creator John Ronzino (Fall 2016 – Summer 2019). John has been a teacher at Flushing High School for the NYC Department of Education since 1999. Over the course of his career there, John has taught both levels of Global History, AP World History I & II, U.S. History, and Economics. John is currently a Ph.D student in history at St. John’s University. His research interests have focused on nationalism, educational history of New York, and Malcolm X’s role in the Civil Rights movement. He is currently at the dissertation stage, working with dissertation advisor, Dr. Lara Vapnek.

Summary/ Description Overview:

 Created by NHPRC Teacher Participant/Creator John Ronzino for AP World and grade 10 Global History courses; Adaptable to other grades. The project has students research neighborhood/family history and connect the to immigration and world history events, with a culminating project of creating a “history of the neighborhood”

Purpose/Learning Goal

  1. To apply historical thinking (complexity, causality, change over time, contingency, context). 

  2. To create a project that connects world history to family and neighborhood history.

Task/Assignment/Activity

Task 1: Interview

Interview a member of your family or neighborhood community about your neighborhood.

Some questions you might ask include:

  •      What nationality are you?

  •      Where do you live? Have you lived in another neighborhood?

  •      Why do you live in your current neighborhood?

  •      If you could live somewhere else, where would you live? Why?

  •     What’s special about your home? Neighborhood? Borough?

  •      Are you friendly with your neighbors?

  •      Do your neighbors seem to know each other?

  •      How have your neighbors changed over time? Have they stayed the same? Why?

  •      Can you describe the people that live in your neighborhood? 

  •      Is your neighborhood diverse? Do you prefer a diverse neighborhood or one that is more uniform?

  •      What nationalities make up your neighborhood?

  •      What economic status dominates your neighborhood? Upper Class? Middle Class? Working Class?

 Task 2: Neighborhood research

After you have interviewed someone from your family or from your neighborhood you are to research the history of that neighborhood, with the goal of tracing the history of the neighborhood through to today.

 Information to identify:

  • When was the neighborhood first settled? Who settled the area?

  • Who was here before the Europeans arrived?

  • Was the neighborhood industrial or rural?

  • What was the first religious organization in the neighborhood? First school?

  • Did anyone famous come from the neighborhood?

  • Why did the neighborhood receive its current name?

  • Why did people move to the neighborhood?

  • Were there different nationalities that moved into the neighborhood? Why did the other groups leave?

  

Task 3

Incorporate the information from you interview and research into a information-artifact of your choosing. (e.g.: could be Powerpoint, video, neighborhood guide, posterboard, etc.

 

Required Resources

Interview Questions:  Provided


Resources from the NHPRCQIH LibGuide:

Queens Memory Project Tab – assistance with conducting open ended Interviews, and local NYC interviews, neighborhood interviews

National and Global Resources Tab -- to assist you in looking at historical push-pull factors, newspapers and primary resources from country of origin

NYC Resources Tab – for demographic data, NYC historical newspapers 

 

Attribution:

This NHPRC Teacher Participant assignment was created by  John Ronzino

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States

 

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