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Due to the important role of orthography in society, the project called IDeRBlog presented in this paper created a web-based tool to motivate pupils to write text as well as to read and to comment on texts written by fellow students. In addition, IDeRBlog aims to improve student’s German orthography skills and supports teachers and parents with training materials for their students. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

With the aid of learning analytics, the submitted text is analyzed and special feedback is given to the students so that they can try to correct the misspelled words themselves. The teachers as well as the parents are benefiting from the analysis and exercises suggested by the system.

A recent study showed the efficiency of the system in form of an improvement of the students’ orthographic skills. Over a period of four months 70 percent of the students achieved a significant reduction of their spelling mistakes.

IDeRBlog is an innovative approach to improving orthography skills combining blogging and new media with writing and practice.

Historical analogies are everywhere in political discourse, but history teachers know to tread carefully. Even with relentless pressure to make history relevant, analogies can be as dangerous as they are appealing. On the one hand, cognitive research has showcased the usefulness of analogies in helping students distinguish between essential and superficial features of a phenomenon. On the other hand, historical knowledge does not easily boil down to core theorems or conceptual truths that hold constant across time and place. Comparing two moments in history does not expose an immutable law; rather, it creates a space to appreciate both what has changed and what has stayed the same. This paper aims to discuss this issue.

In this paper, the authors draw upon the research on document-based lessons to craft an academically rigorous, intellectually authentic and practical tool for teachers to address the connections between past and present in their classrooms. In the process of doing so, the authors scrutinize comparisons between the fascism of the 1930s and the contemporary populism of President Trump as presented in today’s media.

In this paper, the authors offer an instructional tool to support teachers in transforming pat and reductive analogies into opportunities for rich historical learning. The historical analogy lesson template revolves around a central question, engages students in careful document analysis and includes instructional scaffolds that assist students in assessing the similarities and differences between both sides of the analogy. Using this tool can help students better decipher political discourse and map current events onto historical processes of continuity and change.

Few tools exist to support teachers in facilitating rich learning about the connections between the past and present. As historical analogies are part of the language of political discourse, it is incumbent upon teachers to prepare students to understand and evaluate analogies in rich ways as part of the preparation for citizenship. The paper outlines a structure for teachers to approach these topics.