high school-level

 

 

Source: Central Catholic Community School, art class with Sister Alma Zacharias, DC, October 23, 1970. Archdiocese of St. Louis Archives.

Dr. Kim Cowan, a curriculum development expert with over a decade of high school teaching experience, joined forces with Dr. Anna Katharina Rudolph of Saint Louis University and the SCAC archivists to create these lesson plans. This dynamic collaboration ensures the lessons are engaging, informative, and grounded in both historical accuracy and best practices in education.

These lessons are designed specifically for the 1818 Advanced College Credit Program at Saint Louis University, a nationally recognized program that allows high school students across the country to earn college credit while still enrolled in their home schools. Currently, 85 schools partner with the 1818 program, giving students a unique opportunity to get a head start on their college careers.

In creating these lessons, we aimed to align with the SCAC’s mission of promoting the rich history of Catholic sisters. By using the archives of Catholic nuns, students gain access to a wealth of primary source materials that offer unique perspectives on social justice, education, healthcare, and everyday life throughout history. These resources, while rooted in a Catholic tradition, provide valuable insights applicable to a broad range of subjects and are just as valuable for teachers in public schools as they are in Catholic schools.

lesson plans

Grade Level: Advanced College Credit

Summation of Lesson: In June 1835, the Countess de la Rochejaquelein set her sights on establishing the Sisters of St. Joseph in St. Louis, Missouri. To achieve this goal, she crafted a persuasive letter to Bishop Rosati. By strategically leveraging her wealth, social status, and carefully cultivated network of influential men, she aimed to convince him of the importance of this endeavor. This letter provides a valuable case study for students to analyze rhetorical strategies and understand how social power functioned in the 19th century. This lesson asks the students to practice rhetorical analysis in the same way they are asked to demonstrate mastery of this skill on the AP Language & Composition exam.

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Grade Level: Advanced College Credit

Summation of Lesson: Sister M. Josephine Barber’s memoir chronicles the remarkable story of the first eight Visitation Sisters who arrived in St. Louis in 1833 with a mission to establish a convent school. This independent learning lesson uses Sister Josephine’s journal to demonstrate what can be learned from unlikely sources. The best part about this source is that the first-hand account can be used in many ways. The teacher can assign a piece of the journal (listed by theme below) as a stand-alone lesson for rhetorical analysis (in preparation for the AP Language & Composition class), as a first-hand account of theological mysteries, or as a supplement to secondary sources on several major historical events. Should the teacher wish, they may drop the focus on rhetorical situations and focus on evaluating the source as primary scholarship.

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Source: St. Louis Visitation Archives, Sister Mary Josephine Barber’s “History of the Foundation at Kaskaskia till the Move to Cass Ave,” St. Louis Visitation Monastery records #200, Box 102.2.1.

 

Grade Level: Advanced College Credit

Summation of Lesson: This collaborative lesson allows students to explore the lives of female students from different decades. Although we know that decades only loosely hold together cultural trends, having students view yearbooks from different points in history allows a personal connection to the changes that young women experienced. Having students interpret what student life looked like through history will help them not only contextualize major historical events but will also connect them to their own journey.

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Source: St. Louis Visitation Archives, Student Publications: Yearbooks, Visitation Academy records #300, Digital.

 

Grade Level: Advanced College Credit

Summation of Lesson: This collaborative lesson allows students to take an inside look at education for women at the turn of the century. Analyzing the academic programing at Visitation Academy dispels myths of women only attending school for “finishing” or until they are married. The rigorous curriculum expected students to perform at the level, or perhaps, above and beyond the level of their male counterparts. Exploring these guides gives a primary take on what was expected of upper-class, white women during a time of great change in America. Unpacking the complexities of women’s education in this period requires a nuanced understanding of the forces that shaped it. As historian Kathleen Sprows Cummings suggests, “By exploring nuns’ interwoven identities as aspiring saints, efficient teachers, loyal daughters of the church, and responsible American citizens it is possible to more fully understand the parameters of the school question and what it signified about American Catholic identity in the early twentieth century.” 

Unit Ideas: This lesson could be modified to fit a larger research unit on the time period, how to gather evidence from informational texts, or on gender relations.

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Source: St. Louis Visitation Archives, Student Publications: Yearbooks, Visitation Academy records #300, Box 501.4.1. 

 

Grade Level: Advanced College Credit

Summation of Lesson: Often, we’re limited to reading about the past from scholars who have studied events from their own perspective for years. These scholarly accounts, while valuable, lack the immediacy of firsthand experiences. This lesson delves into a refreshing and often overlooked source: student writing. By analyzing a student’s diary entry responding to the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, students connect with the past through a unique, teenage perspective. This three-part entry, blending fiction and non-fiction, offers a raw and immediate window into how a young person grappled with a life-altering historical event. This exploration highlights the power of student writing to provide a more grounded and relatable understanding of the past.

Contents:

 

Source: St. Louis Visitation Archives, Student Publications: Viz-itor, Visitation Academy records #300, Box #P1.

 

Grade Level: Advanced College Credit

Summation of Lesson: This collaborative lesson dives into the wealth of information that can be gleaned from what a young woman left behind: Miss Helen Thompson’s senior scrapbook. Through an exploration of what Helen deemed important enough to glue onto pages over 100 years ago, students will learn more about the life of an American high school student in the 1920s. She will teach them about her culture, her dreams, and what high school life looked like during a time period America thinks it knows all about: the 1920s. This lesson would best work as a hook before studying the 1920s, the writing of F. Scott Fitzgerald, or a more general lesson on the progression of girlhood in America.

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Source: St. Louis Visitation Archives, Sister Files: Thompson, Mary Agnes, 1917-2008, St. Louis Visitation Monastery records #200, Box 809.1

 

Grade Level: Advanced College Credit

Summation of Lesson: Under the watchful eyes of the religious sisters who owned and operated their schools, young Catholic girls conformed to and struggled against many expectations placed on their behavior. Their Church, their teachers, their parents, their society, and the other female students that surrounded them all had ideas as to who they should be and who they should become. These pushes and pulls created a tense gendered atmosphere for decades. This lesson allows students to explore this tension through rhetorical and image analysis. Of the twenty pieces presented here dating from 1914-1957, teachers should select a maximum of 3-4 for each student group to evaluate at a time.

Contents:

 

Source: St. Louis Visitation Archives, Student Publications: Viz-itor, Yearbooks, Visitation Academy records #300, Box #P1 and Digital.