MILLER MASTER’S PORTFOLIO !

Social Studies Framing Statement

Social Studies is the study of people and their experiences with the social environments

they create, as well as how they interact with the natural environment. There are several different

content areas within social studies curriculum: human geography; culture; government and

citizenship; history; economics. A thorough education in social studies helps students develop

historical thinking skills that promote diversity and empathy to build deep understandings of the

social constructs that define the human experience. In this unit I designed to engender historical

thinking, fourth through sixth grade students learn about the history of Seldovia, Alaska by

applying critical thinking across several content areas.

In the elementary grades, students are progressing into the inklings of formal operations

around fifth or sixth grade (Piaget, 1971). During the preceding concrete operational stage,

students are able to think logically and consider the viewpoints of others, but thinking abstractly

is still a challenge, so it’s crucial that their education be based on things they can see and

experience themselves. Accessing schema and prior knowledge through the introduction of

critical thinking is necessary in all content areas, but perhaps especially so in the social sciences.

The concrete operational phase of cognitive development is a fertile stage for cultivating and

encouraging historical thinking. Approaching history with investigative methods of instruction

urges students to make their own connections and construct their own understandings.

Introducing historical thinking with the use of visual representations like maps and

timelines to convey space, chronology, and causality helps students in the concrete operational

stage progress from spatial thinking to the more abstract dimension of time (Moline, 1995 and

Lesh, 2011). My Seldovia history unit employs the use, analysis, comparison, and creation of
MILLER MASTER’S PORTFOLIO !2

maps and concept timelines to engage and help students to think deeply about the complexities

of time and space.

Social studies content is best transmitted to students in an active and interactive

approach. Presentation strategies should be engaging and multi-modal. Effective engagement

tools for discussion, interactive work, and application should be employed whenever possible.

The Seldovia History Unit utilizes intriguing historical photographs, voice recordings, examples

of local artwork, interactive games, and written folklore to transmit information to students.

The use of discussions to instruct and make connections to personal experience and prior

knowledge is an effective strategy to establish an equilibrium of mutual respect that invites

students and engages them. We need to reveal to students the multiple perspectives in any

situation, and through discussion, modeling, demonstration, and creative instruction, we can

scaffold and encourage historical thinking skills like empathy, comparison, change and

continuity through examination of text, context, and subtext (Lesh, 2011). Throughout my unit

on Seldovia History, students are invited to take part in conversations with one another and the

teacher that scaffold, assess, and promote deeper thinking.

Students think like historians when they are led to historical and cultural ideas using

inquiry. Students should be taught to ask questions of various sources, learn how to evaluate

those sources using text, context, and subtext, then finally revise and develop deeper

interpretations based on the evidence they examined. (Lesh, 2011). Engagement in history

investigations is optimized when students are invited to participate in the development and

practice of building historical thinking skills. A simple tendency to promote and instill in

students is the habit of asking questions. The Seldovia History Unit encourages this habit by
MILLER MASTER’S PORTFOLIO !3

using it in the rhetoric that forms the ongoing dialog, so that students begin to internalize inquiry

and ask questions not only about and of the content they are exposed to, but also tend to self-

monitor their comprehension of it (Koechlin, 2014).

In order for students to really get the most out of any academic text, they should be

explicitly taught to ask questions of the text itself, and of their own comprehension of it. They

need to be prompted to use inquiry strategies throughout the entire reading process. They can

also summarize their comprehension and self-monitor to correct misunderstandings. After

they’re done reading, students should summarize big ideas and synthesize information, ask

questions to check comprehension, and use strategies to correct misconceptions. Teachers should

also assess student comprehension to clear up inaccuracies. Graphic organizers help students

create visual summaries, understand text structure, and ask and answer questions (Harvey and

Goudvis, 2007). The varied mixture of these strategies in the Seldovia History Unit ensures that

multiple learning profiles will succeed, as particular reading strategies are more suitable for some

content and learning preferences than others.

Assessment of student learning perpetuates throughout the entire unit. Pre-assessments

help gauge prior knowledge, frequent formative assessments check for understanding, and

summative assessments evaluate comprehension. Performance assessments are included as

culminating performance tasks in order to require students to apply and synthesize their

knowledge. These continual assessments are crucial to monitor, revise, adapt and modify

instruction. These assessments are authentic, the tasks they perform resemble real-life situations,

and are completed by all students.

MILLER MASTER’S PORTFOLIO !4

Social studies teachers need to be concerned with more than just the social studies

content standards. Students who also meet literacy standards for the social sciences, as well as

cultural standards, will undoubtedly have a more complex and nuanced understanding of the

broad range of implications of the social sciences. Using the backward design approach to

curriculum development, the Seldovia History Unit ensures that learning objectives are aligned

with social studies, literacy, art, and science standards. The unit is built from the standards and

assesses not only students’ understanding, but also instruction. This creates a cyclical approach

to teaching which constantly informs the design of lessons and assessments with evidence of its

effectiveness (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005).

MILLER MASTER’S PORTFOLIO !5

References

Harvey, S. and Goudvis, A. (2007) Strategies That Work: Teaching comprehension for

understanding and engagement. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

Koechlin, C and Zwaan, S. (2014). Q tasks: How to empower students to ask questions

and care about the answers. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

Lesh, B. (2011). “Why won’t you just tell us the answer?”: Teaching historical thinking

in grades 7-12”. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

Moline, Steve. (1995). I see what you mean, 2nd edition. Portland, ME: Stenhouse

Publishers.

Piaget, J. (1971). The theory of stages in cognitive development. New York, NY: McGraw-

Hill.

Wiggins, G. and McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by Design, expanded 2nd Edition.

Alexandria, VA. ASCD.