Educators increasingly recognize the importance of disciplinary literacy for student success, beginning as early as the primary grades. This cutting-edge volume examines ways to help K-12 students develop the literacy skills and inquiry practices needed for high-level work in different academic domains. Chapters interweave research, theory, and…

The driving question for this brief is based on the most common question that teachers, principals, school leaders, coaches, and grant writers ask the Buck Institute for Education (BIE) about Project Based Learning (PBL): What evidence exists that shows the impact of Project Based Learning on student learning in core content areas? Research shows…

In school districts and charter school networks nationwide, instructional leaders are developing plans to address the enormous challenges faced by their students, families, teachers, and staff over the past year. While different communities are resuming in-person learning at their own unique paces, all school leaders have their eyes on the same…

Teaching English language learners has long presented challenges for teachers tasked with bringing these students to a level of language comprehension comparable to that of native speakers. These challenges and issues can lead to difficulty comprehending core academic topics for those learning the English language. "Optimizing Elementary…

Purpose: This final article covering the topic of the interplay between decoding, comprehension, and content versus structure knowledge describes a set of language initiatives that are focused toward content area learning. Inspired by the work of their colleagues from diverse fields and their own work, the authors offer suggestions to clinicians…

Social work doctoral candidates and others without much or any formal teaching experience or training are frequently invited to teach a variety of graduate-level social work courses. This beginning teaching experience can be quite challenging both personally and professionally. Yet, it is seldom discussed in the literature, especially from a…

From the late 1940s through the 1970s the belief that we were being visited by intelligent guests from other worlds swept the United States and the world. Discusses how materials generated by the unidentified flying objects controversy can be used to encourage secondary students to examine a popular topic. (RM)

The author shows how to promote critical thinking in the secondary social studies classroom through argument anticipation (defined as a procedure for eliciting agreement on persuasive reasons for a given conclusion). Six steps to argument anticipation: state the conclusion; list conditions for agreement; distinguish empirical and normative claims;…

Learning depends not only on how information is disseminated but on what learners do with the information once it becomes available to them. Procedures that teachers can use to help students identify processing frameworks (approaches to identifying and organizing information) for individual learning tasks are discussed. (RM)

Discusses the use of historical novels in social studies curriculum. The author explains why the novel is useful as well as how an inquiry and aesthetic reading novel curriculum approach can be used and the benefits of using this approach. (AM)

Advocates a social relationship approach as the most appropriate way for teaching social studies to 5-year-old children. (Author/MP)

Describes structured discovery approach to inquiry teaching which encourages the teacher to select instructional objectives, content, and questions to be answered. The focus is on individual and group activities. A brief outline using this approach to analyze Adolf Hitler is presented. (KC)

Tips are given for enlivening classroom instruction in a variety of subjects. (LH)

Suggests mnemonic tricks to help elementary students learn social studies vocabulary. Argues that traditional vocabulary teaching methods using list, definition, and oral and written use provides only a momentary link with the vocabulary. Lists 20 words with definitions and strategies for remembering both words and definitions. (DK)

This paper describes research that sought to merge the definition of in-depth study and its theoretical underpinnings with the reality of classroom practice. It describes and analyzes one high school public issues class where single topics were developed in depth. The research seeks to answer the question: What does in-depth study look like in…