Promoting Adolescents' Comprehension of Text (PACT) is a text- and discourse-based set of instructional practices that engage students with disciplinary texts as a means of building content knowledge and improving reading comprehension. PACT)s "efficacy" has been the subject of extensive previous trials. The purpose of this study was to…

We discuss an original study and two replications conducted over 18 years examining the impact of Teacher Study Group (TSG) in Vocabulary, a professional development (PD) approach for improving pedagogy and student learning. Study 1 focused on the design and development of the PD and included a small-scale randomized controlled trial to assess the…

Race shapes the policies and history of the United States. Current research shows that state-approved social studies content standards are written in a non-racial and colour-evasive whiteness language that reinforces racist policies and practices in education. This qualitative framework analysis study examines the language of social studies…

With the implementation of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy, as well as the onset of the C3 framework from the National Council of Social Studies, social studies teachers are tasked with integrating content and writing instruction in thoughtful and relevant ways. A middle school social studies teacher…

This study analyzed three types of visual representations (graphs, maps, & graphic organizers) in the most widely used eighth-grade U.S. History textbooks. The analyses included how each visual was constructed and used within the context of text narrative. Purposeful sampling techniques were used to select a representative sample of varied…

The purpose of this study was to examine how students used the elements of a historical argument to interpret how equality and opportunity affected marginalized groups in a given historical era. To do this, 150 eighth grade students wrote thirteen historical arguments, and submitted a written portfolio of their work at the end of the school year.…

This paper provides the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB), and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) community with information that may help maintain the validity and utility of the NAEP assessments for civics and U.S. history as revisions are planned to the NAEP…

This study examined how U.S. entry into World War I and related pedagogical reforms of the early twentieth century impacted elementary social education at a local level. Analysis of state curriculum guides, records from the collection of a rural school educator, report cards, and daily attendance registers for four counties indicated that…

As a scholar practitioner, the goal is to use the most effective teaching strategies available to help eighth-grade social studies students retain the vocabulary from each unit of study and increase both their short- and long-term memories. The problem identified for this action research was that the current use of the word wall (WW) vocabulary…

The purpose of this qualitative, single case study is to investigate how teacher-created curricula addresses key Native American events in early U.S. history and to determine if such curricula provided students with accurate representations of Native American content. To do this, we used discourse analysis to consider the meanings of words and…

This case study investigated how two 8th-grade teachers planned for, delivered, and reflected on their teaching of the 2016 Presidential Election. Data sources included classroom observations, teacher interviews, and lesson plans. Despite integrating student-centered lessons about the election with social and political events in US History from…

All students need to know and understand the origins and evolution of their nation. They also need to understand the development of the nation's democratic institutions and ideals so that they are prepared to take part knowledgeably, as citizens and voters, in shaping America's future. The framework in U.S. history for the 1994-2018 National…

Material encountered in social studies has been shown to be challenging for students with reading difficulties, including those with disabilities. This study first examined the amount of time eighth-grade U.S. History teachers implemented empirically supported instructional practices. Second, this research investigated the association between…

This exploratory study combined the process of modified analytic induction with a mixed methods approach to analyze various factors that affected or might have affected participating teachers' decisions to use or not use various primary source based teaching strategies to teach historical thinking skills. Four participating eighth and ninth grade…

At the request of the Office of Curriculum and Instructional Programs, the Office of Shared Accountability examined the impact of offering Advanced Grade 8 U.S. History on enrollment and performance in Advanced Placement (AP) social studies courses in Grade 9. The study compared Grade 9 enrollment and performance in AP U.S. History or AP U.S.…