Pedagogical Toolkit
There is A LOT of reading in a social studies class whether it is a textbook or primary sources. Often times the text has words or concepts that are foreign to the students. They also can describe other countries or leaders that the students have never heard of before. Students need strategies to comprehend these texts and help them understand their meaning or why they are important.
· Schema – I think that students sharing their prior knowledge not only helps them start to make connections to what they are reading, but it also allows their peers to learn from their schema. Before each chapter, I would simply start a class discussion where students shared what they already know about the subject of the upcoming chapter. I would record their answers on the board in a form of a concept map. This would let students build from each other’s ideas and possibly remind them of something that they had not initially remembered. This exercise also allows students to be themselves and share things that are personal to them which can help build social skills.
· Read aloud/Think aloud – Students engaging in a read aloud in small groups or in pairs lets them share knowledge or ideas, as well as helping each other answer questions they may have about the text. I would have students use this strategy whenever we are looking at a complicated primary source or important document. Students would be given a copy of the primary of source and be encouraged to mark-up their copy where they think there are important ideas, where they have questions, or where they make connections to other documents. Once the groups or pairs went through the whole primary source or document, we would get back together as a class and have a larger discussion to address questions and share what each group found important.
· Modeling – It is important for students to know exactly how I want them to complete each assignment. I think the easiest way for students to know the expectations of each assignment is to model an example. For example, if I were having my class complete a political cartoon analysis for the first time, I would provide them with two political cartoons. I would then ask the students what they saw in the cartoon, what was the creator’s opinion, what events were happening when it was created, and other questions to show them how I want them to analyze the other cartoon. They would then be asked to analyze the second cartoon on their own and record their own answers.
· Predicting – This could be tied to schema, as well as having students making inferences based on what they have already read. In social studies students need to use critical thinking to figure out why certain events happened or why certain figures did what they did. Asking students to make predictions allows them to think critically about certain historical events. Before fully discussing or reading about a specific war, student would be asked to write down their predictions of the war. Questions could include who was involved in the war, what was the war over, when did the war take place, why did this war start, where did the war take place, how did the winning side succeed, what were the repercussions of the war? Students would be told to hold onto their answers and after the class discussion or reading, they would be asked to respond to the same questions and compare their answers. This allows them to not only make inferences and use schema before reading, but it lets them think critically after the discussion or reading and create new answers.
· Questioning – Students are bound to always have questions and often times other students have the same questions. After reading a chapter of the text or a primary source for their homework, students would bring in the questions that they have regarding the chapter and the class would have a question and answer session. It would be set-up similar to a Socratic seminar, and all students would sit in a circle with their questions and text/document. A volunteer would start and ask the first question. After asking the question, the class would raise their hands with answers and whoever asked the question would call on someone to answer it. Whoever answered the question would then present their question to the class. I would write down all questions that no one could answer and once everyone asked their question, we would have a short class discussion on each unanswered question. I think this would show students that its alright to not always know the answer or sometimes your classmate has the same question that you do. It also would give them a much deeper understanding of the text since there would be an entire class’s worth of question about the document answered.
