Given the current marginalization of the social studies within elementary classrooms it is vital that elementary educators seek integrative techniques that promote the social studies. This article explores one such example of integration taught by the authors within an elementary classroom. The three-day lesson taught to fifth-grade students aimed…

The purpose of this article is to explore how teachers can use biography breaks to address the National Council of the Social Studies C3 inquiry framework and in the process meet requirements of the Common Core State Standards. We begin by illustrating and explaining biography breaks. Then we introduce the C3 framework and explain as well as…

Two teacher educators collaborated with teachers, media designers, and evaluators to utilize a video, an interactive website, and accompanying curriculum to engage middle school students in historical thinking and learning of history content. The resulting multiplatform project, based on a young Frederick Douglass' life, was piloted in three…

This practitioner-based book provides different approaches for reaching an increasing population in today's schools - English language learners (ELLs). The recent development and adoption of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects (CCSS-ELA/Literacy), the…

The author describes a social studies unit designed to help students develop critical thinking skills. The lessons give students opportunities to analyze multiple perspectives, use multiple sources when conducting research, and construct historical narratives through the creation of a digital historical biography.

While it is widely acknowledged that classroom practice is shaped by its context, the dynamics of that shaping remain elusive. This study conceptualizes the ways in which changing social conditions and national priorities enter into US curriculum practice. Initially, the focus was on the US Census 2000 results showing an increasingly diverse…

When teachers in elementary and middle school classrooms portray history as an immutable sequence of certain facts, dates, and events, young learners tend to view the past, and by extension the future, as something fixed and inevitable. Learning about the past through investigating biographies can help counter this tendency by teaching students to…