Katie's+First+Page

This section of my wiki provides abstracts for four education articles I have read. The first three connect writing to social studies classrooms and the last focuses on technology in a social studies classroom.
 * Social Studies and Literacy: Article Abstracts **

Fry, Sara Winstead. “Exploring Social Studies through Multicultural Literature:Legend of the St. Ann’s Flood.” //The Social Studies// 100 (2009): 85-90.
 * Exploring Social Studies Through Multicultural Literature: Legend of the **
 * St. Ann's Flood **

Sara Winstead Fry writes her article on incorporating literacy strategies to encourage the use of multicultural literature. She specifically focused on Debbie Jacob’s book //Legend of the St. Ann’s Flood//, a content rich fictional story set on the islands of Trinidad and Tobago, to demonstrate how to teach global issues, geography and character education in a classroom. Fry focuses on three strategies, “hotseat,” “poem strips,” and a journalist writing activity. All three activities effectively integrate literature and non-traditional content subjects into a social studies classroom. "Hotseat" requires group research and one speaker to answer questions prepared by other groups on a topic from the literature. "Poem strips" asks students to take lines or passages from the text and to rearrange them into a poem. In the third strategy, students are assigned different perspectives and then write about the text through their different perspectives.Students then are arranged in concentric circles and present their writing. I found this article to be particularly helpful in introducing non-expository text to the students. Through Fry’s strategies teachers and students can successfully navigate realistic literature and themes typically not found in social studies curriculum.

=Meaningful Work: How the History Research Paper Prepares Students for College and= =Life= Fitzhugh, Will. "Meaningful Work: How the History Research Paper Prepares Students for College and Life." //American Educator// 35.4 (2011): 32.

Will Fitzhugh is the founder and editor of the Concord Review, a review of history research papers written by high school students, he also taught history for ten years in Massachusetts. Dismayed by the low quality of student research papers and the infrequency of such work being assigned, Fitzhugh wrote his article to introduce a strategy to improve students' writing. Unlike the current tendency of high school social studies to skip research papers all together, Fitzhugh calls for assigning a research paper in every grade from first to twelfth. These papers would require one page and one source for each year of education. For example, third graders would write three pages using three sources, eleventh graders would write eleven pages using eleven sources.The knowledge and familiarity that students would acquire through their schooling would allow teachers to eventually assign lengthy and intensive research papers. The students would not require as much assistance and teachers could ask for these papers knowing that extensive time periods would not have to be dedicated to the basics of paper writing. One of the key reasons Fitzhugh calls for improvements in research writing because colleges require this skill. While I am unsure how effective his plan for yearly research papers would be I appreciate that research skills are lacking in many high school graduates. As teachers, we should attempt to prepare our students for the academic reality they may face after they leave high school.

=Teaching Secondary English Learners to Understand, Analyze, and Write Interpretive Essays about Theme= Olson, C., Land, R., Anselmi, T. & AuBchon, C. (2010). [| Teaching Secondary English Learners to Understand, Analyze, and Write Interpretive Essays about Theme.] //Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 54//(4), 245-256.

Olson, Land, Anselmi, and AuBuchon's article is about their successful attempt to increase students' skill with theme. The authors recognized the struggle that English learners had in constructing analytical essays, and so prepared a pre-test, scaffolding techniques, and a post-test to monitor and guide the students in the Pathways project. The project consisted of providing the students with meta-cognitive techniques, modeling and scaffolding over the course of a few years. The authors then administered a prompt requiring the Pathways students and a control group, who had not gone through the project, to construct an analytical essay. While both groups saw improvement over their pre-test, the Pathways group had significantly higher scores. An encouragement for not giving up on English learners and struggling students, this article provides proof that these learners can succeed in a traditional classroom if given enough support. The authors also provide a few strategies that may assist students in analyzing and responding to texts. Overall this article is useful in its implications about English learners' abilities and for its strategies that could be pulled into a social studies classroom.

=Media Literacy in the Social Studies Classroom= Nielsen, Greg. (2011). Media Literacy in the Social Studies Classroom. //Education Digest: Essential Readings Condensed for Quick Review,// 78(7), 43-45.

As technology is changing so are the ways students are learning about history. Textbooks, lectures, and primary source documents used to be the norm in classrooms but today students are learning from movies, YouTube clips, and other forms of media. A majority of social studies teachers report incorporating films and documentaries in their lessons. Greg Nielsen provides a few criterion to help teachers make sure that the media they use are effective. Firstly he encourages teachers to be selective in the films they show. Media should be appropriate for the age group and for the unit being taught while not disengaging the students' interests. Secondly pre-viewing activities should be implemented to help students identify the purpose of viewing the film. As students are watching the film, Nielsen suggests several strategies such as pausing the film to reflect, re-watching challenging or important scenes, and using charts to organize ideas. After the film has been watched students should evaluate what they've watched and explore its historical importance. A final step would be to assess the students' film literacy. Teachers ask for student writing that draws evidence from the film and other texts. This article, though short, covers a topic that I believe is useful for social studies classrooms. Many teachers show films and only provide brief explanations, leaving students left wondering why the film was shown and how to use it in their class work. Incorporating Nielsen's strategies can improve the effectiveness of media activities.

= Roman Empire Lesson & Web 2.0 Connections = This link will lead you to a copy of my group's lesson on Ancient Rome. There is also a section on JogTheWeb, the Web 2.0 tool I selected and how I would connect that tool to the unit.