Research into students' interactions with historical video games is limited and tends to focus on teacher mediation. As a result, little is known about the meanings that students independently construct as they consume this form of media. This qualitative interview study uses "Assassin's Creed," a narrative video game with a historical…

Historical documentary film usually offers content in a format that students find more engaging than traditional historical texts. In the classroom, documentary film can be positioned within a historical thinking framework to study a broad concept like civil rights while facilitating students' source work and skill development. While social…

High school social studies teachers are always struggling to "cover the content" while addressing an ever-expanding set of additional demands. The Common Core expects literacy instruction to be incorporated into social studies. NCSS's new C3 Framework emphasizes teaching students to ask questions, evaluate sources, and communicate…

Over the last 20 years, independent filmmakers have produced insightful documentaries of high profile political campaigns with behind-the-scenes footage. These documentaries offer inside looks and unique perspectives on electoral politics. This campaign season, consider "The War Room"; "A Perfect Candidate"; "Journeys With George;" "Chisholm '72";…

This article explores the use of media texts in contemporary high school social studies classrooms. Much of the current research regarding media education in social studies classes has focused on history classes and has centered on small idealized samples of both teachers and students. This study, based on the observations conducted in eight…

Students' understanding of history may be shaped less by their social studies teachers than by the powerfully ubiquitous, historically themed media images they passively consume outside of school. In this article, the author describes two strategies conducted during a classroom-based action research study designed to explore how historically…

More than two decades ago, a well-known study pointed out that despite the marked increase in images of women in secondary history textbooks, the narrative emphasis on political, diplomatic, and military history had not changed. While this study raised awareness of gender balance in the social studies curriculum, little attention has been paid to…

The ubiquity of documentary films in social studies courses, along with their potential to influence what students learn, clearly show that documentary films matter in social studies education. While the high rate of documentary film usage by social studies teachers indicates that they are amenable to bringing new films into their classrooms, they…