Social Education

Table of Contents

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CONTENTS

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Social Education
January/February 2012, Volume 76, Number 1

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Editor's Notebook

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NCSS Notebook
The View from the Trenches
Sue Blanchette
Who, what, and how we teach has changed dramatically these last three decades; we’ve had to restructure and adapt, but I believe our schools will emerge stronger.

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Planning the World History Course: A Reasoned Approach to Omission
Thomas P. Weinland
By leaving out many attractive events, people, and periods, world history teachers gain valuable classroom time to move beyond simple facts and help students develop a deeper understanding of history.

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Teaching World History: One Path through the Forest
Eve Fisher
Two major themes outlined in this article can help teachers determine how best to approach 10,000 years of world history in the classroom.

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The Challenge of World History
Cristóbal T. Saldaña
Developing students’ abilities to question, to engage in debate, and to consider perspective are the hallmarks of a successful world history course.

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Engaging Students in World History with a Bog Body Mystery
Michael M. Yell
This lesson from a medieval unit highlights two inquiry strategies that challenge students to think, reason, and interact.

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The Reel History of the World: Teaching World History with Major Motion Pictures
William Benedict Russell III
This article highlights effective films for teaching world history and suggests related classroom activities.

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Stamps, Sarcophagi, and Songs: Teaching World History with Online Resources
Kelly Schrum
The online portal World History Matters gives educators access to seven websites for teaching a range of world history topics including the French Revolution, the Soviet Gulag, and the history of 1989.

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Cold vs. Hot War: A Model for Building Conceptual Knowledge in History
Geoffrey Scheurman
This Cold War lesson plan illustrates how the use of continuums can increase student understanding of the big ideas and essential concepts that enable the interpretation of historical facts and figures.

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Helping Students Analyze Revolutions
Stephen Armstrong and Marian Desrosiers
Studying common patterns, structures, and characteristics of revolutions will enable students to make connections between these events across historical time.

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Links to Learning: Recommended Websites for your World History Class
Laura Wangerin
These websites include supplemental resources, creative tools, and interactive technologies that can greatly enhance a world history lesson.

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Teaching and Learning with Teachinghistory.org
Jennifer Rosenfeld and Kelly Schrum
This destination website offers primary source materials, teaching strategies, and lesson plans for investigating a range of world history topics.

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Surfing the Net
Teaching about Global and U.S. Poverty Using the Internet
C. Frederick Risinger
The highlighted websites offer lesson plans and resources for understanding poverty, its causes, and its impact on society.

Editor's Notebook

Editor’s Notebook
Michael Simpson

Social Education
January/February 2012, Volume 76, Number 1

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There are few challenges in social studies more daunting, yet more potentially rewarding, than teaching world history. In this special issue of Social Education, guest editors Stephen Armstrong and Michael M. Yell present articles by experienced teachers suggesting strategies and resources for increasing students’ understanding of the historical forces that have shaped the modern world. The articles cover topics that range from the planning of world history courses and the development of student skills to strategies for engaging student interest and dealing with complex topics.

The opening articles focus on curriculum planning. “Let’s be clear,” says Thomas P. Weinland, that “planning a world history course presents a nearly impossible task,” because of the amount of material that needs to be cast “onto the curriculum planning scrapheap.” (7) He urges a thematic approach that will “slow down that mad dash long enough to teach history.” (7)

Embracing a similar approach, Eve Fisher recommends two themes as particularly useful. The first is that “ideas have consequences” and the second is a focus on “what drives technology and what technology drives.” (12) By examining these topics in different eras of history, and across different cultural regions, teachers can find that world history is “exciting, educational, and fun” for them and their students. (13)

An overriding aim of world history education is to develop students’ analytical capabilities. Cristóbal T. Saldaña outlines an approach that has succeeded with his high school students by building on fundamentals, such as teaching students to read textbooks properly and pose the right questions, to developing higher order skills in critical thinking and writing. He emphasizes the importance of engaging students and points to ways in which the arts can open “a window to the world.” (16)

One method of engaging students is to turn them into detectives. Michael M. Yell outlines a lesson plan that can fascinate students investigating early periods of world history by calling on them to solve the mysteries of the bodies found in bogs of Europe. Properly constructed questions and clues promote student learning about the ancient world, and introduce students to the processes of developing hypotheses and evaluating them in the light of evidence.

Popular films on world historical topics can be a great stimulus to learning. William Russell recommends films that can help teach the “reel history of the world,” suggesting a four-stage model of preparation, pre-viewing, showing the film, and organizing a culminating activity. His annotations of 20 selected films include suggestions for class activities dealing with different eras of world history.

Some fascinating websites can help students raise the right questions and develop skills in answering them. In a review of a selection of sites, Kelly Schrum describes how teachers can use “stamps, sarcophagi, and songs” to enliven their world history classes.

One of the biggest challenges facing the world history teacher is developing the ability of students to understand and analyze complex topics. Geoffrey Scheurman recommends the use of the continuum as a means of building conceptual knowledge. He presents a strategy for teaching the Cold War, in which important events in U.S.-Soviet relations are placed by students on a continuum whose ends range from alliance (as occurred in World War II) to the outbreak of war. Scheurman notes that teachers of almost any complex topic spanning a long period of time can develop an appropriate continuum to assist class investigations.

Few subjects in the world history curriculum are as complex as the study of revolutions. Stephen Armstrong and Marian Desrosiers point out that, while major revolutions differ from each other, they also have common characteristics, and it is valuable for students to be able to identify these. They present the general theories of scholars such as Crane Brinton and Theda Skocpol, and identify key characteristics of the French, Russian and Chinese revolutions that students can examine as they compare and contrast these events that changed the world.

In a wide-ranging survey of Internet resources, Laura Wangerin recommends U.S. and international websites that are of exceptional value, ranging from those of museums, libraries, and universities to gaming programs and resources that offer insights on special historical themes.

A major website offering support for history educators is George Mason University’s teachinghistory.org. Jennifer Rosenfeld and Kelly Schrum guide readers through some of its intriguing offerings of primary sources, which can help teachers develop engaging lesson plans.

In his Internet column, C. Frederick Risinger recommends websites dealing with global and U.S. poverty that will be of great interest to teachers planning to discuss these timely subjects in their classrooms.

This special issue underlines the importance of social studies as a means of educating students about the world in which we live. In our opening article, derived from the presidential address delivered at the annual NCSS meeting in Washington, DC, in December 2011, NCSS President Sue Blanchette reiterates the central role of social studies. In her “view from the trenches,” she reflects on the changing educational trends that have affected social studies teachers during her career of more than 30 years. The opportunities offered to social studies teachers for creative teaching have diminished as the growth of the standards movement and high-stakes testing have increased, and reduced time spent on elementary social studies is creating a major problem. In addition, teachers have had to develop new skills required to teach larger numbers of immigrants and students with special needs. However, students today are receiving “a thorough education” (52) and pre-service teacher programs are offering better practical training in the classroom. “It has been a roller coaster ride at times,” she states, “but I believe our schools will emerge stronger for it.” (4)

As always, the editors of Social Education welcome the comments of readers on any of the contributions to this issue at socialed@ncss.org.

Teaching With Documents Archive

Articles from the "Teaching with Documents" series are available free online to NCSS members. Click on the ones you want to view and print. Teaching with Documents articles, published originally in Social Education over the last decade or so, were written by staff at the National Archives and Records Administration. Each article features a primary source document accompanied by teaching activities and lessons that focus on history, civics, and many other social studies disciplines. Remember, too, that other articles from back issues of Social Education, Middle Level Learning, and Social Studies and the Young Learner are available to members at the online archives, www.socialstudies.org/members/. The articles listed here include the primary source documents and complete lesson plans for middle and secondary classrooms. They are all presented in PDF format.
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