Equality Day

On this day in 1920 the 19th Amendment was ratified, granting women in the United States the right to vote.

PBS Learning has put together an activity pack which may be useful today or at some other point when teaching about the role of women in the development of the United States.

 http://to.pbs.org/1gBBvWc

First Person Narratives

During the Spring 2015 semester of Teaching Elementary School Social Studies, we used Social Studies, Literacy, and Social Justice in the Common Core Classroom as our course text. One notable application strategy shared was the creation of first person narratives during Writer's Workshop. First person narratives can include diaries, journals, travel journals, memories, oral histories, and autobiographies. In studying several unsung women activist, my students created autobiographies or biographies on a specific woman as eBooks. Here are a few examples of their work.

Iowa and the Underground Railroad

My fall 2014 social studies methods students worked collaboratively to create VoiceThreads using images and conversation to highlight Iowa’s role in the anti-slavery movement and Underground Railroad trails.


https://voicethread.com/new/share/6274804/

http://voicethread.com/share/6302465/ 

https://voicethread.com/new/share/6302461/

http://voicethread.com/# thread/6274820/32307240

https://voicethread.com/new/share/6307349/

https://voicethread.com/new/share/6275277/

https://voicethread.com/#thread/6302974/32478328/33908797

https://voicethread.com/new/share/6275264/

Literature Book Clubs

*Social Studies Strategy 31: Literature Book Clubs

Children’s literature helps students explore the similarities and differences with other people and places. Quality literature integrates naturally with the social studies and allows the teacher to meet both language arts and social studies learning objectives. Book clubs are standard in many elementary and middle school literacy and language arts programs. When using literature to help students learn social studies teachers must include an explicit focus on the social studies content to be addressed and have learning objectives that address social studies.

Procedures:

1. Determine what will be best learned through a book club.

2. Choose a variety of quality children’s literature that addresses the social studies learning objectives and that is appropriate to the students’ various reading levels.

3. Explain how book clubs work as well as the broader goals of reading and talking about what is read.

4. Provide any necessary background content and skills needed as well as the concepts or themes to be explored.

5. Introduce and display the writing prompts that students will be addressing in their later conversations.

6. Provide quiet time for reading in class, with the teacher reading also. Assigning reading for homework is appropriate.

7. Display and explain writing prompts.

8. A student serves as the discussion leader and uses the writing prompts as conversation starters, noting that the conversation may go in many directions.

9. Gather the class for a brief period to synthesize the many conversations.

10. Continue until the book is completed.

*50 Social Studies Strategies for K-8 Classrooms (3rd ed.)

Application and Ideas

https://docs.google.com/document/d/11JfjQJ5zYH5ja_Ckn5hOsdBDu0L2lIfyt-OPSBqwNxA/edit?usp=sharing

Traveling the Trail of Tears

For the past three semesters, my students and I have learned about the lives of the Cherokee Indians before forced removal, during removal, and after relocation. During the Spring 2014 semester, students made brochures highlighting significant landmarks and other points of interest in states the Cherokee Indians lived and/or traveled through on their forced migration. These brochures are a nice complement to a "This American Life Story" documenting the travels of two sisters who traveled the trail as their ancestors once did (http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/107/trail-of-tears). 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-1itcVTg1EuWnpKMF9lc0ZBWWltTmQ5RmRQS005emZVZVln/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-1itcVTg1EuV3JyQml0RTk2ZFk/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-1itcVTg1EuNlNTWlRBek92WWhDVnI0WUhrbnZ4QnkybWRJ/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-1itcVTg1EuSVgwV21ROFVia2RvbDN0M195WUdfYWlxampZ/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-1itcVTg1EuVWs3bHF4Z1EweUFkRFd1RDZJOWw5SG1hV1Jz/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-1itcVTg1EuMFBNVVBnLXpxZmJyaEZ0d1dDQUl4bkRFUm44/view?usp=sharing