This article details how a team of fourth-grade teachers in Rockingham County, Virginia used the Inquiry Design Model (IDM) to deepen student understanding of Barbara Johns and the Moton Student Strike's fight for racial justice in Virginia and to reframe their overall approach to Black history in general. Although Rockingham County Schools are…

Kentucky's elementary social studies curriculum includes introductory knowledge in state and national history, providing an opportunity for teachers to include instruction on the influence of slavery on society before and after the Civil War, and sometimes on current events. For example, following the violent events in 2017 in Charlottesville,…

Using narrative research as a qualitative methodology, we (two white critical whiteness scholars) tell a story about how a dismantling and rebuilding of whiteness occurred in a fourth-grade classroom across three vignettes. Using a close read of Reverend Thandeka's primer on the ways white children are socialized, we wrestle with what pedagogy…

Set amidst an increasingly tense discourse about immigration and substantial pressures on educators, this study examines a three-week fourth-grade social studies unit as taught to a class with a large number of English learners located in a low-income school in the Pacific Northwest. Using ethnographic and sociolinguistic perspectives, we provide…

This article describes a fourth grade project involving elementary students, their teachers, elementary preservice teachers, and university faculty. The project focused on a work of juvenile historical fiction, culminating in social studies lessons that were interdisciplinary. This collaboration between educators was made possible by a…

History labs invite students to examine primary and secondary source documents related to an essential question. The sources used in a history lab should represent multiple perspectives so that students are aware of the varying accounts of and opinions about historic events. By being exposed to multiple perspectives, students also learn about…

School segregation and inequity are deep-rooted realities in U.S. society. Despite historical efforts at integration, too many schools are de facto segregated, and those serving mostly students of color are routinely under-resourced when compared to those servicing mostly white students. Teachers and students can struggle to talk about this…

The Statue of Liberty has traditionally served as a symbol of freedom and liberty for citizens in the United States and around the world. Lady Liberty was often the first symbol European immigrants saw as they arrived in New York Harbor. Many of them were escaping dire conditions back home and seeking a better future for themselves and their…

Since the election of 1796, buttons, slogans, and, most importantly, symbols have become a mainstay of the American election system. The log cabin symbolized the childhoods of Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln; the sun represented hope on Barack Obama's 2008 presidential election posters. Many people without formal instruction in what symbols…

In preparation for her school's celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, Elizabeth Brown developed an integrated language arts and social studies one-week unit of study on the civil rights movement, where she reinforced reading, writing, and speaking skills. The overarching goals for the five-day lesson on Dr. King's "I Have a…

Teacher Jennifer Tyler shares her experience of creating a text set for a social studies unit on colonial America.

What would happen if social studies student used spaces marked out on the floor and physical movement to learn social studies? Would such a lesson conform with the Vision of Powerful Teaching and Learning in the Social Studies? Students get out of their chairs and away from their desks to perform events within a defined space elsewhere in the room…

Over the last 30 years, biracial individuals have become one of the fastest growing populations in the United States. Despite this rapid growth, these citizens are only slowly beginning to be acknowledged among monoracial groups and in academia. Because biracial identities "potentially disrupt the white/"of color" dichotomy, and…

Alternately referred to as historical role-playing, dramatic improvisation, sociodrama, or first-person characterization, role playing is a teaching strategy that often uses official accounts, personal narratives, and diaries to recreate a particular time period, specific event, or breathe life into a character from history. Historical…

"Differentiating Instruction With Menus Grades 3-5" offers teachers everything they need to create a student-centered learning environment based on choice. Addressing the four main subject areas (language arts, math, science, and social studies) and the major concepts taught within these areas, these books provide a number of different types of…