Module Introduction

This module was developed by Crystal Maglio, a teacher who participated in the California READI Teacher Inquiry Network, in collaboration with a member of the READI Research Team, Gayle Cribb. Crystal taught a two-year course titled Modern World History, which met the California History/Social Science Standards, at a diverse high school in the San Francisco Bay Area. The school carefully constructed heterogeneous classes within a house structure, and looped students with their teachers for their 9th and 10th grade years. The 1953 Coup module was designed for Crystal’s 10th graders as part of their last unit. Crystal wanted this last unit to embody READI Student Learning Goals and design principles, and offer students the opportunity to test the knowledge and skills they had developed over the course of the class. She wanted to provide challenge in the text complexity, in the number of texts and in the independence with which they would engage the inquiry so that students would be able to stretch and to show their accomplishment. This module is a portion of the larger Iran unit. Crystal and Gayle developed the module for use in conjunction with professional development focused on supporting reading as a historical inquiry practice.

Routines for close reading, text-based discussion, and metacognitive conversation had been well established much earlier in the course. Because this module was part of the culminating unit, these routines were deepened, but not introduced. The routines came out of the Reading Apprenticeship1 instructional framework to support the personal, social, cognitive, and knowledge-building dimensions of the classroom. Students regularly practiced reading strategies and engaged in knowledge-building and metacognitive conversations in pairs, small groups, and the whole class. Over time, a notable shift had taken place in the classroom, from the teacher explaining text, to students asking their own authentic questions, and then making and defending claims about the text to each other.

A second set of routines supported history as a process of inquiry, in keeping with the READI Learning Goals for History Inquiry. Learning to read multiple texts and to create historical argument from those multiple sources was central. Students had developed an understanding of history that transcends the single narrative found in the textbook and acknowledges that history is a set of sometimes conflicting interpretations based on historical documents and artifacts. Students routinely examined historical texts, evaluated sources for factors that affect trustworthiness, activated schema, identified appropriate context, and made inquiries that led to the development of their own historical interpretations and conclusions. Like the close reading routines, the historical thinking routines were not introduced, but deepened in this unit.

The essential question for the unit was, “How can the study of history help us understand current conflicts?” In this case, the situation in question was the contemporary conflict between Iran and the United States regarding the development of nuclear technology and materiel. This module on the topic of the 1953 coup d’état was a part of that larger unit on the history of Iran.

We sought out and prepared a variety of contemporary and historically significant texts, but intended for the unit to be driven by student inquiry. We wanted students to experience becoming curious about a contemporary conflict, wanting to know more, and then successfully follow a line of inquiry. We wanted them to build knowledge of the context, use the context to iteratively contextualize the conflict, evaluate the sources and think critically about the information they encountered. The students first gathered the ideas or information they had heard about Iran in the news or at home, and then developed questions that would guide further learning. They then began reading current articles on tensions over Iran’s nuclear program and sanctions. They also read a keystone text, the Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1980 speech in Tehran, “Message to the Pilgrims.” This led to what developed as a central question – What is the basis of the tension between the US and Iran? Although there were multiple perspectives on the causes of the conflict, one compelling factor was the 1953 Coup. This module supports student inquiry into the Coup, to consider whether it created a more or less just society and its implications for the U.S.-Iranian relationship today.

The specific inquiry question for the module itself is, “What happened in Iran in 1953? How do you know?” In other words, “What was the case and how do we know?” or, as the students framed it, “What is a coup?” and, “What happened?” The answer to these questions calls for an argument of description. Informed by what they had learned about Iran up to that point in the unit, students dug into the primary source documents offered within the module. The document set consists of magazine and newspaper articles, an excerpt from a speech, and declassified National Security Council and CIA documents from the period. These texts offer students the opportunity to build an argument using textual evidence drawn from those sources.

The module incorporates all of the READI Learning Goals for History Inquiry but foregrounds Goals 1, 2, 3 and 6. It includes supports for close reading and collaborative meaning making, advancing Goal 1. Sourcing the documents contributes significantly to the interpretation of those documents and the task. Figuring out what happened requires comparing, corroborating and synthesizing across the documents, all of which advance Goal 2. Negotiating meaning individually and in collaborative text-based discussion provides opportunities for argumentation, advancing Goal 3. Students also work on Goal 3 when they write their account of the coup, provide evidence and explain their reasoning. Students read each other’s arguments and attempt to resolve differences through further argumentation. As students are using an interpretive lens, that of a just society, Goal 4 is advanced. To the extent that students peer review each other’s arguments, they are practicing Goal 5. Perhaps most notably, Goal 6 is advanced. The entire module is framed as an inquiry, students work with a noticeably incomplete historical record, create their own interpretations and then read, discuss and try to resolve differences among their interpretations.

Crystal’s class spent the equivalent of eight 50-minute periods on the 1953 Coup in Iran module. However, the lessons delineated in the “Iran Module at a Glance” are not intended to indicate that each lesson will take the same amount of time. They simply divide the module into conceptual chunks.

Click here to read the teacher’s reflections on this module.