Democratic societies require a citizenry skilled in argumentation. At present, the written argument maintains primacy among communicative modes. Because of its cognitive demands, written argumentation is often difficult to teach. A multimodal approach to writing instruction carries the potential to assist struggling learners. This article outlines…

Value-added modeling (VAM), one class of statistical models used to estimate individual teacher's or school's contribution to student achievement based on student test score growth between consecutive years, has become increasingly popular in the last decades. Despite the increasing popularity of VAM, many researchers are concerned about the…

Elementary school teachers and students in the U.S. are engaging with the past in new ways. Teachers send students on guided online searches for images. Students explore interactive timelines, create podcasts based on oral history interviews with family members, and make digital video projects with historical photographs and video clips. A host of…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress--commonly called "The Nation's Report Card"--tells a dismal story: Only 2% of high school seniors in 2010 could answer a simple question about the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark "Brown v. Board of Education" decision. And it's no surprise. Across the country, state educational…

This paper takes the position that if value inquiry in the social studies is to become something more than a mere "fad" it will have to be grounded upon a sound rationale from which appropriate curricular design and teaching strategies can be developed. The paper then proceeds to offer a rationale for a social studies program organized in a manner…

This paper presents a rationale for a disclosure approach to value analysis and describes the components of this approach, which involves student construction of value profiles of his own mythic thought, or mental framework, vis a vis a specified concept. The rationale is discussed in terms of the relationship between value study and mythic…

Given the general recognition that what we do is influenced as much or more by our value commitments as by our factual knowledge, it is ironic that social studies, the area of the curriculum supposedly focused on citizenship education, has paid so little attention to values. There are many reasons for this, but one of them, the author believes, is…

Identifies common areas of interest for the sciences and social studies. Explains effective clarification strategies and methods of focusing on value conflicts. Two such methods, the analytical model and moral reasoning model, are explained and examples of instructional materials provided for each. (GS)

A rationale and model are presented for using literature to teach values clarification in elementary social studies classes. The premise is that a major goal of social studies is to develop good citizens, which requires a comparative knowledge of self and society, and decision-making ability. An explanation is given of how literature (including…

This paper presents a way to incorporate environmental education in the classroom through the preparation of teachers. The approach suggested is to train teachers to use literature in the humanities as focal points around which environmental issues can be discussed and analyzed in the classroom by students. Sections from one non-fiction work and…

The purpose of this yearbook is to assist instructors with problems in values education. It attempts to deal essentially with the application of cognitive content to the affective domain. Chapter 1, Objectives of Value Analysis, examines the logic of value judgement and justification and concludes that there are three legitimate objectives: 1)…

Intended to examine equity in values education in public school curricula, this comprehensive report is organized into two major sections. Section 1 is empirically oriented and presents evidence describing how religion and traditional values are represented in the nation's public school textbooks. Part 1 of section 1 (by Donald Oppewal) is a…

This social studies curriculum guide for grades 5 and 6 is a product of the American Values Exemplary Center directed by Ralph H. Davis. The introduction describes a model program to introduce students to the functioning of local and national government through a student government program set up as an essential part of the social studies…

A conceptual model was developed and assessed to examine the relationship between critical thinking and political participation. Although the empirical and theoretical bases for the model are not fully discussed, findings based on path analysis are presented. Based on data from 118 graduate and undergraduate students, the model affirms the…

A model for designing classroom simulations is proposed as a way to integrate values and social studies in the classroom. (Author/KM)