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

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. This semester we added to our discussion the forced relocation of the Creek, Choctaw, Seminole, and Chickasaw Nations. What the students have created are statements to inspire wonder about the lived experiences of these Nations. They have also included the use of a mapping tool to highlight the former and/or current location of each nation. The mapping tools of choice were found to be user friendly for teachers and elementary students.

Native American Heritage Month

November marks the start of Native American Heritage Month. Here are a few resources to consider for your teaching.

We Shall Remain (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/weshallremain/) is a PBS mini-series documenting the history of Native peoples as an essential part fhistory in the United States.

American Indians in Children's Literature, http://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/

The Acatraz Proclamation (http://www.tolerance.org/activity/alcatraz-proclamation-primary-document-activity) is an activity from Teaching Tolerance which highlights the Native American Right Movement.

Reframing Our Views of Native Americans,
http://educatingondiversity.blogspot.com/2014/01/reframing-our-views-of-native-americans.html

Celebrate Indigenous People's Day

Rethink how you teach about Columbus Day. Check out these resources collected by the Zinn Education Project, http://zinnedproject.org/tag/columbus/.

More on Sojourner Truth

As my recent sections of Teaching Elementary School Social Studies are using Social Studies, Literacy, and Social Justice in the Common Core Classroom as our course text, we have discussed the marginalization of social studies in the elementary classroom. In order to expose students to individuals like Sojourner Truth, elementary teachers must purposefully integrate social studies into their comprehensive literacy program. Adding to the videos from this post (http://educatingondiversity.blogspot.com/2014/06/sojourner-truth-puppet-shows.html) students created activities/lessons to accompany an interactive read aloud using a picture book on Sojourner Truth (i.e. Sojourner Truth's Step Stomp Stride by Andrea Davis Pinkney). Below is a link to their creations.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UtyZCOdozMMcHzuRIo7QieQtA-KNcHVB2Adie5znowA/edit?usp=sharing