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Literacy in Social Studies Abstracts:

Knaresborough, Adam. “Rapping the 27 Amendments to the Constitution.” //Social Education//. 73(3) (2009) pg. 342-343. Adam Knaresborough is a High School History teacher with a bright idea for engaging students through literacy as a means of teaching the Amendments to the US Constitution. Knaresborough describes how he built a lesson of an idea a group of students had to compose a rap song using the 27 Amendments. The article describes Knaresborough’s ideas for implementing this lesson with his class and provides an example of the result in the article as well. The basic structure of the lesson plan is to have the students jigsaw the Amendments in small groups and summarize the meaning of each into plain and modern language. The students are then encouraged to make their summaries fit to a meter so they can be strung together and played over a beat to provide a fun and educational mnemonic device.

Lovorn, Michael. “Folk in the History Classroom: Using the Music of the People to Teach Eras and Events.” //Social Education//. 73(4) (2009) pg. 173-178. Michael Lovorn is an Assistant Professor of Social Studies Education at the University of Alabama and his article on teaching the Dust Bowl includes multiple ways of teaching and utilizing good literacy skills in the Social Studies classroom. Lovorn briefly explains the importance of Social Studies making a connection to the student and presents a lesson on the Dust Bowl that utilizes many literacy skills to create just that connection. Lovorn’s lesson begins with a map activity – the ability to read a map and apply geography skills an important, and often overlooked, component to literacy. The lesson then continues by making use of Woody Guthrie’s song Dust Bowl Disaster (of his entire album dedicated to the topic). The students are required to analyze the lyrics of the song by both listening to and reading the lyrics. The lesson is concluded with an activity on the vocabulary used in the song and how it applies to their unit of study.

Hartwick, James M. M. and Brett M. Levy. "Teaching about Big Money in Elections: To Amend or Not to Amend the U.S. Constitution?" //Social Education.// 76(5) (2012) pg. 236-241. James Hartwick and Brett Levy’s article on teaching about PACs and Super-PACs provides another interesting idea for implementing literacy in the Social Studies Classroom. Speaking about the US Supreme Court Decision from 2010 commonly known as //Citizens United//, the duo provide a layout for breaking down such a massive topic with an immense stack of reading to be able to teach the subject to high school students. Through use of the Structured Academic Controversy technique the authors describe ways in which the teacher can jigsaw, analyze and synthesis the material with students. The students are then required to argue both sides of the issue in a debate format, one after the other, and finally write a personal statement on which side of the debate they fall and why.

Charles Howlett, “Public Opinion on Long Island about the Vietnam War: A School Year Project Using Local Sources and Perspectives in the Classroom and in Student Research Papers,” The History Teacher 37 (2004). Charles Howlett is a long-time Social Studies teacher on Long Island, New York. This article describes Howlett’s use of local resources to educate students on the topic of the Vietnam War. In this case, those resources were residents of the area. Howlett tasked students with going out into the surrounding area and conducting research to find what he called “real evidence” over textbook-centered learning. Students wrote and presented on their findings and, initially to Howlett’s surprise, were genuinely excited about reporting on their findings. Students become engaged and interested in the topic as time progressed and they found themselves deeper and deeper into conducting ‘real’ historical work.

Link to a lesson plan using Literacy skills in the Social Studies: Gold Rush Poetry Click on this link to see some more cool Gold Rush resources: Gold Rush Resources

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