Young children can engage in close reading, critical thinking, and historical thinking when age-appropriate texts are coupled with discipline-specific tasks. Prior knowledge is an impediment, though. Primary elementary learners simply do not have much of a historical schema. Because of primary elementary students' familiarity with Thanksgiving,…

This study utilizes action research to examine the design and implementation of inquiry-based teaching in a middle school social studies classroom. As a practitioner, fulfilling the role of teacher and researcher, I sought to better understand my teaching practices. To do so, I collected multiple forms of data that would help me understand…

This project investigates the relationship between joy, critical consciousness, and critical civic learning that exist in critical hip hop pedagogy. In order to discover what is revealed about young people's collective definitions of joy, critical consciousness, and civic identity/literacy, I designed a methodology called Blackout Rap…

How can comedy be used as an effective tool and truly help innovate the learning experience? This paper outlines how aspects of comedy have been creatively integrated into primary and secondary academic curricula such as English Language Arts, social studies, drama, as well as in areas of mental health and wellness. The essay demonstrates, for…

Most Norwegian preservice teachers are required to perform assignments relating to digital competence during their education. In this article, one such mandatory student assignment is used to explore students' interpretations of digital teacher competence. In a study programme for future primary and lower secondary school teachers, second-year…

The "College, Career, and Civil Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards" guides teachers to initiate complex inquiries by sparking students' disciplinary literacy and critical analysis of rich sources. With effective scaffolding and engaging content, elementary students can explore and contextualize complex historical…

Here the author shares his attempt to add, without financial cost, substantive and dynamic international experiences to the secondary social studies teacher education program he facilitates. He provides thick descriptions of (1) the overarching goals of a collaborative, online, international learning project, (2) the curriculum materials he helped…

Analytical reading and writing are embedded in a disciplinary approach to history instruction and present opportunities to extend students' literacy practices. U.S. educators and researchers have come to rely on the Document-Based Question (DBQ) to assess and develop students' historical knowledge and argument writing. However, this task has been…

Both the Common Core Standards for Literacy and the College, Career, and Civic Life Framework for Social Studies State Standards underscore the importance of classroom discussion for the development of high-level literacy and subject-matter knowledge. Yet, discussion remains stubbornly absent in social studies classrooms, which tend toward rote…

Because race is treated as a controversial issue within K-12 social studies classrooms, teachers report avoiding the topic. Some consider it too sensitive or complex for their students; others don't want to say the wrong thing; still others fear being labeled a "racist." The authors argue that one of the reasons why social studies…

Teachers strive to design instruction that actively engages all students, but a few "back-benchers" often seem to be left out, due to academic struggles, English language skills, personal disinterest, or other factors. Teachers seek to help these students develop into "active and engaged participants" in their classrooms in…

Contextualized in the critical pedagogies of universal design for learning (UDL) and social justice education, our study aimed to equip teacher candidates (TCs) to provide students with equitable access to learning social studies content knowledge, skills, and processes as a way to equally empower all students to be civically engaged, and thus to…

Although the popularity and use of graphic novels in literacy instruction has increased in the last decade, few sustained analyses have examined adolescents' reading processes with informational texts in social studies classrooms. Recent research that has foregrounded visual, emotional, and embodied textual responses situates this qualitative…

The internment of Americans of Japanese descent during World War II lies at the heart of ongoing discussions in American social studies. We analyzed inputs of members of the Yahoo! Answers Q&A online community following students' questions dealing with differential treatment of Japanese and German and Italian American citizens during World War…

The purpose of this study is to describe social studies teachers' perceptions related to their practices in teaching concepts within the context of social studies instruction in order to enhance students' vocabulary development in their classes. The study focuses on how students' breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge is supported by teachers'…