Overview
Our world is filled with exciting tools and resources.
Young people are talkative, energized, and excited about the world beyond school.
Let's explore ways to get them engaged with learning inside school too!
We can bring social studies alive by exploring authentic resources with students.
Try It!
Does my great aunt Laura (below right) remind you of Miss Gulch (wicked witch below left) from Wizard of Oz? Why do they look alike?
The key to success is collaboration among administrators, librarians, and classroom teachers.
With the introduction of the Common Core State Standards, history and social studies are in the spotlight. The standards stress inquiry, primary sources, and informational reading. This workshop will explore each of these areas.
Explore the following areas on this page including focus, historical thinking and inquiry, teacher blogs, starting points, organizers, personal collection, and resources.
Focus
In Focus: Elevating the Essentials to Radically Improve Student Learning, Mike Schmocker recommends three core elements to improve learning:
- What we teach: a focused and coherent curriculum
- How we teach: clear, prioritized lessons
- Authentic literacy: purposeful, real-world reading, writing, talking
Schmocker describes the importance of simplicity, clarity, and priority in teaching and learning.
This seems simple until we thinking about the real-world of teaching and learning.
Try It!
What do you see as the major barriers to "focus"?
What are the real-world frustrations of authentic literacy?
Historical Thinking and Inquiry
Historical thinking involves the application of a set of analysis and argument skills needed to successfully study history. Students must be able to apply reasoning skills regardless of the type of inquiry.
Mandell and Malone (2008, 1) state that "history is a discipline: a way of thinking that encourages students to analyze historical evidence, evaluate it, and then demonstrate their understanding of that evidence. Teaching and learning history requires repeated practice with these essential elements of the discipline."
Historical inquiry is an active process that involves asking deep questions, analyzing sources, developing arguments based on evidence, and drawing conclusions.
Students need skills in historical thinking and information inquiry.
Try It!
Our job is to provide authentic, engaging primary sources for students to analyze like the Letter from Jackie Robinson to President Eisenhower (1958). The National Archives has a lesson associated with this and other Jackie Robinson documents.
Do you think this document would be of interest to students? Why or why not?
What are the characteristics of a primary source document that is useful in teaching but also engaging for learners?
Social studies teachers and librarians have complementary skills that can be used to address these two areas. The key is helping students develop skills in historical thinking.
The photo above was featured at Wikimedia Commons.
Try It!
What skills do you have as a teacher of historical thinking or information inquiry?
What do you want students to be able to do and talk about regarding primary sources?
Why is historical thinking important in teaching and learning?
Combine your professional skills along with professional resources and models. Mandell and Malone (2008) developed a model for thinking like a historian. Print out the Thinking Like a Historian model that contains a framework and questions - Part 1, Part 2.
To learn more about this approach, watch the Thinking Like a Historian video (at the bottom of the page).
Historical Thinking for Teachers
- Thinking Historically from Teaching History
- Historical Thinking Poster from Teaching History
Although you may believe in the approach, there's not enough time in the day to develop all your instructional materials from scratch. The key is locating and adapting the ideas of others. Adapt online lesson ideas to expand your teaching materials.
At the Historical Thinking Matters website, student investigators watch a short movie that introduces a question, explore text annotations and media clips, and answer guided questions to practice skills in sourcing, contextualizing, close reading, and corroborating.
Apply their approach to your own primary source materials.
Teacher Blogs
You don't have time to look for resources, find someone who does. Then, follow their blog.
Teacher Blogs
- General: Social Studies Alive
- Economics: Economics Educators (economics comic) Aplia
- History: American History Blog, A History Teacher, History Tech, Speaking of History, Teaching Civil War with Technology, The History Teacher's Attic, History is Elementary, Social Studies and History Teacher's Blog, Mr. D's Neighborhood, US History Teachers Blog, World History Teachers Blog, Copy/Paste, US Government Teachers Blog, Valuing Economics, Living the Dream
Major Starting Points
Rather than Googling your topic. Spend some time mining the best educational sites in social studies.
- BBC History
- Digital History
- History Matters
- Historical Thinking Matters
- Internet Modern History Sourcebook
- Library of Congress: Teachers
- National Archives: Education
- Stanford History Education Group
- Teaching American History
- Teaching History
- TwHistory
- World History Matters
- World History Sources
Primary Sources Blogs
Links to Social Studies Resources
- Best of History Websites
- Finding Dulcinea: Social Studies
- Free Federal Resources
- Sweet Search: Social Studies
Learning About Historical Investigation
- HSI Historical Scene Investigation
- Making Sense of Evidence from History Matters - analysis tools
History Project Tools
- Primary Access - moviemaker, storyboard maker, rebus maker
Document-based Lessons
- Stanford History Education Group - 42 lessons in US curriculum & 15 lessons in world history
Teacher Resources: PBS Social Studies (filter by topic), EDSITEment , Thinkfinity, National Geographic
- Economics: Econoclass, Econedlink, The Economist
- History: Smithsonian's History Explorer
Student Resources: National Geographic Magazine, FactCheck.org
- Government: NPR: Politics
- Law: Avalon Project
- US History: Ad Access
- World History: BBC History of the World, History Channel
Primary Source Lesson Plans
- Bio-Graph: Graphing Life Events
http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=1021 - The Campaign of 1840: The Campaign
http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=556 - A Case Study: The Unemployment Rate June 1, 2007
http://www.econedlink.org/lessons/index.php?lesson=EM219&page=teacher - Childhood Through the Looking-Glass
http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=286
- Colonial Broadsides and the American Revolution
http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=390 - Decades Mural Project (Grades 5-8)
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/content/2057/ - Documenting the American South: Classroom Resources
http://docsouth.unc.edu/classroom/lessonplans/lessonplan_titles.html - Drop Me Off In Harlem (Grades 9-12)
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/content/3268/ - GeoGenerations
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/activities/17/geogen.html - Graffiti Wall: Discussing and Responding to Literature Using Graphics (Grades 9-12)
http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=208 - Historical Treasure Chests
http://www.k12science.org/curriculum/treasure/index.html - Images of the New World
http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=714 - Introducing Each Other: Interviews, Memoirs, Photos, and Internet Research (Grades 6-8)
http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=17 - Life in the Floating World: Ukiyo-e Prints and the Rise of the Merchant Class in Edo Period Japan (Grades 9-12)
http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=611 - Metaphorical Gold: Mining the Gold Rush for Stories (Grades 6-8)
http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=433
- Mexican Culture and History through Its National Holidays (Grades 6-8)
http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=740
- Not 'Indians,' Many Tribes: Native American Diversity (Grades 3-5)
http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=324 - Primary Resources Lessons from Library of Congress
http://memory.loc.gov/learn/start/prim_sources.html - Slave Narratives: Constructing U.S. History Through Analyzing Primary Sources (Grades 3-5)
http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=364 - Teaching with Documents
http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/ - Tell a Migration Story… With Interviews (Grades K-12)
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/activities/09/interviewing.html - Thomas Edison’s Inventions in the 1900s and Today: From “New” to You!
http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=408 - Understanding and Using Primary and Secondary Sources in History
http://www.americanhistory.si.edu/starspangledbanner/pdf/SSB_Sources_6_8.pdf - Using Pictures to Build Schema for Social Studies Content (Grades 3-5)
http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=1059 - Voices of the American Revolution (Grades 9-12)
http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=423 - What Portraits Reveal (Grades 9-12)
http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=255 - What is History? Timelines and Oral Histories
http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=406 - What’s in a Picture? An Introduction to Subject in the Visual Arts (Grades 9-12)
http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=621
Organizing Professional Resources
You can waste a lot of time surfing. Mine the best, first.
Wiki or Website Builders: Wikispaces, Google Sites, Weebly
Concept Mapping: Spiderscribe
Examples:
- Mr. Clavin's American History Class - Googlesites
- Mr. Chase's Government Class - wikispaces
- Native American Boarding Schools - spiderscribe
Go to the Spartan Guides Lib Guide. Notice how it's organized. Do a search at LibGuides for your class such as "American History."
Try It!
What professional resource sites do you use?
How do you organize your access to these resources?
Personal Collections
Use your own personal collection and local collections. They help provide context. Students also enjoy the personal connection.
Try It!
View the Layton Roller Mills Float photo. What do you know? What do you wonder? Learn more about the Layton Roller Mills. By the way, the photo was taken in 1897.
Try It!
Personal primary source materials are the most fun. Can you guess who these people are? Where are they and what are they doing? The photo below shows my grandfather, great grandmother, and great-great grandmother.
Try It!
Discuss a strategy for getting started.
What materials do you already have?
What do you need?
How will you organize for yourself and your students?
Resources
Holt, Tom (1990). Thinking Historically. The College Board.
Mandell, Nikki & Malone, Bobbie (2008). Thinking Like a Historian: Rethinking History Instruction. Preview Available: http://books.google.com/books?id=b0sEof09o7YC
Presnell, Jenny (2012). The Information Literate Historian. Oxford University Press.
Schmoker, Michael (2011). Focus: Elevating the Essentials to Radically Improve Students Learning. ASCD. Preview: http://books.google.com/books?id=rwGPsVZxUusC&printsec=frontcover
Stearns, P., Seixas, P, Wineburg, S (Eds.) (2000). Knowing, Teaching and Learning History: National and International Perspectives. NYU Press.
Wineburg, Sam (2001). Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts. Temple University Press.
Wyman, Richard M. (2005). America's History through Young Voices. Pearson.