Connections Matter: Integration of a Social Studies and Language Arts Classroom

Melanie MundyJoan Oxley

Wilson County Schools

Tuckers Crossroads

• K-8 School• Title I• 7th and 8th Social Studies Teacher• Literacy Coach• Student Population-392• Faculty Size-40

Goals

• Discuss how to better accelerate students who are ready for a greater challenge

• Understand the need to bridge a connection between the Language Arts and Social Studies classroom.

• Understand the implications of the new Social Studies standards as well as the literacy component of ELA and what that means for classroom instruction and materials.

How do you integrate Social Studies and Language Arts?

• Turn and Talk• Discuss the cross-curricular instructional

goals that would be supported through the integration of English language arts and history content.

• What types of instructional strategies would support those goals?

Key Shifts in ELA/Literacy CCSS

1. Complexity: Regular practice with complex text and its academic language.

2. Evidence: Reading, writing and speaking grounded in evidence from text, both literary and informational.

3. Knowledge: Building knowledge through content rich nonfiction.

Excerpted from A Strong State Role in Common Core State Standards Implementation: Rubric andSelf-Assessment Tool, p. 6, Table 1, Key Instructional Shifts of the Common Core State Standards,by the Partnership of Readiness for College and Careers Transition & Implementation Institute, 2012,

Washington, DC: Achieve.

UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURG

Rigorous Teaching and Learning

Text

TalkTask

TN STATE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS STANDARDS GRADE 8 2010

Grade 8 Reading Standards for Informational Text

College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading

• Key Ideas and Details• Craft and Structure• Integration of Knowledge and Ideas• Range or Reading Levels and Complexity

To become college and career ready, students must grapple with works of exceptional craft and thought whose range extends across genres, cultures, and centuries.

TN STATE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS STANDARDS GRADE 8 2010

Grade 8 Writing Standards

• Write arguments to support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence

• Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas, concepts, and information through the selection, organization, and analysis of relevant content.

• Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant, descriptive details, and well-structures event sequences. (point of view)

• Research to build knowledge and present knowledge

Analyzing the StandardsWhat’s new for Social Studies?

• Briefly look at the new Social Studies standards at your table

• What does the new standards seem to imply about rigor?

• What did you notice the standards will require of teachers?

• Of learners?• Discuss the subset of literacy standards for teachers

of history/social studies

8th Social StudiesExamples of standards and sources to read that enhance content

and provide a way for integration

• Colonialism: Cite textual evidence analyzing both examples of cooperation and conflict among American Indians and colonists

• Primary Documents and Supporting Texts to Read (Mayflower Compact, A Historie of Virginia-starving time, John Smith)

• The Constitution and Foundation of American Government: Using Thomas Paine Common Sense and the Crisis identify aspects of the texts that reveal author’s point of view and purpose including loaded language

• Determine central ideas expressed in Declaration of Independence and write an expository piece in which of the legacy of these ideas in today’s world is described and validated with evidence from the text.

Accountable Talk program is owned by the University of Pittsburgh

Cross curricular skills embedded in standards

• Academic vocabulary• Reading and analysis of primary and secondary sources• Analytical and evaluative thinking skills• Working collaboratively• Reading for information• Expository writing as opinion or point of view, informational,

explanatory, argumentation, investigative, and historical narrative

• Speaking and Listening—Debate- “Accountable Talk” (University of Pittsburgh 2013)

Implications for Classroom

• Regular Practice with Reading Complex Texts (primary and secondary sources)-identify arguments and issues

• Focus on Academic Vocabulary-Tier 2 words• Text Based Questions-cite evidence• Writing activities that require texts to argue points use textual

evidence to support.• Culminating Assessments: example for History Class- students

justify an argument about history on the basis of the rigorous primary and secondary sources they have read in the unit.

• Regular Practice with “Accountable Talk” -Argue a position using evidence

ACCOUNTABLE TALK-UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH 2013

How did the public view the Emancipation Proclamation?Language Arts Classroom

Library of Congress

Teaching with Primary Sources: MTSU

Emancipation LessonLanguage Arts Classroom

• Emancipation Proclamation-determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text

• Autobiography of a slave• Thirteenth Amendment• Text Based questions• Analyze painting and etching-identify bias and stereotyping• Discussion of purpose of medium• Identified Symbolism in painting and etching-research• Writing assignment: How did public view Emancipation Proclamation?

Citing evidence from sources

Reading Like a Historian: Stanford Education Group

Emancipation LessonSocial Studies Classroom

• Historical question: Did Lincoln free the slaves or did the slaves free themselves?

• Review of content-background of Emancipation and effect on the war

• Read Emancipation Proclamation• Read excerpt from The Life and Times of Frederick

Douglass• Text Based Questions• Writing piece: Did Lincoln free the slaves or did the slaves

free themselves? Citing evidence

Examples of Coordinated Lessons

• Common Sense, Thomas Paine• Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death, Patrick Henry• Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving• Point of view• Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln• Declaration of Independence• ORP –Read primary sources from History and writing

activity• Ain’t I A Woman? , Sojourner Truth

Examples of Coordinated Curriculum

• Culminating Integrated Research paper• Weekly Common Planning• Sample writing outline—in all classrooms• Annotated texts• Coordinated grading of writing tasks• Discussion of student needs-academic progress

Language Arts: Data

Social Studies: Data

Tennessee Electronic LibraryCollaboration with TDOE-Common Core Resource Page

Reading Like a HistorianStanford Education

Set up Like a Rigorous Social Studies Lesson

Achieve the Core:Literacy in Social Studies

Literacy Design Collaborative:Template Task Collection

Library Of CongressAmerican Collection for primary sources

Gilder Lehrman- Institute of American HistoryPrimary Source Collections

Teaching with Primary Sources-MTSU

EDSITEmentThe Best of the Humanities on the Web

American Rhetoric

ACCOUNTABLE TALK-UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURG 2013

Reflection/Takeaways

• Find the primary Sources/texts and coordinate to units-Overarching Question

• Let students struggle with the text• Use text dependent questions to deepen student’s

understanding• Use textual evidence to support written work• Incorporate Academically productive talk in Lessons-team effort• Coordinate with ELA and other members of teams-work together• Balance and Go Slow-smaller pieces (quotes, excerpts)• Study student work-analyze needs

Questions

Contact:mundym@wcschools.com

oxleyj@wcschools.com