We are surrounded by data and data visualizations in our everyday lives. To help ensure that students can critically evaluate data--and use it to promote social justice--this book outlines principles and practices for teaching data literacy as part of social studies education. The author shows how social studies content and skills can enhance both…

Elementary-aged children are often positioned as not developmentally ready to learn about race, racism, and injustice. Yet, the classroom materials used in most schools misrepresent history, withhold knowledge about racial injustice, or fail to uplift stories of resilience and resistance. For almost a decade, this groundbreaking resource has been…

Featuring tools, activities, and insightful stories from a CIA analyst and instructor with 30+ years' of experience, this practical and engaging book supports busy educators to teach the lifelong skills of news and media literacy to their students. Based on existing curriculum and teaching standards, this guidebook shows how social studies and…

In this article, the author describes one way to teach about religion in elementary school social studies using the C3 Framework IDM model. The compelling question that guides the lesson focuses specifically on whether Judaism is a race, religion, or ethnicity. Each compelling and supporting question in the lesson is connected to one or more…

The Minnesota K-12 Academic Standards in Social Studies represent the work of the Social Studies Standards Review Committee. This committee included K-12 teachers, administrators, college faculty, and representatives of educational and community organizations. Beginning in 2020, the Social Studies Standards Review Committee reviewed the 2011…

We often hear that a key purpose of schooling is to prepare students for informed and active citizenship. But what does this look like in practice? How do teachers pursue this goal amid other pressing priorities, including student mastery of both academic content and social-emotional competencies? "Students Taking Action Together," based…

Educators across subject areas are striving to integrate primary sources into their pedagogy and teaching. Yet, despite their importance to authentic disciplined inquiry, the implementation of primary source activities in the pre-K-12 classroom has been limited. This lack of utilization can largely be attributed to the perception that these…

Political history lends itself to traditional patterns of teaching and learning in social studies such as students memorizing facts presented in lectures or textbooks. This article presents a recurring activity structure for teaching U.S. political history--Consensus Circle Presidential Rating (CCPR)--which requires students to read across…

Approaching the Holocaust in your classroom can be a difficult, often daunting task. This practical guide for English and social studies teachers features lessons learned from the author's 17 years of experience teaching the subject in public schools, as well as his work with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Using anecdotes and…

Learn how to integrate and evaluate primary and secondary sources by using the SOURCES framework. SOURCES is an acronym for an approach that educators can use with student in all grades and content areas: Scrutinize the fundamental source, Organize thoughts, Understand the context, Read between the lines, Corroborate and refute, Establish a…

Inquiry is becoming more and more an area of interest in education. This book attempts to explain why music inquiry makes sense, what pieces are required to do music inquiry effectively (the knowledge, skills and dispositions) and then provides how to teach music inquiry in a series of day-by-day lesson plans.

The Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery is often presented as an exciting adventure story of discovery, friendship, and patriotism. However, this same period in U.S. history can be understood quite differently when viewed through an anticolonial lens and the Doctrine of Discovery. How might educators critically interrogate the assumptions that…

This practical book provides teachers with step-by-step guidance for developing a class culture that welcomes curiosity and ignites social action. Student-driven inquiry has a lasting impact on learning, yet questions posed from students' own contexts rarely serve to shape their understanding of the outside world. The authors show teachers how to…

This book offers the tools teachers need to get started with a more thoughtful and compelling approach to teaching history, one that develops literacy and higher-order thinking skills, connects the past to students' lives today, and meets social studies 3C standards and most state standards (grades 6-12). The author provides over 90 primary…

Climate change and climate denial have remained largely off the radar in literacy and social studies education. This book addresses that gap with the design of the "Climate Denial Inquiry Model" (CDIM) and clear examples of how educators and students can confront two forms of climate denial: "science denial" and "action…