Focal Discipline: Social Studies

Types of Questions: Anna and Emma

In order to generate thought and critical thinking, social studies classes have to ask two types of questions, according to the National Council for the Social Studies, 

• “compelling and supporting questions” (National Council, pg. 23). 
• What exactly these types of questions generate in a student’s thought-process
  • How exactly certain situations or events occur in United States history, world history, etc. (National Council, pg.23).
  •  Applying concepts and interpretations of certain concepts to answer the ‘why?’. Supporting questions on the other hand answer the ‘what?’.
  •  They go into depth about what exactly is a part of a topic or what it is made of (National Council, pg. 23). 
    • For example, this would be asking students about what they already know about the process of passing a law and asking questions about what type of words go into it.

Methods of Inquiry: Bailey

• Best way of teaching is to distinguish what type of content that is being taught
• Conceptual and curricular are two types that require specialized instruction
• Conceptual focuses on bigger picture
• Curricular focuses on smaller aspects
• Teachers decide what they want to focus on it.
• Page 29

Types of Texts: Adam Farbarik 

Texts vary based on what type of sources are necessary for the content being taught. In Social Studies classes, primary sources are highly looked upon for its accuracy to the time. But secondary sources may be just as informative. The only issue students must be aware of, according to the National Council for the Social Studies, is that their sources must be relevant (pg. 54). Now there are different mediums that sources can be found from such as online or print, but the major factor is how relevant they are to the topic (pg. 54). 

• Texts vary in a Social Studies classroom
• Primary source, secondary sources, and tertiary sources are all incorporated
• Sourcing, contextualizing, and corroborating are necessary when using texts
• Sources must be relevant, relevant to a particular topic

Disciplinary Literacy Practices: Kyle Meyer

It is important when teaching social studies to think about how students will take the lessons and apply them to future experiences. This could be informative for civil public duty, perspectives in history, etc (pg. 62). With this in mind, it is important to the teacher that the lesson get through to the student while at the same time following the discipline being taught (pg. 62).

• Recognize the types of governments and warning signs of government changes
• Understanding the power of your voice in a democracy 
• Understanding the importance of historical event on a personal, political, and emotional level for cultures

Ideas of Teaching

Engaging Students in Cycles of Inquiry: Quinn Dunphy

List-Group-Label Helps True or False Helps

• Develop categorizing skills Self problem solving
• Build background knowledge Provides correct information
• Uses critical thinking skills Explanations
• Grows vocabulary

Limitations Include Limitations Include

• Doesn’t apply to what is being taught “Loose” instruction could lead to                                                                                                                               loss of focus on task by students
• “Waste of time” Do questions have depth?
• If there is “loose” instructions as what to list-group-label Time management

Engineering/Scaffolding Their Success: Ray Mangone

Pre-teach Vocabulary: Frontloading specific vocabulary before a lesson or chapter to help students get a sense of new and challenging words. Examples of helping students pre-learn vocab terms can be simply going over the terms a day before the lesson or right before the lesson to let students know these should be known. If you were to pre-teach the words a day before teachers in the past have added a word puzzle for bonus points.

• Students understanding terms that further their understanding during lesson.
• Save time during lesson due to students knowing terms.
• Students do not learn terms, either too difficult or not interested in doing so until lesson is happening.
• Students get terms confused and leads to confusion during lesson.

Chunk Text: Full chapters in thick textbooks can intimidate some struggling readers and make them hesitant to participate in class. History teachers in my experience have chunked the text into smaller amounts of reading that still provide valuable information. By using a piece of paper or even creating copies of the textbook shortened with the same information(a lot of work done by teacher).

• Students learn more effectively.
• Anxiety is less apparent during reading.
•  Some information is lacking from chunking.
•  Chunking text may not help a student at all.

Examining Words and ways with Words: Bryan Sherman and Ana Petrak

History teachers will on occasion use words in a historical or foreign context that means something different in a modern or local context. An example of this could be when teachers talk about the rise of liberalism in the 19th century they are not talking about promoting medicare and free college, but promoting democracy. Teachers must make an effort to ensure that students are aware that the words they use may have a different meaning given their disciplinary context. A benefit to this is that students grow their vocabulary and understand how words change meaning over time. A potential limitation to this is that students may struggle to separate the two meanings and could use them mistakenly in the wrong context.

• Be clear when words have a different meaning due to a different historical context
• Encourage students to use the words in the new context in class

Evaluating claims and ways with words: Mike/Nick

Teachers can help students evaluate the quality of claims according to the standards based off of certain disciplines such as providing certain examples to help the student understand the discipline. Best way to do this is to understand your students and understand what works for the individual. Everyone has different ways of understanding content and studying, for say. The benefits are that the student will hopefully always ask questions and try to learn more and the limitations are the ones that do not ask questions. Those are the students that are the hardest to get through. 

Source:

National Council for the Social Studies. (2013). The college, career, and civic life (C3) framework for social studies state standards: Guidance for enhancing the rigor of K-12 civics, economics, geography, and history. Silver Spring, MD: Author. 

How will I as a teacher…

1. Evaluate their claims and ways with words?
2. Engage newcomers in my discipline in cycles of inquiry?

In order for me to evaluate my students claims in a social studies class room, I would have to examine their sources’ credibility. I would have to look at their sources’ author in order to see if they hold the credentials that would allow their work to hold accountability. In addition, I would have to see if they accurately cited their quotations and paraphrasing. This way I am able to see what is my students own ideas or if they are using others words and ideas in order to further their point. Due to this I would have to engage my students in thinking as a historical researcher while they work on writing historical essays. I want them to learn the content by doing accurate research and distinguishing what is ‘accurate research’. The best way for me to encourage this learning is by dedicating class time to review methods to researching and citing, conferences to go over their citations, and peer review sessions.

How might this examination of literacy inform your own observations in your field experiences? 

After reading “Religious Literacies in a Secular Literacy Classroom” by Allison Skerrett, I saw certain aspects from the study that are crucial to apply to my own observations in my field experience.  I believe this article would greatly influence my time in a catholic school environment because the main topic is how religious literacies play into student’s cultural and linguistic aspects of their lives. But, this idea can also be applied to public or other schools as well. It was done in a secular school setting but I feel that it can also be applied to religious schools as well. I believe this is more prevalent in a catholic, spiritan, etc. school because their religion is a big aspect of their day to day life. According to Skerrett, “… growing numbers of culturally and linguistically diverse students— whose religions are an inextricable component of their cultures…” are now in school systems all around the world. This component is very important to think about because to these students their religion is a big aspect of their life, and so is their school experiences as well. With that in mind, it is important to promote engagement of religious literacies in the classroom in order to apply their knowledge to other concepts and their writing skills as well. When I am overseeing classrooms during my field experience I will keep that in mind when I see students bring up their own experiences with religion and the teachers apply it to the lesson as well. 

Define inquiry, kidwatching, and responsive teaching? How are they related to one another? 

Inquiry is a form of interviewing where you ask an individual questions to gain information. Kidwatching is a way of watching a student work on their own, how they work in a group, how they pay attention in class, etc. in order to learn new information from them. Responsive teaching is helping a student with their work or studies but let them work on their own at times and watch them develop their knowledge on their own. All these methods are just ways teachers are able to collect data about their classroom and their students. 

What kind of “naturally occurring data” can you collect in your field experience?  

I find the best example of “naturally occurring data” within my field experience would be just observing the students in your class, the environment they are in, and how the teacher teaches their classroom. This is all naturally occurring, the only thing that would make it not is if the observer, or me in this instance, would happen to interfere during the lesson. This data would show me how students work with different activities, lectures, technology usage, etc.

Source: Skerrett, A. (2014). Religious literacies in a secular literacy classroom. Reading Research Quarterly, 49(2), 233-250.

Definition sources:

• https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ACYBGNTwbNX1DG-7S_E2a4BgsS1ea0e13A%3A1570464428163&source=hp&ei=rGKbXYySB-Wa_Qb9sI_oAg&q=inquiry+definition&oq=in&gs_l=psy-ab.3.0.35i39l2j0i67j0i131j0j0i67j0i131j0j0i131j0.243.382..1438…0.0..0.257.347.1j0j1……0….1..gws-wiz.DbBNpLyov84
• https://k12teacherstaffdevelopment.com/tlb/improving-student-learning-with-kidwatching/
• http://www.learnalberta.ca/content/rtl/Workshops/Ws1bottem.htm

What claims do they make? How do they support those claims? — aka what kind of evidence? What do you notice about the way the evidence is worded?

The reading that I chose for this week is titled ““They Thought the World Was Flat?” Applying the Principles of How People Learn in Teaching High School History” written by Robert B. Bain. In the article he discusses how the profession of a history teacher receives an immense amount of backlash because critics state that their pedagogy is ineffective in a student’s educational career. Yet following that, Bain claims that being a history teacher in itself is not as simple as following a textbook. He goes on to describe the types of hardships they have to face, such as using textbooks or primary resources in order for the students to learn how to critical think about historical events. Finally he states his claim that he will be focusing on how instruction is the key to having the student generate deeper thoughts about learning and thinking about history. In addition to that, he also states that he will be using data he collected in his own classroom during a discussion about Columbus and the idea of “flat Earth”. This idea of using actual data from a classroom he is familiar with is very interesting to look at. What was interesting about the data is that Bain included the actual dialogue from the lesson being focused on. This shows that the readers are able to look at the discussion themselves, form their own opinions, and then read Bain’s ideas to see if they overlap. It allows for other teachers, students, and outside parties to figure out if they agree with Bain or not. Not only that but Bain went into detail about the types of resources he was basing his lesson off of, such as what type of sources the students had to read and what the sources were about. Overall, Bain was very descriptive with what exactly the students responded with, what exactly the sources were about, and how the lesson went about. This made me feel like this data was trustworthy, I just wish he would have used multiple accounts instead of just one discussion and one classroom.

Source:

Bain, R. B. (2005). “They thought the world was flat?”: Applying the principles of How People Learnin teaching high school history. In J. Bransford & S. Donovan (Eds.), How students learn: History, mathematics, and science in the classroom. Washington, The National Academies Press.

What do you notice about either video? How do they each relate to the concepts of disciplinary literacy and/or content area reading? What are the affordances and limitations of each approach? 

I noticed that in each of the videos the teachers were showing their students basic skills for their disciplines, but were taking it further by proposing questions about the skills that made the students think about why they were learning these topics. For example, the teacher that was working on vocabulary was doing a basic vocabulary activity. Yet she would go around and ask the students to think about their decisions about what groups they placed certain words in. Finally, in the end, she asked students about what they thought the purpose of the activity was and they all started to understand it is about knowing words fit into categories and as they grow older they will learn words that they will learn to know and be able to categorize these words on their own. This activity fits into the idea of disciplinary literacy when it comes to teaching the students ways for them to think about vocabulary words or their multiplication and division tables. It makes the students look at these necessary basic skills but think about them in a way where they will apply it to future lessons, life outside of school, or in other disciplines as well. A limitation that I see is that these students are very young to be able to apply these skills to their lives now and not build upon what the teacher is teaching. Now I agree that disciplinary literacy is good to teach to elementary school students, to a certain extent, but not to students in grades lower than 3rd grade. These grade levels are just introducing topics that are hard to students, such as division and tougher vocabulary, so having them master these skills first I feel is more crucial rather than having disciplinary literacy being taught as well. This may stress the students out who are having a tough time understanding the basic skills, let alone how to apply them to the world around them.

• What are the strongest arguments for and against taking a disciplinary approach to teaching reading at the elementary levels?

I believe that the arguments for and against disciplinary literacy being taught in elementary schools are both reasonable in their way.

The for-side of the argument states that younger students can differentiate between two different perspectives based on observations outside of the classroom. This could be past lessons being applied to the real world or learning experiences from day-to-day life. This outlook is reasonable in the fact that elementary students would be able to start learning disciplinary literacy outside of the classroom in environments that welcome it, such as museums or movie documentaries. That being said, I feel that with other outside factors playing into it many students may not take away learning techniques from the real world as well as others may. These outstanding factors could include extracurricular activities limiting their time to learn, communities where learning environments are scarce, etc.
For the against-side, they believe that the text elementary students read now does not relate to such extensive thinking. This means that, though the students may be capable of thinking with disciplinary literacy, it is not necessary at the time. This way of thinking is reasonable because some students may find difficulties if their readings become more complex and will not comprehend their work or lessons. On the other hand, at some point schools should gradually start applying disciplinary literacy to elementary student’s learning. This is for them to feel comfortable once they move to higher grades and the classwork requires disciplinary literacy. For me, I believe that disciplinary literacy is not required in an elementary classroom, but I do see benefits in gradually adding it into small lessons from time to time. This will allow for the younger students to familiarize themselves with engaging teaching all while not feeling too stressed.

• What did Disciplinary Literacy teaching look like in a history and physics class? What might it look like in other school subjects? 

Certain subjects in school require different disciplinary literacies in the classroom. This is due to the fact that each subject was developed through different practices. An example of this is how mathematic theories were created by certain formulas and theorems or how history is based on primary sources from past points in time. In a history classroom the teacher may need to rely on primary sources, know how to understand the language of the source, and relate it into the lesson being taught. In a physics classroom, the lessons may require lab notes or tangible models to draw off of. Other classrooms that are more focused on elective classes, such as art or gym, also have different disciplinary literacies compared to common core classes. For example, an art class may use supplies that are specifically designed for a certain way of painting. These supplies may need certain class time in order to teach the students how to use them. Another example would be teaching students how to use equipment for a certain sport or explaining the rules of a sport to a gym class. All of these classrooms may be teaching the students valuable lessons based on the subject, but they are all using different disciplinary literacies based on the type of subjects that are being taught.

Source: Rainey, E. C., Maher, B. L., Coupland, D., Franchi, R., & Moje, E. B. (2018).  But what does it look like?  Illustrations of disciplinary literacy teaching in two content areas.  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 61(4), 371-379.

What is the difference between Content, Content area and Disciplinary Literacy? 

1.) According to Wolsey and Lapp, it seems the concepts of content, content-area, and disciplinary literacy all relate to one another but are different when it comes to teaching a student. The article states that disciplinary literacy focuses on what should be taught to benefit future teachings, content-area reading focuses on building reading skills to help students in the future, and content focuses on teaching students based on readings in their discipline. Disciplinary literacy helps teach students skills that they will be able to apply to future lessons, such as teaching a student how to read primary resources for a history class. Content-area focuses more on teaching a student skills that may further their reading skills, such as vocabulary lessons. Finally, content focuses on teaching students how to read based on the teacher’s disciplines. 

What does “metadiscursivity” have to do with disciplinary literacy? Why is it important?

2.)The term ‘metadiscursive’ means that people take part in discourse communities where they know their social standing and what level of power they are at in that society. This plays into a classroom because studies have shown that students take information from discourse communities and have put their skills into practice in their own classwork. This could be certain texts from popular domains, social culture aspects, and so much more. This could allow teachers to open up to what they should teach by thinking of what the students are learning from discourse communities. 

How does Moje’s disciplinary theory compare and contrast to Gee’s perspectives on reading and language

3.) The difference between Moje’s and Gee’s perspective goes with how the two see the idea of discourse playing into disciplinary literacy and language. In Moje’s eyes, discourse is a way that teachers are able to take what the students are learning from their experiences and incorporate it into the classwork and eventually teach about how these discourses can be used in everyday life. In Gee’s eyes, discourses are a means of improving abilities in areas such as reading, communicating, feeling, etc. It is a way of creating an identity for one self, and may even blend in with other discourses. 

Sources:

Wolsey, T. D., & Lapp, D. (2017). Literacy in the disciplines: A teacher’s guide for grades 5-12. Chapter 1. New York, NY: Guilford. 

Moje, E.B. (2008).  Foregrounding the disciplines in secondary literacy teaching and learning: A call for change.  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 52(2), 96-107

Gee, J. P. (2001). Reading as situated language: A sociocognitive perspective. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 44(8), 714-725.