Zach's+First+Page

__ **This page provides four abstracts of academic articles having to do with literacy and technology in the social studies classroom. ** __ **Beyond Reading Comprehension and Summary: Learning to Read and Write in History by Focusing on Evidence, Perspective, and Interpretation. ** Monte-Sano, Chauncey. “Beyond Reading Comprehension and Summary: Learning to Read and Write in History by Focusing on Evidence, Perspective, and Interpretation,” //Curriculum Inquiry// 41 (2011): 212-249. Chauncey Monte-Sano writes a critical article critiquing the effectiveness of current literacy instruction in history/social studies classrooms. As it stands, literacy instruction in history/social studies classrooms is rather shallow and basic. Instruction tends to focus simply on basic comprehension and not on the intricate, advanced literacy necessary for appropriate historical study. Monte-Sano writes of the importance of learning the invaluable facets of history; most notably, she writes of the importance of utilizing primary documents in study. When students’ only source of information is reading an interpretation from a historian in a textbook, they tend to see history as a story made up of predetermined facts. Students do not question the information nor do they inquire about the process of acquiring historical understanding when only reading secondary sources. Students will tend to list and arrange facts rather than analyze and be critical of them. If students study primary documents and focus also on learning the historical process of sourcing, contextualizing, and corroboration, a more advanced, disciplinary literacy develops.

 The article follows the 11th grade history course taught by Mr. Lyle at The Pacific School. Mr. Lyle focuses on interpretation of primary sources, writing as historians, and asking students questions rather than requiring them to memorize a list of facts and dates. Mr. Lyle assigns the students writing projects every week, in order to keep them writing. In addition, the students read on average 10 pages a day, keeping the students reading. Literacy is interwoven into the curriculum in Mr. Lyle’s classroom. Monte-Sano utilizes numerous studies as well as the before and after effects of Mr. Lyle’s instruction in order to shed light upon the impressive development of the students’ literacy.

**Making it all Fit: Integration Strategies for Social Studies and Literacy. ** Kristen Cuthrell and Peggy Yates, "Making it all Fit: Integration Strategies for Social Studies and Literacy," //Delta Kappa Gamma Bulletin// 73 (2007): 22-39. In this article, Kristen Cuthrell and Peggy Yates provide numerous literacy-focused teaching strategies to be implemented in the social studies classroom. The authors write of the marginalization of social studies in comparison to other courses in school. Studies and surveys find that educators generally find social studies to be of low importance when compared to literacy and mathematics. Cuthrell and Yates propose a solution, to integrate literacy instruction into social studies curriculum teaching. It is essential that when integrating literacy into social studies curriculum, educators know not to focus solely on strengthening literacy and to ensure lessons still meet social studies standards. In addition, the integration of literacy and social studies must not be superficial. Language arts must be included in an in depth manner. To do so, the authors include various strategies which have been tested in the classroom and are shown to be highly effective. One of the exemplary strategies is as follows:

//Responsibility Pie Chart//: This strategy is intended to get students to think about causal relationships and to understand deeply the parties, e.g. individuals, social movements, political forces, etc., responsible for historical events. The class initially brainstorms a list of parties potentially responsible for historical events. The individual students then create pie charts splitting up the responsibility to various parties, allotting differing proportions between parties. This is especially important in that it causes the students to think on their own about historical events; the students are trained to see history not so much as a set-in-stone, universal understanding, they are interpreting history into their own perspective. Even more importantly, the students must defend their responsibility pie charts, providing evidence and logical arguments for which parties they found most responsible.

**Preparing Novice History Teachers to Meet Students' Literacy Needs ** Jeffery D. Nokes, "Preparing Novice History Teachers to Meet Students' Literacy Needs," //Reading Psychology// 31 (2010): 493-523. With the increasing call for literacy instruction in the content areas, many universities have taken to teaching content area literacy courses. As discipline specific secondary educators are experts in their content area, they are best equipped to teach literacy within a discipline. For example, a social studies teacher would be best equipped to teach the specific, disciplinary literacy that would be involved with history. However, there still exists a lack of literacy instruction in content area classrooms. This could be because content area teachers are generally unprepared to provide appropriate instruction.

Jeffery D. Nokes writes an article in which he provides an exemplar for the collegiate instruction of language arts integration into the content areas. Many universities that offer an education major have courses intending to teach literacy instruction in the content areas to teaching candidates. Nokes writes of a highly effective program implemented in Brigham Young University (BYU). Unlike most content area literacy courses, which teach a separate literacy course that encompasses all majors, the program at BYU integrates content area literacy instruction into the major-specific methods course. To do so, a content area literacy specialist works with the methods instructor to develop appropriate teaching strategies which are more relevant to each specific content area. Each discipline had its own style of literacy instruction, as there are many unique features of literacy in each discipline. Nokes studies a history methods course which, while teaching the tools of inquiry used by historians, also at the same time teaches potential educators how to teach the disciplinary literacy skills they themselves are learning. The intent is that while teacher candidates are in the process of developing their own skills, they are also taught how the same skills can be taught to the students they will be working with.

**Supersizing Social Studies Through the Use of Web 2.0 Technologies ** Lori Holcomb, Candy Beal, and John K. Lee, "Supersizing Social Studies Through the Use of Web 2.0 Technologies," Social Studies Research & Practice 6 (2011): 102-111. This article is concerned with what is called as “supersized” social studies. The term supersized is used to refer to the inclusion of many other disciplines within the social studies curriculum. History, civics, geography, economics, politics, sociology, etc. are disciplines which today fall under the umbrella category of social studies. On top of that, social studies no longer aims simply to teach students to recall facts and dates by means of rote memorization. Social studies today also teaches students critical thinking skills, disciplinary skills, and inquiry. With this supersized, higher demand on the discipline, integrating the social studies curriculum with new technology can support the expansive subject. Web 2.0 tools such as blogs, wikis, and podcasts can support a more active classroom while also giving students the ability to access a wider array of resources. The article provides numerous web resources which could be utilized by the educator as well as a potential use of the resource. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Lesson Plan <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Web 2.0 Tool: Timeglider <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Web 2.0 Tool: MapSkip <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Web Links