And the research says . . .

Key, L. (2010). Stimulating Instruction in Social Studies. The Social Studies, 101(3), 117-120.

Because literacy is such an integral part of social studies and can sometimes have technical vocabulary that makes student comprehension difficult, Key et. al discuss in their article "Stimulating Instruction in Social Studies" three strategies that social studies teachers can implement pre-reading, during reading, and post-reading to enhance student engagement and comprehension in content texts. All three strategies include a graphic organizer: 1)magnet summaries help students understand key vocabulary terms and how they relate to the main ideas; 2) history memory bubbles held students understand cause/effect and problem/solution relationships in history; 3) data charts help students organize information while reading.

It is true that social studies is filled with very complex vocabulary that is sometime abstract and hard to understand or that varies in context, like the word revolution. These strategies are great to help promote comprehension and student interest in social studies content literacy. Beyond the textbook, which gives breadth but not the underlying story, perspective, opinions that interest students, the article also talks about helping students to understand how best to read and think about all things written including maps, primary source documents, books, newspapers, photos, and so on. The article also provided really good examples of "think-alouds" or modelling and scaffolding that can be done to help students practice these strategies.

Hall, L.A. (2011). How Popular Culture Texts Inform and Shape Students' Discussions of Social Studies Texts. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 55(4), 296-305.

This pop culture article discusses how students use pop culture to inform and shape their understanding of social studies texts. It discusses three ways in which students do this. After being taught reading/comprehension strategies of metacognition, making and checking predictions, activating prior knowledge, and asking, revising, and answering questions, students 1) applied these comprehension strategies to pop culture to interpret social studies texts, 2) would use pop culture as valid and reliable pieces of information to support arguments about the text, and 3) would use pop culture to silence and shut down arguemtns of the text and alternative ideas posed by classmates. The article then discusses the importance of pop culture in student learning and the teachers’ role in teaching students about using critical media literacy.

The examples given shocked me as to how much students, and I myself, use pop culture to interpret social studies texts. I was also chocked that pop culture was taken as always valid over academic texts. As a teacher, I am going to use popular culture in my classroom and encourage my students to do so, but we are going to applu critical literacy so we understand the biases, purposes, and views left out of the pop culture. Often the article talked about the silencing of women’s roles through popular culture. This used in conjunction with academic texts and using “regular, thoughtful, and systematic planning” can help me push students to think about what they are reading and how pop culture and academic texts connect in ways to improved them as readers and learners of social studies content. They can have access to texts that challenge and empower them.

Crowe, A.R. (2010). “What’s Math Got To Do With it?”: Numeracy and Social Studies Education. The Social Studies. 101(3), 105-110.

This math article takes about numeracy (also known as quantitative literacy) and its importance in social studies classrooms in creating active citizens. The article talks about four different ways that social studies teachers can teach their students to become numerically literate: 1) understanding raw numeric data in context (ie 2 billion vs. 76 million), 2) understanding percentages in context (ie. Population growths), 3) understanding the meaning of average (mean and median), and 4) interpreting and questioning graphs and charts. By teaching social studies students these statistical skills in regards to social studies, teachers will equip students with the skills they need to understand economic data, scientific/medical information, polling data, and beyond needed to be informed and well spoken members of society.

This article just reminded me that there are sooo many different ways to be literate. It was true that I never learned math in high school beyond college algebra and the school push to get students taking math classes in calculus and trig will not help them with the statistical knowledge needed to interpret historical political, or economic data. As a history teacher and hopefully an informed citizen, I have numeracy and that I can teach my students to be numerically literate. It would be great to work collaboratively, across content with a math teacher to accomplish this goal as well. My goal as a history teacher is to create an informed citizenry. If I don’t help them with numeracy (previously thought as only a math literacy as reading is with English classes) they will not be those informed citizens. It also helped me realize that to teach them this, I need to develop my numeric literacy.