Entries Tagged as 'Literacy in Social Studies'

Using Historical Fiction Picture Books Part Two

December 7, 2011 · 1 Comment · Common Core Standards, Disciplinary Literacy, history, learning, literacy, Literacy in Social Studies, Picture, Picture Books, reading, Reading and Writing Enrichment, Reading Comprehension, reflecting, social studies

In the Article “Comprehension Strategies for Reading Historical Fiction Picturebooks” by Suzette Youngs and Frank Serafini in The Reading Teacher, October 2011 the authors offer suggestions for moving readers from the literal details to the interpretive assertions.  Yesterdays post focused on the considerations for using historical fiction picture books.

I think consideration must be given to teaching the teacher before teaching students from the transition from literal to interpretive assertions.  To a certain degree the teacher must own the content or have a clear understanding of the content before moving further.  With inquiring minds of all ages (teacher included) we hope the multimodal text will plant a seed in the learners head to inquire further. At the completion of the reading- pre, during, and post- I would hope the book would help the reader form an emotional attachment with the book. The article by Youngs and Serafini offers three strategies:

 

Phase I: Previewing, Noticing, and Naming

As readers approach a picturebook, we encourage them to focus on these elements or thoughts>

  • What visual and design features do you notice?
  • How do the visual, textual, and design modes relate to one another?
  • What did the illustrator, author, and publisher include in the peritext?
  • What type of historical fiction might this be?
  • Focus attention to Historical fiction as a Genre. Are they aware of different examples of historical fiction? I suggest keeping a chart somewhere in your room of different historical fiction books you have read and be able to talk about what they notice in the differences.
    • o   fictionalized memoirs
    • o   fictionalized family histories and stories
    • o   fiction based on research
  •  Essential Questions to Ask When Reading Historical Fiction
    • ·         Is this true? How much is this true?
    • ·         How can we distinguish between fact from fiction?
    • ·         How do the authors know?
    • ·         How much of it happened like this?
    • ·         How can the auto rote help to construct meaning?
    • ·         What type of historic fiction is this?
    • ·         How do the illustration and the text work together?
  • Attention to Visual and Textual Elements
    • ·         What did you notice about the cover, back cover, title page, end pages.
    • ·         What did you notice visual and design elements of the picturebook”
    • ·         By allowing readers to determine what is important by focusing on what they notice, teachers can shift the focus of the discussion to what matters to their readers. (Youngs, 2011)
  • During this first read-aloud, we take note of the balance between narrative and factual elements, how color is used throughout the text to suggest moods and themes, how characters are portrayed in the written text and images, how the story unfolds and how it makes us feel, and other narrative features such as setting, character, plot, and resolution. By focusing readers’ attention on the visual, textual, and design elements of the picturebook, we establish a foundation for readers to move from attending to the visual and verbal features of a picturebook to the interpretation of these elements. (Youngs, 2011)

Phase II: Moving Beyond Noticing to Interpretation

  • Read the book a second time!
  • Invite readers to consider the meaning potential of various visual and textual elements embedded within the picturebook and how these individual elements contribute to the story as a whole.
  • Help the learners pay attention the one telling the story and their perspective.
  • Help the learners pay attention to how the image is framed, the setting of the image or illustration. Framing is a way illustrators invite viewers into an image or distance them from what is being presented.
  • Character-reader relationship- A technique that illustrators use to develop a relationship between the character and viewer is called demand and offer. When a character in an image or illustration makes direct contact with the viewer, this is called demand and when a character looks at other characters or objects within the image, it is called an offer. (Youngs, 2011, p. 120) Demand offers the reader an interactive role and demands the attention of the reader where as an offer does not bring the reader into a direct relationship with the character. Rather these scenes and actions serve as information for the reader to consider. The author and illustrator works together to create a relationship between the reader and the characters and events in the story. (Youngs, 2011, pp. 120-121) This is an important position to consider in the genre of historical fiction.

Phase III: Moving Beyond Interpretation to Critical Analysis

What happens in the phase depends on the background knowledge readers bring to the text and the intention of the books use in the content area. Let me point out whether one is using historical fiction or another type of fiction the three phases need to be taught along the continuum of early and intermediate literacy stages. The more background knowledge learners have prior to reading the picture book, will help them assume a critical stance.  This path must be modeled and taught.  The path is a forward movement from early literacy to intermediate literacy and the higher level would be disciplinary literacy.  Important considerations include:

  • Many historical fiction picture book illustrators draw on cultural, political, and social symbols to make inter-textual connections within the illustrations and to other visual images. (Youngs, 2011)
  • Here are some open ended questions that will promote this type of thinking”
    • o   Whose view of history is being presented in the book?
    • o    How are historical characters portrayed?
    • o   What systems of power and social issues are being challenged?
    • o   Whose view is privileged in the telling of the story?
    • o   What has been left out of the story?
    • o   How do the images presented affect the readers’ interpretations?
  • Visual Symbol Analysis: “Illustrators of historical fiction picturebooks often embed historical images within their illustrations. Analysis of these images requires readers to construct an image as a historical symbol, to place the image within its original historical context, and to make intertextual connections between the book being read and the embedded image. Anstey and Bull (2006) referred to the use of intertextuality and described it as “the ways one text might draw on or resemble the characteristics of another causing the consumer of the text to make links between them” (p. 30).” (Youngs, 2011, pp. 121-122)
  • Placement of Characters within an Illustration- How the character is placed in the illustration carries additional meaning to the whole text. It tells us lots about the characters social standing and power structures with other characters. Characters placed at the top of the image are given higher social status or power compared to those place near the bottom of the pictures. Characters placed side by side might be entering into an adventure  (Youngs, 2011, pp. 122-123). Other questions to consider:
    • o   What might the spatial relationship suggest?  (Youngs, 2011, pp. 122-123) How might we interpret the placement of characters or objects on the page and throughout the book?  (Youngs, 2011, pp. 122-123) Who or what is privileged in the various images?  (Youngs, 2011, pp. 122-123)
    • o   What systems of power are represented? (Youngs, 2011, pp. 122-123) (We must teach learners to take a critical stance of various images and symbols represented in historical fiction picture books) (Youngs, 2011, p. 122)

These strategies presented by Youngs and Serefini need to be considered as we prepare our learners for the real world. This framework can better prepare teachers for using historical fiction or any fictional picture book in the content curriculum.  It serves as a guide, but should help to focus on the teacher how picture book could be possibly used. I think it is important the teacher understand the framework so that parts as necessary can be modeled and taught to all learners.

Bibliography

Piercy, T. a. (2011). Disciplinary Literacyq. Englewood, Colorada: Lead and Learn Press.

Youngs, S. a. (2011). Comprehension Strategies for Reading Historical Fiction Picture Book. The Reading Teacher , 115-124.

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Using Historical Fiction Picture Books Part One

December 6, 2011 · 2 Comments · Common Core Standards, history, learning, literacy, Literacy in Social Studies, Picture Books, Reading and Writing Enrichment, Reading Comprehension

In the Article “Comprehension Strategies for Reading Historical Fiction Picturebooks” by Suzette Youngs and Frank Serafini in The Reading Teacher, October 2011 along with other important notes struck a chord with me: “Cognitively based reading comprehension strategies (e.g., predicting, summarizing, visualizing) often focus exclusively on written text. However, picture books and many other texts that readers encounter in their daily lives are now dominated by visual images Therefore, comprehending the visual images and design elements presented in historical fiction picture books require developing a new set of strategies in addition to the strategies used for comprehending written text alone.”

I love historical fiction picture book and I have a growing collection as more and more are being published. I have used picture books across all curriculum area to supplement both social studies and ELA content.  I used picture book as mentor text in classroom writing workshops and I continue to use them in professional development classes as well.

The article pushed my thinking in new ways about using quality picture books in teaching and learning. I have held a strong belief that picture books are a great way to help bridge connections to the content being taught in content subjects especially history. Pictures, images, and designs features enhances our understanding of the world today just by the way they are presented and used on a daily basis on billboards, TV, Internet, Theater, and other mediums in public places.  In historical picture books they help the readers to make sense of historical events and concepts. In a way picture books are the pre-Madonna of today’s literacy. Picture books helps teachers and students take complex issues, events, and concepts and helps readers bridge a connection for future learning.   We use picture books across the curriculum to supplement social studies content, present complex historical concepts and promote critical discussions. (Youngs, 2011, p. 116)

“Cognitively based readi(Youngs, 2011, p. 116)ng comprehension strategies (e.g., predicting, summarizing, visualizing) often focus exclusively on written text. However, picturebooks and many other texts that readers encounter in their daily lives are now dominated by visual images (Kress, 2003). Therefore, comprehending the visual images and design elements presented in historical fiction picturebooks requires developing a new set of strategies in addition to the strategies used for comprehending written text alone (Serafini, 2005, 2010; Youngs, 2010).” (Youngs, 2011, p. 116)

A picture book brings a unique experience beyond the text, but not so unique when you think about the digital media that all our youth are exposed to beginning at birth.  Beginning with early literacy, picture book use in different areas of the curriculum should expose readers to making meaning of the story or the informational message beyond the text.  Early literacy places lots of instruction based on a text environment. Early literacy and intermediate literacy focuses lots of efforts on skills such as main idea, supporting details, predicting, summarizing).  Unfortunately literacy instruction has prepared students for the multiple choice test.

Very little pedagogical attention has been places on visual system at all grade levels and that poses a new challenge for teachers.  Picture books brings a multimodal system that needs to be understood , modeled, and taught so student will fully comprehend the text.

Below are some considerations for using historical picture books:

  • Teachers must take the time to fully understand the content that is being presented through the picture book.  What part of the book is fiction? Many historical fiction books provide additional background knowledge on the event, time period, person, or conflict and provide information what is fact and fiction. The danger is the teacher not knowing and not discussing this with students.
  • “Historical fiction picturebooks are challenging because many readers lack historical background knowledge, are not familiar with the genre, and are inexperienced with the language specific to the historical era.” (Youngs, 2011)
  • The teachers needs to have some understanding of the context of the text and images presented. Are the images accurate of the time period?  The context affects how we will view the text (including all multimodal pieces of the text) and it will affect how we respond. In understanding the context, we must consider the background knowledge. Our goal with a picture book might be to help students to piece together a context for understanding the content that they must learn. We are helping them to piece together clues that will them build a larger picture around the things we what them to learn. It is valuable to know that Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was given during a critical phrase of the Civil War. It was given at the dedication of the cemetery for fallen soldiers after the most critical battle of that war. (Piercy, 2011, pp. 77, 80)
  •  The teacher must focus on text. I am including the design, pictures, images, and print for the meaning of text. Here we must focus on the fabric of the communication. What is the author‘s message? That is determined by how she wishes to communicate it including text style, design, images, pictures, use of blank spaces, etc. Consideration must be given to the audience and the intended imagery of the reader’s imagination.  Think closely about how commercials are designed and the audiences they are intended.
  •  This focus on the literary aspects of picturebooks and the lack of pedagogical attention to visual systems of meaning present serious challenges to teachers at a time when image has begun to dominate the lives of their students . This may be due to the fact that multimodal texts other than picturebooks have not been as prominent a feature in the instructional framework of today’s reading programs as they are in the lives of the students for which the curriculum was intended. If teachers are going to be able to help children make sense of the visual images and written language of multimodal texts, they need to first be able to analyze and comprehend these multimodal texts themselves. (Youngs, 2011) The use of tablets and eReaders are posing new challenges are they are being introduced into the classrooms. Reading on-line requires a different a different set of reading skills that are different from reading from one medium. Picture books offer a way to introduce different reading comprehension strategies.

 

Bibliography

Piercy, T. a. (2011). Disciplinary Literacyq. Englewood, Colorada: Lead and Learn Press.

Youngs, S. a. (2011). Comprehension Strategies for Reading Historical Fiction Picture Book. The Reading Teacher , 115-124.

 

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Literacy in Social Studies: Sentence-Phrase-Word

December 4, 2011 · 3 Comments · Literacy in Social Studies

We should get students to read during history class or any content class. With the resources that of massive amount of text at our finger tips, the Internet is a jewel for finding articles, primary source documents, images, etc. that connect to anything we are studying. When students are asked to read during history class, it is my job to scaffold the text for those struggling readers and promote even higher thinking to the other readers on the opposite end of the spectrum and to those in the middle.  I take the same considerations when asking teachers to read during professional development workshops. I like to give the text in print along with different colored highlighters and different size sticky notes.  By December my students would have ample time to practice using these tools.

Prior to reading the text I will make sure I do activities to build background knowledge. That is a key to successful reading experience prior to reading the text.  As students read, I encourage them to highlight significant sentences and phrases. Significant meaning they think it is important to remember. 

Second, I have them write a sentence that was meaningful to them (individually) that they felt captures the core idea of the text or a sentence that was meaningful to you and helped you
gain a deeper understanding of the text; a phrase that moved, engaged, provoked, or was in some way meaningful to them; and a word that has either captured their attention or struck them as powerful.  Each learner’s experience will be reflected in the choice of word, phrase, and sentence. There is no correct answer.  Then  I have the group transfer their sentence, phrase, or word in to a chart that will eventually be posted in the room.

Third, each student in the group shares his/her sentence, phrase, and word and explain why it was selected. The first person begins, share her sentence, phrase, or word, why she chose it, and invites the each member of the group to comment and discuss. The goal is to foster discussion while drawing attention to the power of the language used. Students must justify their choices and all this leads to a deeper understanding of the text. The discussion and the sentence-phrase-share scaffold the learning for all learner’s abilities.

Fourth, I ask each group facilitator to post the their charts in strategic places around the room. The class now takes a silent purposeful walk around the room reading each groups chart. I like to ask them to put a check mark beside the sentence, phrase, and word after they have read it. No talking is aloud and once everyone is back at their seats, we move into a discussion.

Fifth, but first, I ask them to think about any common themes that emerged from the responses and then implications and/or predictions that may be suggested. I ask them to think about any aspects of the text that were not represented in the collaborative choice of sentences, phrases, and words.  Then we begin a Socratic discussion. (think, share, whole class). I chart their responses to document their thinking.

Finally, they open their journals write about what they learned.

I leave the charts around the room and the thinking chart I created from the group discussion.  Documented thinking lives everywhere in my classroom.

Conclusion

There are many variations could be used with this discussion strategy. I like using it with picture books where they have to think about the picture before reading the text.

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Moving toward a literacy action model- social studies

December 4, 2011 · 4 Comments · 21st Century Literacies, Disciplinary Literacy, Literacy in Social Studies, social studies

Literacy in Action: 

In my November 3 post I wrote about the continuous raw data that flows through Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, forums, and other social media tools. When we look at the data, we have to put in place filters to understand the information that is being presented.  As we look at the data being presented, we have to think a different way in order to understand the message that is being communicated.

Teaching social studies today is a literacy act that expands greater than a lecture and watching a PowerPoint Presentation.  We can’t just capture the imagination of the learners in the classroom by just telling stories and saying we taught a social studies or history lesson.  The lessons from social studies go beyond collecting names, dates, and summaries of important historical events. Today this information in history is a click away.  Those born in this century and those who have embraced digital and social media are leaving specific footprints that can be studies by professional and amateur historian for decades and centuries to come.  We will leave behind a legacy of detailed life events of thoughts, opinions, and timelines of life’s events.

As we teach kids about social media we have to embrace the idea that we are all capable of being amateur journalist. Since we have that capacity, we must rethink the purpose of social studies instruction. Social Studies must transcend itself to an action model- literacy in action model of learning social studies. The focus of instruction should be to teach kids how to think critically about the past and the present events that unfold very quickly through social media, television, and/or other media. We live in a world that we each have the ability to write and contribute raw data that will make be used to assess events.  Today’s youth learn about world and local events through social media unlike the people from the past century who depended on television, newspaper, and radio.

For example, we have a free encyclopedia that is researched, written, cited, revised, and edited by the people of the world. Wikipedia has transformed how information is shared and transformed how a crowd of people who care contribute to an accurate history of the world. Everyone can contribute. Everyone can add an article as long as it meets a certain criteria.  And if doesn’t meet the criteria and is found not to be accurate, the people will come along and fix or they delete. Wikipedia is no fly by night encyclopedia. It must be taken serious by academia. It works because the people feel compelled to participate for the common good of society.  The people who offer their service to Wikipedia know how to apply filters to make sure what is being shared is most accurate. There job is not to convince other that an event, person, or place really happened but report the work accurately without biased. This means we all can be amateur historians and contribute to the common good to help with the betterment of society.

We must think in terms of transforming our instruction to meet the changes in our economy, global society which we live, the participatory society which we live, and the change roles of jobs and the work place in our world. The teaching of social studies must resemble a literacy in action model. History and social studies is a discipline of inquiry and analysis. “Doing History” is an active process of asking good question about the past and the present, finding and analyzing sources, and drawing conclusions supported by the evidence. And “doing history/social studies” is a literacy process.

 

“Doing history/social studies” requires literacy skills beyond the basic and the intermediate literacy stage.  Social Student by the sixth grade should begin applying disciplinary literacy skills in order to apply disciplinary literacy. Doing history requires learner to apply filters to people, events, and places in history to draw inferences. “The familiar past entices us with the promise that we can locate our own place in the stream of time and solidify our identity in the present. By tying our own stories to those who have come before us, the past becomes a useful resource in our everyday life, an endless storehouse of raw materials to be shaped or bent to our present needs.” (Piercy, 2011, p. 77) We have been told that history is a large body of indisputable facts about people, places, laws, wars, events, and dates (Mandell, 2007)

“Doing history/social studies” requires a literacy action. We must question what historians look for in a text, the information they seek to filter, and how they use what they infer/discover to share with an audience.  They use this to build an historical interpretation. Piercy and Piercy offers a Four-Stage Model of Text Investigation as medium of filtering. The model includes these four levels: context, text, and two subtexts: impersonal and personal.

First, historian view acts of writing as acts of speaking. In this writing (this blog post), contains my voice and it is my “speech act” in terms of text in this digital space.  My speech act is my communication- my voice and my thoughts and experiences and everything else that has affected my thinking. What I say here affects how you view the text. The context of my writing affects how you view the text. My voice in my writing may help you ignore how horribly I write and ignore the grammatical errors I seem to frequently make.

In other words, the context in this writing is based on me as an individual that includes what I know, think, and believe, what I am learning, how I view things, my personal biases, persuasive language and my experiences in life. The text is the speech act, the word on the page. Therefore, whatever you know about me affects how you view the text on the page and you will adapt your response accordingly.

Subtext- Impersonal and Personal: This writing was produced by me to fulfill a certain purpose or plan (impersonal subtext). Whether I accomplished that or not depends on what you think my personal motives and intentions include (personal subtext) and the personal subtext will have an effect on what you take away from reading this post.

We must take another look at the importance of social studies and how the understanding of literacy fits not only in pedagogical practices but a part of the teaching content. History/Social Studies is an action model of learning.

 

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Why is Social Studies Text So Difficult to Read?

December 3, 2011 · 4 Comments · learning, literacy, Literacy in Social Studies

Social Studies textbooks are usually boring! They are often not a good fit for our learners today. Students feel that the study of old events and dead people have little relevance in their lives. Students find little emotional connections when events, facts, timelines, and dead people are taught. Too often historical topics are taught with little context of how past events and historical figures are related today’s issues. Too often old events are discussed more frequently than what is happening in the world today. I found this list in the book written by Donna Olge, Ron Klemp, and Bill McBride, Building Literacy in Social Studies, and thought it was worth sharing since I need it for research I am doing. Below are factors that affect the readability of social studies text and other informational texts:

• Students must have prior knowledge about the concepts. Prior knowledge is key reading comprehension and engagement with the text.

• SS text covers a large amount of texts. A fifth grade SS book in SS covers US History from 1860- present day.

• Teachers feel pressured to cover material quickly and superficially.

• The text covers a great deal of academic vocabulary- lots of content specific terminology specific to history or government.

• Students who come from minority population may feel disengaged from a country’s history or politics.

• Social Studies texts, tests, and standards often require students to analayze and synthesize much information. This is a skill that may not have been taught and content teachers have the assumptions students in earlier grades were taught this skill.

• Students have limited ability to understand and summarize the literal narrative of a SS text related to student’s age and reading ability.

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Ramblings about Literacy and Blogging

December 2, 2011 · No Comments · Blogging, Common Core Standards, connective writing, Content-Area Writing, Digital Literacies, learning, literacy, Literacy in Social Studies

I can only write about blogging from my point of view and what I have learned about the bloggers that I follow in my Google Reader and blog post that are recommended through my Twitter feed. In some ways I feel uncomfortable writing about it here, but after reading posts at Langwitches about the posts related to Learning about Blogs for Your Students here and here I began to wonder how I would address blogging in my Literacy in Social Studies series. Foremost, I am all about encouraging more writing in all content area and any form of writing to learn. Writing is our visible thinking and we must find ways to make thinking and learning more visible to get our learners to think critically!

I am not an advocate of a blog being another writing assignment for students to check off! If a blog were to work in a classroom, the teacher must have invested quiet a bit of time learning about blogs:

  • Reading other blogs. I suggest picking four or five blogs and follow over several months. Make comments to blog posts. Pay attention to their writing style, voice, the links, the images and other comments that are left behind.
  • Embrace blogging by blogging. Don’t just jump into! Feel comfortable by following other bloggers who have like minds as you do. Don’t feel like you have to be a perfect writer! Just write and give yourself permission to write terribly, but keep writing. Through time you will get better. Forcing one to blog to become a small piece of the conversation that is so important. It has great benefits for the one doing the writing.

Learning is not about right or wrong, rather, it is discovering what you love, searching for more and creating with what you are learning along the way. Blogging has allowed me to discover my own voice, dabble in collaboration, reflect then make changes in my own practice and share my love of teaching and learning with others.

Using a blog in a history classroom must be about learning and  a teacher using a blog with her students must be willing to be the role model in taking the learner into a deeper learning experience that is way more personal.

With Common Core Standards on our coattails, we know how important writing has become in the global world, which we live. Amateur bloggers will tell you how blogging shaped their writing voice. It allowed me to move past the shy writer that lives deep within me to a more confident and brave voice.

Blogging is about sharing. Sharing is the heart of what a blogger does. Another thing at the heart of blogging is the question(s) or wondering that drives the blogger.  We often don’t reveal those questions in our writing and sometimes the blogger can’t make that identity as well.  Questions, curiosity, and wonderings drive our learning and it drives us to the things that are important to us.

When one thinks about early literacy and intermediate literacy instruction (prevalent in K-5) you tend to think that kids are pushed to the higher level of blooms in reading instruction. In early reading instruction kids learn to put stories in order by the way they occur in the story- basically through rote memorization.  Teachers tend to spend more time on questions that require the regurgitation of the facts. Students have trouble recalling story elements but easily remember  actions and outcomes ,and they tend to struggle with the emotional and/or psychological aspects of a story. We tend to do the same thing with writing instruction especially teaching the perfect paragraph with a topic sentence, three supporting details, and a conclusion.  I wander if this is not the reason student struggle with writing because they don’t have enough time to think, digest, question, and wonder about the different aspects of story. They don’t have enough time dealing with the social, emotional, and psychological aspects of the story. And do you students have enough role models in this process?

For what ever reason we spend little time with the higher level of blooms questioning- the what if, the why, thinking beyond, creation, etc.  We don’t seem to value this in early stages of literacy, but it is the most important area to develop thinkers our of young learners. If we don’t value it here, we are not going to value it with writing.  We should be putting more time in this area. CCS calls that we do this! CCS will demand teacher rethink teaching practices for early learners.

We can’t let the excuse be that Johnny is a poor reader. We have to do better in building pre reading experiences. We have to offer every student challenging text to read.  Then we have to take what the kids are learning and help them visibly show what their learning through writing. Model! Model! Model!

Writing is  the heart of reading instruction. From pictures to words to sentences to paragraphs, we must insist that thinking become visible. Once are thinking is visible we can possibly begin thinking about making their visible thought in a blog. This happens once they are able to move to writing complete sentences and paragraphs.

 

I hope in the weeks to come to write more about making thinking visibly.

 

Thanks

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Teaching the Right Skills-

November 30, 2011 · No Comments · Literacy in Social Studies, Miscellaneous

This article appeared in ASCD Edge titled Teaching the Right Skills For a New Age: Inquiry Based Instruction. As we think and prepare for the Common Core Standards, we have to wonder will the standards by themselves do enough. Below are highlights of the post by Elliott Seif.

  • · Even with the Common Core standards, our current educational emphases aren’t adequately preparing most students for learning beyond high school – for college, career, military or other future endeavors. The huge shift will have to be with instruction. CCS by itself will not make a huge difference. I am concerned what big textbook companies will do with CCS.
  • Five key skill areas should be given a laser-like focus in order to prepare students for continuous learning in this new age: 100% agreement with each of the five key skill areas.
  • Asking questions, formulating problems and challenges.
  • Imagine studying the American Revolution by enabling students to brainstorm questions and choose (with the teacher’s input) to examine some profound and critical questions, such as “Why revolution, not evolution”? “Did they really have to revolt?” or “Is war ever justified?”. Wow! This is very important! School should provide this opportunity for all students.
  • Processing Information
  • to learn a broad variety of skills appropriate for a world of information overload and instant access.
  • evaluate information for reliability, read for understanding, and summarize, categorize, and conceptualize from texts. Literacy that should be expected in all content areas. Reading should be a part of classroom instruction in all content areas and teachers must be able to teach these skills as it relate to their discipline.
  •   Thinking deeply and flexibly
  • opportunity to extend their thinking – for example, to compare and contrast, interpret, apply, infer, analyze, synthesize, and think creatively
  • Drawing conclusions, applying learning
  • Students draw conclusions, solve problems, make decisions, and answer key questions. They are often asked to apply learning to new and novel situations, problems, and issues. Students should be provided multiple opportunities through out the school year in each content are to have these opportunities.
  • Communicating effectively. This includes speaking, debating, and arguements
  • All subjects and content areas, such as literature, history, science, engineering, mathematics, health and physical education, the arts, and foreign languages, become the vehicle through which these skills are continuously taught, learned, and developed in their complexity over time. This is a huge shift of thinking. Have the complete mind shift.
  • The teaching of these skills starts in pre-school, as students are encouraged to ask questions about the world around them, observe pictures, discuss books that are read to them, play in ways that encourage analysis, and so on. As students progress through the grades, they focus learning around critical and essential questions. Early grades are the years where the learner develops brain pathways/structures/networks for future learning. How many kids will look back at K-5 and think about completing worksheets and spelling test?
  • Discipline based and interdisciplinary thematic projects are a core part of the learning
  • ·As they use these skills, they also learn the attitudes and behaviors they will need for future learning, such as curiosity, collaboration, perseverance, learning from failure, risk-taking, striving for accuracy, and learning how to improve their work. This is why this is so important in the early years of education and it must remain constant until the child leave formal education.

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Let’s make it real! Literacy in Social Studies

November 29, 2011 · 3 Comments · learning, literacy, Literacy in Social Studies, reading, Reading Comprehension

I can count on one hand the things I remember learning in history. I learned that in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue, that there was once a thing called slavery and it was abolished, that there have been several wars and battles, For me history was a lot of dates, strange names, places, and events presented as points on a line. The goal of history was to memorize all of these facts and dates, recite them on a test, and repeat the process the following week. Sadly, that was about it. It wasn’t until adulthood until I started listening to stories that were told by my father and other local historians. My dad told me a few stories of his time in WWII and I always wanted to hear more. He was not willing to share too much and I never figured that out until I read Tom Brokaw’s book The Greatest Generation. And then their was my introduction to the History Channel and I was fascinated because they told stories that included emotions of people in wars and other historical events. Then I found history interesting and less about a textbook with important dates and facts. History became engaging when it was presented as a story. It really isn’t about all of the dates, places, and facts. History is about people. History is about story. Students need more than the loosely connected events, people, and dates that fill history textbooks. They need narrative. Textbook writers are boring, history is not. I never had the opportunity to read about first hand events until my adult life. It was about the emotions, the aftermath, the effects on human life.

As I am thinking about history, I began to wonder about the teaching of reading comprehension in the ELA classroom. I was a student in public school between 1964-1978. I am old. In those days the teaching of reading was boiled down to completing series of worksheets and reading in the basal was about reading in round robin and answering questions at the lowest level of Blooms. I don’t remember ever spending much time talking about literature at the emotional and social level and the creative level of discussion. Public school forced me to hate reading! It forced me to hate history! History then was something written in the textbook and the facts, events, and people. It was never about the what if, the imaginative thinking, the emotional side, and so much more.

I fear that in the teaching of reading comprehension in the early grades teacher have not changed very much from the time I was in public school. Reading has moved in some degree past the worksheet factory, but I still see teaching of reading comprehension as the lowest level of blooms. When we teach story line organizers, we forget all the things story lines leave out- the emotions, the social, the creative thinking, etc.

As early learners enter our K-5 classrooms, we put them on a reading level and we wait to move them until the perfect time. We have to find ways to increase the reading the complexity and with higher level reading teachers must know how to scaffold the reading so that the weakest reader will take something away from the reading. And I challenge teachers to be good role models of reading in their classrooms.

 

As we move forward with Common Core Standards, K-5 teachers are challenged/told that 50% percent of the reading must be informational text! With that in mind what a great place to bring history into the classroom. What great place to bump up reading instruction to a higher level! What a change on the horizon when K-5 teachers are told to put more emphasis on teaching math and reading and they too often put science and social studies on the shelf. If we taught reading correctly in the K-5 classroom, students would learn to love history and science and many other subjects. I breath easier that a change may be on the way!

 

And why can’t history, science, reading, writing, and math not be so boring! Let’s make it real!

 

 

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Literacy in Social Studies: KWL revisited

November 28, 2011 · 4 Comments · learning, Literacy in Social Studies

KWL Chart Revisited

It was 18 years ago that the KWL chart was introduced to me and it took me 10 years of teaching to figure out why using a KWL chart is an important thinking tool.  It was four years ago I discovered it was a thinking tool rather than a graphic organizer. I hope to encourage you to revisit your thinking of why this tool is important. A KWL chart should be used to support what students know, what they are puzzled about, and think about what they are learning.  The structure of this one tool can be helpful to help students support their own thinking during a unit of study. I want to revisit this thinking structure as thinking activity at the beginning of a unit. 

Class Action

As students enter the room and sit with their learning group, each group finds four different primary source images from the Civil War.   As the class begins, they are asked to examine one picture and write a statement related life during a war on a sticky note. Every day during history, students are use to beginning their day with some type of short quick write activity. After about three minutes, students share their picture and what they wrote with their learning group.

After I give a brief introduction to the unit on the Civil War, introduce the essential questions, and go over a handout with the content questions for the unit, I ask them to pull out the sticky notes. They have five minutes to brain storm what they know about the Civil War and any thoughts or knowledge that relates to the essential questions. They think and write silently for about five minutes and then they turn to their learning group and share. As they share they jot down new thoughts that are generated from their discussion. They put all their sticky notes on a large piece of construction paper because they know I want to see what they were thinking. They know that I will post their charts somewhere in the room.

One person from each table shares out. I encourage them to generate new thinking as they listen.

Second, I ask them to revisit and think about all they have heard. I get them to think about what they heard from the sharing that puzzled them. I have them think about questions they have about the Civil War? They have time to write the question first and then I have them make a chart of questions. 

Both charts are collected. After school I typed out all their responses about what they know and their questions along with the essential questions and content questions. The content questions are the required for minimum learning based on the state standards and ends of course test.

I use all the information to guide instruction. The instruction that follows is based on inquiry. 

As they move through the unit, we refer back to the chart and journal what we are learning. The KWL will not look like a traditional graphic organizer but the journal will capture what they are thinking along the ways.

Conclusion

Here is what you should observe happening in this scenario:

  • Thinking becomes visible and there is evidence from charts and journals.
  • Journals begin to show what they are learning.
  • Students are highly engaged. Evidence will show those students not engaged.
  • Create pathways and patterns for future engagement with the unit of study.
  • Students are writing to learn.

 

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Spanky and the Gang Revisited

November 27, 2011 · No Comments · Common Core Standards, history, Inquiry-Based Instruction, inspirational, literacy, Literacy in Social Studies

Today I was looking for a blog post I wrote on November 22, 2009.  Several things resonate with me as I read. First, the idea of using primary source documents, the student conversations, students making inferences, and the back channel conversations.

I am sitting in a fourth grade classroom sandwiched between two fourthgrade boys at pod of desks listening to an awesome interactive lectureon the first colonist to America. Eight flat desktop desks are pushed together face to face to make a working group. I am listening and enjoying the visuals Mrs. S was using and in awe with the interaction from the kids. Not only were they answering questions the teacher was posing they were sharing inferences about why the colonist came and offering insight
about their difficult life. Mrs. S wonderfully got the kids to think about the explorers as their background knowledge. I enjoyed the
conversation and how intelligently these fourth graders answered and discussed the topic. And this was their introductory lesson. The Images she used made the difference as she told stories about the people and places. This is what social studies is about! The kids enthusiasm was refreshing!

I liked most the part being on the student level in a student desk and listening to their back channel conversations. Yes, kids have those conversations as well. But in amazement they were so connected to the content being presented. The kids would make comments to me and I found myself whispering back as well with my comments. They would whisper a comment to me and I would pose a question to them. From the onset I thought how rude, but for the moment I got caught up in being one of the
fourth grade boys. I forgot about my manners and just enjoyed being a boy. I caught myself raising my hand to answer a question and quickly put it down before Mrs. S saw me (or anyone else).

The young man beside me who was the perfect Spanky from the Little Rascals was sitting there quietly. Now let me remind you that Spanky was a genious and probably knows more about history than me. Constantly he had the last say in whispers to me as Mrs. S taught.  I notice Spanky was inconspicuously eating a bag of CheZ Its from his desk. I noticed a few other kids eating so I thought it was okay; therefore, I kept my mouth closed. Moments later Spanky- my new pal- punched me in the shoulder. Holding a ChezIt in his hand and holding it toward me! “Have one! Are you hungry!” I froze in time as I starred at it because I don’t like to turn down food and the word “yes” started surfacing.  I caught myself and reality sat in again. I was back to being a classroom observer.

Later in the day I ran into Spankie  in the hallway and he stopped. “Hey, Mr. G, Isn’t Msr. S a wonderful social studies teacher! She
knows how to make learning fun!” “You know, you are right!” How amazing this kid!

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