Close Reading in Social Studies

I've been reading a great book called Building Literacy in Social Studies: Strategies for Improving Comprehension and Critical Thinking by Donna Ogle, Ron Klemp, and Bill McBride.

In a section of the book called "Supporting Struggling Readers", the authors write that "The more students read on the same topic, the more likely they are to move from novice to expert ways of thinking.  Therefore, students need to be surrounded by more rather than less material on the topics being taught."  They go on to say that you need texts of three different levels: simple, instructional, and advanced.

This led me to think of a reading strategy called Close Reading.  If you're familiar with text complexity and Close Reading, you know it is a method for increasing reading comprehension.  Many teachers use it in the core subjects in addition to reading class.  The following graphic is a summary of the steps of Close Reading by Tracy Watanabe at her wwwatanabe blog.

On a recent trip to the Library of Congress (LOC) with my friend from One Teacher's Take, I picked up some great kid-friendly texts to support my Social Studies curriculum.  While reading the books together, we thought they would be perfect for some Close Reading!

Two books that would support students during our "5 Documents of Freedom" unit:

These two books would be an example of the "simple" level of texts.  It introduces and explains the concepts in simple text with many pictures to support all levels of readers.

What about the instructional and advanced levels?  Do you have any examples of texts that would work for a Close Reading for these levels?

Using the Library of Congress in Your Classroom

I recently took a trip to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. and it was well worth the trip!  I went with my friend, Andrea, from One Teacher's Take.  We preregistered online and got our official "Researchers card" that allows us into parts of the LOC that aren't open to general public.  We got to see and learn from the wealth of primary and secondary sources house at the LOC.

While I can't share many of the images we got to see, I can share the research databases that I used while there.  I'd like to give a big shout out to the extremely friendly and knowledgeable staff at the LOC.  The following sites were shared with me during our visit by the staff.

The first is the America; History and Life database.  This research site allows you to search journals dating back 55 years by theme, reviews, and author.  We searched for the influence of the Scots-Irish on the culture of Virginia.

The second is the Internet Archive Database.  This site offers thousands of primary and secondary sources in digital, audio (including e-books and songs), movies/clips, and much, much more.  You can sort by the media type and title of the source you're looking for.  Many of them are offered as downloadable PDFs or available to read online.

 I used it to find the elusive resources for the Virginia state-recognized tribes.  I found this great downloadable PDF on the Rappahannock Indians.  The entire book is on there with some great photos and primary sources.

 Since this was created in 1925, I can't share the wonderful pics that are included in the book, but you should definitely go to the database and search for it if you teach Virginia's state-recognized tribes.

Do you have any great databases you use to find great primary or secondary resources?

Reconstruction Period Primary Sources

We recently began a unit on the period just after the Civil War called Reconstruction.

Virginia Tech has some awesome pictures of the period that make a fantastic introduction to the unit.  There are hundreds of black and white historical photos that are returned with each search. You can select individual ones, zoom in, and discuss the images with your students.You can view the factories and people of this time period through the use of Virginia Tech's Image base website by clicking here.

I previewed the site by searching the following terms and selecting the photos I wanted to share with the students.

• Foundry
• Textile
• Tobacco
• Mills
• Railroad

I chose images that are of the buildings and some that are of the workers. I wanted to choose photos that reflected the different  gender, age, and race of the workers in the various industries at that time. I also wanted photos that displayed the landscape around the buildings to emphasize the change in the land during this time.

**One thing you want to pay attention to is the copyright information at the bottom of each photo.  May of them may only be printed with permission, so you may want to view them only.

As an inquiry-based approach, you can have groups of students create charts like the one below for each photo.

 

 

In light of any copyright issues with the photos, I did not include any reproduced images.  What you see above is a picture of what the charts look like completed courtesy of Pinterest.  No credit was given to whomever uploaded this pic, so I'm including the original link here.

Library of Congress Professional Development

My friend and coworker, Andrea, from One Teacher's Take recently shared with me that she has been completing online modules from the Library of Congress, so I thought I'd check them out.  I'm so glad I did!

Among my favorite things that I learned:

• How to use primary sources to support inquiry-based learning
• How to respect copyrights
• How to teach students to analyze primary sources and create "I wonder..." statements to extend learning
• How to use the thousands of online primary sources at the Library of Congress

At the end of each module, you can print the certificate of completion, which is great.  However, the information I gained from the experience would have been plenty for me!

Get started on your own journey through primary sources by clicking here. 

What online professional development opportunities have you taken part in and loved?  I'm looking for more!

Major Virginia Battles of the Civil War

The Civil War had SOOOO many battles, generals, winners, and losers.  This can be a bit of information overload for students.  So I created...

This PowerPoint shows the three major Civil War battles that happened in Virginia: 1st Battle of Manassas, Fredericksburg, and Hampton Roads.  It also gives details such as leaders, winners, and losers of each battle.  There is a chart with the organized information included.

We drew icons on the map for people like Stonewall Jackson (a bull busting through a stone wall to help them remember who the general was and where the battle occured).  It might look something like this:

Students can draw any icons they want, so long as it helps them connect to the information.  Actually, it seems like the sillier, the better :)

You can pick up a free copy by clicking here.

What strategies do you use to organize nonfiction information and increase metacognition?

Mentor Text Linky--Language Arts/Social Studies

I'm joining Amanda and Stacia at Collaboration Cuties for their Mentor Texts linky.

 Last week's focus was Language Arts mentor texts, but I'm not focusing on Reading or Writing.  One of my goals this year was to incorporate more mentor texts into my Science, Math, and Social Studies curriculum.

I've always felt that Social Studies requires quite a bit of reading comprehension strategies, and it just so happens that we're focusing on the skill of compare and contrast at the moment.  So, what better book to review our Founding Fathers AND apply comparing and contrasting than...

John, Paul, George & Ben by Lane Smith.  This book lends itself well to compare the characters by making a chart and listing each Founding Father's character traits.  A triple-Venn Diagram also works well.

We also compare and contrast the settings for each character, such as  when and where they were born and where they lived when they were adults.

This book also helps to review the American Revolution and Documents of Freedom that were written before, during, and after the war.

How about you?  Do you have any great books that support reading comprehension AND bridge the gap between core curriculum subjects? 

Getting to Know Virginia Abolitionists

One of my goals this year was to incorporate short video clips into my Virginia Studies curriculum as Anticipatory Sets.  I found a great one about Nat Turner's Rebellion, and it's even created by a fellow teacher! 

He introduces/narrates the video and even adds a bit of humor to it.

I created a PowerPoint and Cloze activity to help review other abolitionists and give a sneak peek into the creation of West Virginia.

This PowerPoint discusses abolitionists Nat Turner and John Brown and the formation of West Virginia.  It includes a Cloze activity for students to complete as they follow along.

You can pick up your free copy by clicking here.

Do you do a unit on abolitionists or the Civil War?  Care to share any great resources?