 This building was built a long time ago to be both a pension bureau for Civil War soldiers so they could come in and pick up their retirement checks or pensions, and also a space to have inaugural balls. As we're going through, we're going to be drawing things and looking at different aspects of the building and seeing how they can reveal information about how this building was used. I can't tell you the last time I've drawn a picture, so just being forced to do those things and remembering what it's like for the kids, and also just learning new things. I mean, I grew up in D.C. and I've been to this building, but I didn't know half of what I learned today. There's a clue, look at that Civil War, there's the same war clue right there. There's people coming to get their pensions. Just to open up your sketchbooks, we are going to do a 30-second quick... I want you to get sort of a big picture overall impressions of what you see in this space, okay? What were you able to capture in 30 seconds? Okay, so columns, arches. Maybe something that the architect really wanted you to look at and focus on when you came into the building. What about those arches and columns? What did you notice about them? They look like aqueducts, okay? Aqueducts from today, or from... Okay, so like the Roman aqueducts, so they were wanting to... We're looking at ancient Greece and Rome. What connection does it have to that? What message are they trying to send? So I think being here sometimes reinforces some of those ideas about those things we've discussed in class. It's you. We might be able to actually do a field study to a site. If not, we also discussed starting by just analyzing the buildings that we're in. So many D.C. schools have this history and we just kind of take the time to look at what's around us. The buildings themselves tell an important story. Doesn't have to be perfect, you're just recording clues, your own interpretation of what you see. Drawing? I thought that was neat because then you really do get to see what different people think is important. None of our drawings were the same. We're going to do a really quick share. This is the easiest way to share, okay? Everybody hold up your sketch pad like this. There you go. Okay. Take notice of what other people have drawn. Do they draw things that are similar to you, different? Yeah, they do. I don't see what other people see. There's always a new technique. There's always somebody that you meet that has a different perspective. In just the short length of time, it's opened my eyes to other ways to address the children. Really having more instruction that's almost individualized to each child so that they can think more deeply about the place and the power it might have. What were some of the things that people drew? The door. I want to tell you about how the building was used. Is it like a normal door you would see on a house? How else is it different from a normal door? It's huge. It's inviting the window above it. At the same time, kind of, you know, whether it's not a snake or a swindler, but still you see an old castle, old church. So it's a little bit elaborate. It's not really a plain door. What about the sculpture around the door? Okay. It's so different from that. So the sculptures around the door, anybody want to guess who those people might be? You have different ones. You have the navy kind of on this side and then you have the army major on this side. We know it's for the pension bureau. So these were some of the people who were going to be coming into the building. So they had a visual clue on the outside of the building about what this building was used for.