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Detailed Review for Educators of all Content Areas, August 28, 2010
This review is from: Building Literacy in Social Studies: Strategies for Improving Comprehension and Critical Thinking (Paperback)
Annotation
The text addresses the many issues which social studies teachers face when engaging
students through literacy-based or other content-related endeavors. Students often feel a disconnect between their lives and the information presented in social studies classes. Unless relevance between themselves and the material is formed, their lack of engagement has negative consequences on learning and literacy.
Organization of the book shows two parts where content varies from creating a culture of learning and engagement to specific strategies for building literacy in the content of social studies. Social studies draws heavily upon literacy and requires that you use a set of skills which diverges a bit from other contents. To think like a historian a line of inquisitive thought and frequent deductive reasoning supplements a lot of reading and comprehension of materials. What we find in this book is a realistic assessment of social studies as a content area and a plethora of strategies for enhancing student learning. By effectively noting the struggles of teaching social studies to students, the message of how to enhance learning is powerful. The strategies provided draw upon key elements of any social studies class with real examples that can be replicated for immediate use. None of the strategies are lofty in nature of design. Each involves elements which make application feasible. A strength of the offered strategies is their relation to many of the things that teachers are already doing. Instead of offering an esoteric or lofty list of things to try, the book essentially offers method of improvement.
This source provides a large and seemingly conclusive list of strategies to enhance class culture surrounding learning and the means for enhancing literacy in the content area of social studies. The primary benefits gained from this source come from the offering of new methods for teaching. I feel confident that many of the strategies I use are leading students towards greater understandings and higher levels of literacy. However, the additions and inclusion of many of the strategies offered by this source will enhance my desires to promote learning. The source should be read by all social studies teachers and referenced by other content area teachers as well.
Context
As identified by the title of the book, the primary audience is for social studies teachers.
The driving initiative behind this text is to foster the teaching of literacy through this particular content area. With ever-increasing emphasis being put on reading and writing, all teachers, regardless of content area must teach literacy. This book provides a great deal of resources for a social studies teacher to utilize. Through primary and secondary sources, a wide-variety of strategies can be employed to positively influence student literacy. The strategies show such a wide-range in application that any type of activity or area of study can be integrated to teach literacy.
Special Features
With so many possible options for teaching literacy, the book is an essential resource to
social studies teachers. Many of the strategies could be modified slightly to be appropriate for use in other content area classrooms as well. The most valuable element of this text are the many diagrams, templates, and examples that accompany each strategy. Not only is a teacher provided with many ideas, but also functional tools to apply them with. The working examples provided in the book are probably the most valuable element of the text.
Impacts on Teaching Practice
The school in which I teach has currently made teaching literacy a priority. I have always been a proponent of teaching reading and writing, so I now have even more motivation to further inculcate literacy into my lessons. I found many elements of the book to be thought provoking and inspiring when considering curriculum and lesson development. The most impactful element from the book on my teaching will be the strategies for reading primary and secondary sources. I work very hard to use course textbooks as little as possible. In several classes I don't even issue the textbook because I feel that other sources are more beneficial. In lieu of this, the use of primary and secondary sources other than textbooks dominates the majority of student reading. To prepare students for this type of reading and enhance their comprehension of it, the strategies outlined in the book will be used. While other chapters covering elements of the classroom and culture are useful, I have found the actual strategies to be the primary aspects which will find their way into my classroom. One strategy I plan to being using immediately is the graphic organizer for interpreting primary sources (Ogle, Klemp, & McBride, 2007, p.130). I feel this strategy will prove extremely beneficial to my students and their ability to comprehend materials.
A general breakdown for the content of the book is provided below:
Part I
Reading Social Studies Texts---Notes the struggles surrounding student engagement in social studies classes. Differences between fluent and struggling readers.
Fostering Engaged Learning in Social Studies Classrooms---Chapter advocates for creating relevancy between the student and content. Promote learning through investigation and questioning. I-Chart (p. 21) is helpful.
Teaching Vocabulary to Older Students---Teaching vocabulary should not include simply looking words up in the dictionary. Most learning of words and their context comes from reading... so provide time to do so (p.36). Concept definition map (p. 40) should be considered when looking to increase student vocabulary.
Organizing a Classroom for Democratic Engagement---This chapter looks at creating an efficient and equitable learning environment by engaging all students. Doing so will reduce time wasted dealing with behavior issues. The cooperative literacy and PODS approach (p.57-60) provides a great resource for doing so.
Promoting Civic Engagement---Many students today are disengaged with the world they live in. Media and pop culture may dominate their knowledge base, but actual facts and events are rarely considered relevant. Because schools are of great influence over the social and civic awareness of a student, we must find ways to engage students to be active and informed participants in the democratic system. The chapter continues to provide multiple examples for how this can be done.
Part II
Strategies for Textbook Literacy---Many examples for how students can better engaged during textbook reading are included. We also see that many of the strategies foster greater comprehension of the material through the process of completing them. Some strategies utilize nonlinguistic representations as well as other methods that can be used to differentiate materials amongst students. I particularly like the 3 column chart (p.107) for use with textbooks.
Strategies for Reading Primary and Secondary Sources---Many students struggle with taking away what is necessary for success from primary and secondary sources. This chapter sets forth many methods for engaging students in a manner which will foster greater understandings from these sources. The graphic organizer for interpreting primary sources (p.130) is one that I plan to use. Another strategy that poses great benefits for all content areas is the grid for evaluating accuracy (p.140-141). It can be modified and used for most sources.
Strategies for Newspaper and Magazine Literacy---Teaching students involves creating relevancy between the material and their lives. Current events issues are one of the best ways to do so. If students can see how the stock market has an impact on their lives, it's much easier to engage them in learning. This chapter notes the many ways that literacy can be enhanced through use of magazines and newspapers. Most of us have learned about and possibly used the KWL strategy. This chapter introduces the KWL+ strategy (p.152-153) which requires an additional level of thought in order to complete the work. I have already found a great application for this strategy in my IB History of the Americas class.
Additional Information
It must be stated again that while this book is aimed directly at social studies teachers, the
application of its resources can extend beyond any one content area. All teachers who strive to teach literacy should consider this as a valid resource for improving the lessons they teach. To look further into the three authors of this book, I searched for other books they have written. My findings further accredit the three as legitimate experts in teaching literacy.
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