Blog Post #3: Social Studies Literacy in Middle School

From my experience so far in middle school, I see that the majority of teachers will have students read primary and secondary sources relating to the content material being studied. I can tell that a lot of the students are tired of reading these documents on a daily basis. I think that students should read a mix of historical fiction and nonfiction documents or books. I believe that historical fiction can be entertaining and still provide the context needed to understand the environment of the content they are learning. For example, students had to learn about apartheid in South Africa. This particular topic took up a couple weeks of class. I think that it would be cool to have students read a historical fiction book about black in South Africa growing up during apartheid. There are plenty of historical fiction books that cover this material. The students don’t have to read the whole thing, but even just reading a couple chapters out of the book to all of the students could give them perspective of what it was like. “Books should act as windows, where kids look out not at their own reflection, but upon other peoples, other time periods, other stories, values, and ways of life” (Daniels and Zemelman). Sometimes students can’t understand the gravity of a particular event in history simply by just reading a document that tells the basic facts of what happened. Although historical fiction books are fun and engaging, I think that nonfiction primary and secondary books or documents do have to have their place in a social studies classroom. I think every history teacher in the world would agree that primary source documents are important for social studies classes. I think that teachers should try to find an engaging way to grab the attention of students to read these documents. Primary sources ARE history so it seems inevitable that they need to be included in a social studies classroom. Secondary sources, although they can be extremely boring, can also provide loads of information that are valuable for students. I think that implementing a fun instructional strategy, such as partner reading, can help students get more involved with reading these types of texts.

Multimodal texts can also really help students understand history on a different level. Showing a video about a particular event in history can shine a light on what the environment really looked like during that era. For example, going back to apartheid, showing a video or even a picture about what living conditions and segregation looked like during this time period can really put things in perspective for students. My mentor teacher at Berkmar Middle School tries to implement multimodal texts, such as videos and pictures, to help students see the types of conditions that these people were living in during apartheid in South Africa. I think that pictures and videos can provide a more in depth look at content materials in a social studies classroom. Many students will be engaged if they are shown a video or picture of what things actually looked like during an event in history. I think that listening can be another important multimodal text that can be useful, not only in social studies, but in all content areas. Instead of having students read a document or book, it can be helpful to have an audiobook or even let the teacher read aloud to the students. This can help students who might have trouble reading. Also, it can help ELL students that might have trouble reading primary and secondary documents that have difficult vocabularies. Listening to primary source speeches can be another way that teachers can implement multimodal texts into the classroom. For example, during black history month, students should be able to hear Dr. Martin Luther Kings speech and feel the powerful words that left a mark on history forever. I think there are many ways in which teachers can implement multimodal texts into the classroom without having to work around the tight time frame that teachers are given on a particular content.

While reading primary and secondary source documents, I think students should be able to analyze the documents on a deeper level. Especially when we are talking about primary sources, students need to be able to analyze the relevance of this particular historical text to what they are learning in the classroom. Using apartheid again, if students are faced with a speech from Nelson Mandela during apartheid, they need to be able to make the connections of how this particular speech plays a role in the events that took place during that time period. Deciphering primary documents can be difficult for students and may require a lot of practice and collaboration with the teacher. Students have to be able to interpret what they are reading, whether it is a primary or secondary source document. If students are reading a historical fiction in the classroom, they need to be able to evaluate and interpret the relevance of that text to what they are learning about in the classroom. This isn’t an easy task for students to be able to do. It takes time to scaffold students into learning how to use these skills such as, analyzing, evaluating, and interpreting, during their reading. Teachers should make this a weekly or even daily routine for students to practice these skills, because these are skills that they will need all throughout their life.

Students can have a lot of difficulty trying to interpret texts, historical fiction or nonfiction. I think that teachers need to try and implement different instructional strategies that can help students practice these skills and become good reading comprehenders. Teachers can provide a list of questions for students to think about while they are reading or using any sort of multimodal text. Providing students with questions to look for and think about while deciphering a text can help plant in their brains the type of things they should be looking for when there are trying to comprehend texts. As I have said, I think that there are many different instructional strategies that can help build on a students ability to comprehend what they are reading. Strategies, such as partner reading and read alouds, can really help students analyze what they are reading. Teachers should allow students to pause and decipher what they are reading to make sure that they are understanding it. During videos, teachers can pause the video and ask questions or expand on what the video is talking about in order for students to be able to analyze the videos. You would think that watching a video wouldn’t need any further explanations, but sometimes students have no idea what the video they are watching means or how it correlates to what they are learning about. This also applies to pictures. Teachers should allows students to interpret the meaning behind political cartoons or pictures that are displayed during class. This will build on a students ability to analyze pictures. While students are listening to speeches, books, documents, etc, teachers should allow time for students to stop and think about what they are listening to and decipher the meaning of it. This can be done with a simple turn and talk or another instructional strategy that has been proven effective in the classroom. There are tons of ways in which teachers can provide students with the materials and support that is needed to build on their ability to comprehend content specific texts. Teachers need to use their resources and see what engages the students. It is important to switch it up and use different forms of multimodal texts so students with different learning strategies can be accommodated. Literacy plays a key role in social studies and it is important for students to know how to TRULY comprehend what they are reading.