Schmoker Chapter 5: Social Studies with Reading and Writing at the
Core.
Schmoker begins the chapter by telling us that social studies is the most
important subject relating to literacy with the exception of language
arts. Schmoker also asserts social studies education is fundamental to
the continuation of our society at the local, state, and national level.
After stating the role of literacy in social studies, Schmoker dismantles the recent
practices of social studies education, specifically skits and posters, by
stating that teachers are concentrating more on entertaining students than
teach them. Schmoker puts emphasis behind this message by stating,
"we must break free from fads and embrace... courses that cultivate
students' abilities to participate in the literacy that our society
demands." He offers the process for implementing his
statement.
- Essential topics and standards to be taught (we do that)
-Selected textbook pages NOT whole chapters (we need to do that if we don't, I
know some of us do)
-35+ supplementary or primary source documents, magazines to be discussed 1
time per week (ouch, that copy limit burns up quickly, but ipads/chrome books
should really help with this)
- Essential questions for each unit (we do that)
-End-of-unit paper or essay assignments (this is where our students literacy
gap kills us)
-Routine use of all the above in a cycle of close reading, discussion of text,
and writing about text
Schmoker spends the next several pages discussing how to implement the
aforementioned cycle around the social studies standards and describe his ideal
lesson activities for social studies. These activities are all related to
literacy and Schmoker refers to them as Task, Text, & Talk. For the
TASK students have an assignment related to the current unit of study, they
then read primary sources (TEXT) to supplement their assignment, you may also
use sources from current media that relate to your unit to increase student
interest/understanding. Finally, students TALK/discuss in small groups
what they have learned. After several lessons designed this way, students
demonstrate their understanding of the unit by writing an end-of-unit paper.
Schmoker states that these types of lessons will increase student participation
because the students become experts on the topics being discussed which allows
them to participate in large class discussion or debates.
The final part of Chapter 5 is Schmoker taking us through the process of guided
instruction and checks for understanding. He follows the TTT format and
his lessons are in gradual release format (pg. 150-151). He also provides
relevant questions for student reading (pg. 153).
I think any core subject teacher could read chapter 5 and apply their content
to Schmoker's lesson designs. The key is to not give too much textbook to
students and supplement with relevant outside sources that provoke student
thinking and inquiry.
I think this chapter does a great job of showing how social studies instruction is also literacy instruction. Students need to look at a variety of sources. This would be a lot of work for the teacher – especially the first year – but it would be worth it I think. Really – it seems like the concept of the DBQ to me – only larger and with more sources. Students become real expert in the area of study. On page 149 Schmoker reminds us how important it is to model adult thinking. I think this is especially true when teaching students how to use a primary source. They can be very intimidating – but by showing them how an adult begins to understand – then they will begin that independence as well.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of using many sources to read, especially those parts of history that have more than one perspective and could spark some good conversation among a group. I'm sure Russian textbooks accounts of the cold war are a little different than ours, for example.
ReplyDeleteAnother good idea from this chapter is the interactive lecture. Gamble tried it and the students seemed to respond very well. They were able to interact with each other frequently which helped them learn the material. It's similar to gradual release. I'm not sure if anyone does much lecturing anymore though.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Matt that teachers use the essential questions, but I think we are missing the key piece of having students answering the question in writing using sources (at least I am). We need to continue to guide students to analyze text. This chapter stressed the importance of writing on the text. Schmoker talks about having students argue with the text. I think this would bring up interesting discussions in class.
ReplyDeleteIf we really incorporate the common core literacy standards in our social studies and science classes we would significantly increase reading minutes. When students are banded at their performance level, concerns have been raised that they do not get the Core... This would be the Core at their level with literacy embedded. Doug Fischer talked a lot about the need for close reading - we need to look into PD.
ReplyDelete-Marianne