Using Social Studies Text in the Elementary Classroom

April 22, 2015

Amy Bloom, Michele Farah, Darin Stockdill

Oakland Schools

AGENDA▪ Introductions and agenda overview, and connector

▪ Informational text, literary non-fiction text, and narrative text

▪ Putting informational reading into a curricular framework

▪ Reading activities and the principles of the BDA framework

▪ Essential questions and problems... instructional anchors and purpose for reading

▪ Building text sets, finding texts, modifying texts as necessary

▪ Read aloud with accountable talk

▪ Reading strategies and structures

▪ Share out and processing... what are two things you want to try?

Connector

▪ Think about a book you use with your students

▪ Using the book share handout:– Introduce yourself to four people –Share your name–The grade level you teach–A book you use with your students–A brief description of how and why you use

the book

What are the differences and similarities between Narrative, Informational and Literary Non-Fiction?

Narrative

Literary Non-

fiction

Informational

Handout

Putting informational reading into a curricular framework

Shifts in ELA/Literacy

6

Shift 1 Balancing Informational & Literary Text

Students read a true balance of informational and literary texts.

Shift 2 Knowledge in the Disciplines

Students build knowledge about the world (domains/ content areas) through TEXT rather than the teacher or activities

Shift 3 Staircase of Complexity Students read the central, grade appropriate text around which instruction is centered. Teachers are patient, create more time and space and support in the curriculum for close reading.

Shift 4 Text-based Answers Students engage in rich and rigorous evidence based conversations about text.

Shift 5 Writing from Sources Writing emphasizes use of evidence from sources to inform or make an argument.

Shift 6 Academic Vocabulary Students constantly build the transferable vocabulary they need to access grade level complex texts. This can be done effectively by spiraling like content in increasingly complex texts.

3rd Grade Informational Reading Standards

▪ Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.

▪ Determine the main idea of a text; recount the key details and explain how they support the main idea.

▪ Describe the relationship between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text, using language that pertains to time, sequence, and cause/effect.

▪ Determine the meaning of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases in a text relevant to a grade 3 topic or subject area.

▪ Use text features and search tools (e.g., key words, sidebars, hyperlinks) to locate information relevant to a given topic efficiently.

▪ Distinguish their own point of view from that of the author of a text.

▪ Use information gained from illustrations (e.g., maps, photographs) and the words in a text to demonstrate understanding of the text (e.g., where, when, why, and how key events occur).

▪ Describe the logical connection between particular sentences and paragraphs in a text (e.g., comparison, cause/effect, first/second/third in a sequence).

▪ Compare and contrast the most important points and key details presented in two texts on the same topic.

▪ By the end of the year, read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, at the high end of the grades 2-3 text complexity band independently and proficiently

Turn and Talk: How can you meet these goals while also teaching Social Studies content?

6-8 Reading Standards for Social Studies

▪ Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources.

▪ Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of the source distinct from prior knowledge or opinions.

▪ Identify key steps in a text's description of a process related to history/social studies (e.g., how a bill becomes law, how interest rates are raised or lowered).

▪ Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including vocabulary specific to domains related to history/social studies.

▪ Describe how a text presents information (e.g., sequentially, comparatively, causally).

▪ Identify aspects of a text that reveal an author's point of view or purpose (e.g., loaded language, inclusion or avoidance of particular facts).

▪ Integrate visual information (e.g., in charts, graphs, photographs, videos, or maps) with other information in print and digital texts.

▪ Distinguish among fact, opinion, and reasoned judgment in a text.

▪ Analyze the relationship between a primary and secondary source on the same topic.

▪ By the end of grade 8, read and comprehend history/social studies texts in the grades 6-8 text complexity band independently and proficiently.

Turn and Talk: This is what your students will be expected to do in middle school. How do we get them ready?

Social Studies

People Places Time

0

My Family

and School

Michigan

Our Community

The United States

Myself and

others

Kindergarten - Myself and OthersFirst Grade - Families and SchoolsSecond Grade - The Local CommunityThird Grade - The State Fourth Grade - The Country Fifth Grade - Early American History

Elementary Contexts

The Four Core Areas of Social Studies

GeographyEconomicsCivics History

Kindergarten Foundational Concepts

First GradeFoundational Concepts

What is aFamily?

Families help people meet their

basic needs.

Family members love and take care

of each other.

First GradeFoundational Concepts

• Needs and wants

• How families are alike and different:

• Traditions• Language• Religion• Food

Second GradeFoundational Concepts

Places to have funTransportation

BuildingsBusinesses

Characteristics of a Community

Natural Characteristics

Second GradeFoundational Concepts

Grade 2

Communities help keep people safe.

Communities have places where people can live, work, and play.

Why Do People live in Communities?

Communities help people meet their basic needs.

Historyand

Historians

Geographyand

Geographers

Economicsand

Economists

Governmentand

Political Scientists

Social StudiesDisciplines

Third Grade Foundational

Concepts

Geographythe study of places

and how people interact with places

Kindergarten

Grade 1

Grade 2

Grade 2 

Small Town

Different Kinds of Communities

City

SuburbanCommunity

Place: Brooklyn

Time: in the present

6

setting

when and where a story takes place

Example: The setting of the story was a farm long ago.

(SS020102)

Optional Book

Grade 3

Grades 3 and 4

Grade 4

Grade 4

EuropeanExploration

Africa

Grade 5

American History

Meeting of the Three Worlds

Encounters Exchanges

Geographic concepts are embedded in the story of the past

Geography in Grade 5

• Location

• Place

• Movement

• Human-Environment Interaction

• Regions

Economicsthe study of how people use resources

to meet their wants

Kindergarten

Grade 1

Grade 2

Grade 3

Questions Economists Ask

• What to produce?

• How to produce?

• For whom to produce?

Every society has RESOURCES.

NATURALRESOURCES

CAPITALRESOURCES

HUMANRESOURCES

ECONOMIC WANTS

which are used to produce

GOODS and SERVICESthat meet

But RESOURCES are limited and

HUMAN WANTS are unlimited which results in

SCARCITY

SCARCITY forces people to make

CHOICESsuch as

WHAT to produce?

SPECIALIZATION

People choose to produce certain kinds of goods and services.This is called

EXCHANGE(TRADE)

Because of specialization people do not produce everything they want.

To get what they want they

TRADESPECIALIZATION +

INTERDEPENDENCE

ColonialConnections

from 5th Grade

SCARCITY ISSUES

Europe

• Land

• Economic Opportunity

• Natural Resources/Raw Materials

• Beaver

SCARCITY ISSUES

Colonies

New England

• not enough good farmland

The South

• not enough workers

SCARCITY forces people to make

CHOICESsuch as

WHAT to produce?

SPECIALIZATION

People choose to produce certain kinds of goods and services.This is called

EXCHANGE(TRADE)

Because of specialization people do not produce everything they want.

To get what they want they

EXCHANGE(TRADE)

Native Americans and Europeans

TRADESPECIALIZATION +

INTERDEPENDENCE

Raw Materials

Manufactured Goods

ResourcesGoods

Economic WantsScarcityChoice

SpecializationTrade

Interdependence

Civics and Government

the study of the rights and duties of citizens and the allocation of power and authority over individuals and

groups

Citizenship in Kindergarten

Citizenship in Grade 1

Civics and Citizenship in Grade 2

Civics and Citizenship in Grade 3

Civics and Citizenship in Grade 4

POWERGovernment is about…

Popular Sovereignty

power and authority comes from the people.

AuthorityPower

The ability to control others

The right to use power

Structure of Government

Many, ManyLocal Governments

50 State Governments

OneNational

Government

Solve problems that affect the

one state.

Solve problems that affect the whole country.

Solve problems that affect a community.

United States

Michigan

Community

Grade 2

69

Grade 3

Grade 4

Power and Authority in an American History Context

72

Grade 5

British King or Queen

Royal Governor

· Appointed by king or queen· Had final approval of laws

· Oversaw colonial trade· Could dismiss the colonial assembly

Council

· Appointed by governor· Board of advisors to governor

· Acted as highest court in each colony

Colonial Assembly

· Elected by colonists who could vote· Made laws

· Had authority to tax· Paid governor’s salary

COLONIALGOVERNMENTS

House of

Burgesses

MayflowerCompact

N. E.Town Meetings

The desire to have a say in their government.

History• The study of the past (early el)• The discovery, collection, organization,

and presentation of information about past events. (beginning in grade 5)

Kindergarten

Grade 1

Grade 2

How is a historian like a detective?

• A historian looks for clues.

• A historian gathers evidence.

• A historian reconstructs the past like a detective reconstructs a crime.

3rd Grade

Primary Sources

SecondarySources

History

Accounts of the past

QuestionsWhat happened?

Who was involved?When did it happen?

Why did it happen?

The Early History of Michigan

WHO?

Point of View

WHAT HAPPENED?

• Primary Sources• Secondary Sources

HOW AND WHY?

WHEN?

Chronology

Cause and Effect

Grade 3

NATURALRESOURCES

MineralsFertile soil

WaterTrees

ECONOMICACTIVITIES

MiningFarming

ManufacturingLumbering

GROWTH CHANGE

WellForest

Cleared Field

Shed

Log House Orchard

SmokehouseLog Barn Hog

House

Split Rail Fence

Pioneer Farm

• Grade 3 – Michigan History through• Statehood• Economic Activities – Henry

Ford and the automobile• Growth over time• How we have used our natural

resources

• Grade 4 – Little emphasis on history

History

GEOGRAPHYEC

ON

OM

ICS

CIV

ICS

5th Grade

PUSH FACTORS

PULL FACTORS

Early American History

Examining Causation

88

Road to the Revolution

89

5th Grade is all about HISTORY!

Reading informational text

BDA… Before, During, and After

• Set up all students for reading success…

Before reading..

Activate interest and prior knowledge.Build/review any necessary knowledge before reading. Preview difficult concepts and vocabulary.Introduce and set purpose with a driving question.

During reading...Have students identify and organize important information.Teach students to record developing understandings and questions.Help students clarify things they don't understand.

After reading...Guide students to use evidence from texts to develop accounts.Have students use evidence from texts to support arguments.Facilitate synthesis and connection across the texts.

92

Before:Setting purpose with questions and problems:

• Develop a shared experience (watch a video, take a walk or field trip, listen to a guest speaker, watch a demonstration, study some images) and have students generate questions about this experience that can be answered through reading.

• Or, pose and interesting problem or question that engages students and requires them to read and use information from a text to answer it.

• This is where our essential questions come in!93

Before reading Strategies

• Activating Background Knowledge • Use KWL or List Group Label to activate prior knowledge

• Setting purposes for reading • WHY read? WHY this text? What is the essential question?

• Making predictions and/or previewing a text • Previewing images, graphic, pictures (“Picture Walk”)

• Questioning based upon predictions94

During reading, have students identify and organize important information… (this can happen whether you are reading out loud or students are reading silently)

Stop and Jot.

Turn and Talk.

Talking to the Text (highlighting, annotating, text coding)

Text Structure Mapping and graphic organizers

95

After reading

• Retelling the story (or parts of it), or summarizing informational text

• Discussing favorite aspects of a text

• Answering questions, exploring Question –Answer – Relationships (QAR)

• Comparing to another text, or connecting to other ideas

• Illustrating the text

96

Table talk:

▪ How do you currently attend to reading Before, During, and After?

▪ What works well?

▪ What are the challenges?

Essential questions and problems... instructional anchors and purpose for reading

A good essential question…

▪ Is open-ended; that is, it typically will not have a single, final, and correct answer.

▪ Is thought-provoking and intellectually engaging, often sparking discussion and debate.

▪ Calls for higher-order thinking, such as analysis, inference, evaluation, prediction. It cannot be effectively answered by recall alone.

▪ Points toward important, transferable ideas within (and sometimes across) disciplines.

▪ Raises additional questions and sparks further inquiry.

▪ Requires support and justification, not just an answer.

▪ Recurs over time; that is, the question can and should be revisited again and again.

▪ http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/109004/chapters/What-Makes-a-Question-Essential%A2.aspx

Social Studies EQ’s

▪ Whose "story" is this?

▪ How can we know what really happened in the past?

▪ How should governments balance the rights of individuals with the common good?

▪ Should _______ (e.g., immigration, media expression) be restricted or regulated?

When? Who decides?

▪ Why do people move?

▪ Why is that there? (geography)

▪ What is worth fighting for?

Generated by CamScanner from intsig.com

Given the expectations below, what essential question could we develop to give focus to reading and to drive home important conceptual understandings?

Social Studies

▪ 3 - E1.0.3 Analyze how Michigan’s location and natural resources influenced its economic development (e.g. how waterways and other natural resources have influenced economic activities such mining, lumbering, automobile manufacturing, and furniture making)

ELA

▪ Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.

▪ Determine the main idea of a text; recount the key details and explain how they support the main idea.

▪ Use information gained from illustrations (e.g., maps, photographs) and the words in a text to demonstrate understanding of the text (e.g., where, when, why, and how key events occur).

Brainstorm and Table Talk:

▪ What big questions can you use to drive home upcoming instruction and also give purpose to reading?

LUNCH!

But where are the materials to support literacy and social

studies?

Text Resources Are Built into the Social Studies

CurriculumSamples from Grades 2 and 3

Text Resources Are Built into the Social Studies Curriculum

Samples from Grades 4 and 5

Read Aloud with Accountable Talk

Read Aloud with Accountable Talk

Why?

▪ A critical component of a balanced literacy program. Models the thinking work that readers do to comprehend text and to nurture an understanding of ideas, theories, content and processes.

What?• The teacher purposely selects a text and flags pages with the

intention to teach a specific skill or strategy. The teacher is reading so children can concentrate on using strategies for comprehension and having accountable conversation about the text.

Supports available?

▪ http://oaklandk12-public.rubiconatlas.org

▪ Second grade & 3rd grade unit 4 lesson 1

Read Aloud

A teacher knowledgeable of genre elements, features, and organizational patterns will be able to routinely direct young students’ attention to them during read-alouds within meaningful contexts, to assess student compositions for the ways in which the students apply these insights, and to invite students to examine their own texts for elements, features and organization.

Bradley and Donovan (2010)

Getting kids thinking while reading… QAR and Book Clubs

Fisher, D. and N. Frey, Better Learning Through Structured Teaching: A Framework for the Gradual Release of Responsibility, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Alexandria, Virginia, 2008.

KEEP THIS IMPORTANT

FRAMEWORK IN MIND!!

112

• Tigers are the largest members of the cat family and are renowned for their power and strength.

• There were eight tiger subspecies at one time, but three became extinct during the 20th century. Over the last 100 years, hunting and forest destruction have reduced tiger populations from hundreds of thousands of animals to perhaps fewer than 2,500. Tigers are hunted as trophies, and also for body parts that are used in traditional Chinese medicine. All five remaining tiger subspecies are endangered, and many protection programs are in place.

Answer the questions below:

1) About how many tigers are currently alive in the wild?2) What are some of the problems that are endangering tigers?3) How can humans help protect the remaining tigers?4) Are there other big cats facing similar problems?

HOW did you answer each of these questions? What was different about what you had to do?113

Anytime we answer questions based on something we read, we are answering one of

four types of questions:

114

QAR… Question Answer RelationshipsIN THE BOOK

Right There Questions

The answer is in one place in the text.Strategies: Read closely, study figures and data Reread Scan Look for key words

Think and Search Questions

The answer is in several places in the text.Strategies: Skim and reread Look for connections between figures and the text Look for and tag important information Connect information and summarize

IN MY HEAD

Author and Me Questions

The answer is not just in the text. They require inference. Think about how your knowledge, ideas and questions relate to the content and the author’s perspective.Strategies: Think about what you know. Ask question about your assumptions, and

the authors, in order to put together an inference.

Ask questions about evidence that you accept and compare this to the author’s evidence.

On My Own Questions

The answer is not in the text. I need to use my own thinking to answer that question.Strategies: Use your own knowledge and reasoning. Make predictions.

115

QAR – Question Answer Relationship

Graphic from : http://www.indiana.edu/~l517/QAR.htm116

Book Clubs

▪ What?- Like groups ( put two partnerships together)working together to talk and think about books on similar topics

▪ Why?- real life, ponder questions, develop theories, celebrate discoveries, and enables students to become experts about their topics

▪ How to use for Social Studies text?

Text-structure mapping

Looking Closely at Informational Books

Title How does the book work?

What is it called? Why would an author choose to write a book like this?

Roots Each chapter asks a question body holds the answer

Question/answer book To teach and answer questions

Plants Each chapter teaches something different about the topic

All about books To teach a lot of different things about plants

Frogs and Toads Compare/contrast two things or ideas

Compare/contrast To teach two things at a time

From Tadpole to Frogs Goes in time order Timeline or life cycle book

Teach about change

Where do plants grow? Tells a different kind on each page

Field guide To teach about different kinds of things

Text Structures

DescriptionComparison

Sequence

Point of View

Cause and Effect

Share out and processing... what are two things you want to try?

Final questions??