Social Education October 2007

Editor's Notebook 

High School

Surfing the Net
How to Teach about Aligning Elections Using the Internet 
C. Frederick Risinger
The author investigates the re-aligning elections theory that certain elections transform the political landscape. Will this happen in 2008? These websites will engage students and challenge them to call the election. High School

Looking at the Law
Supreme Court Preview 
Charles F. Williams
Teaching Activity by James Landman High School

Guardians of the Past: Using Drama to Assess Learning in American History 
Charles F. Howlett
Students learn how to analyze legal cases and gain a deeper understanding of judicial reasoning when they write and perform classroom plays based on historical cases. High School

Learning Early Twentieth-Century History through First-Person Interviews  
Lisa A. Lark
Carrying out face-to-face interviews with American seniors can make U.S. history more relevant to students, and especially those who are first- and second-generation citizens. High School

Promoting Historic Preservation in the Classroom 
Paul LaRue
High school students learn that there is much more to history than the textbook when they interview World War II veterans and transcribe the stories for the Library of Congress's Veterans History Project. High School

Denmark 1943: Using Music to Teach Holocaust Rescue 
David Lindquist
Though Holocaust rescue efforts were limited, they are certainly noteworthy; this lesson offers a creative approach to teaching about the unique Danish rescue of 7,000 Jews. High School

Learning History through the Universal 
Declaration of Human Rights
Hilary Landorf and Martha Fernanda Pineda High School

Reading in the Social Studies: Using Subtitled Films 
Kerry Holmes, William B Russell III, Allison Movitz
Foreign films not only engage students with other countries and other cultures, but can also promote reading through their subtitles. High School

Teaching with Documents
October 1957 Memorandum Related to Sputnik 
Missy McNatt, David Traill
This month marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Soviet launch of Sputnik, which fueled American panic that the Soviet Union could fire intercontinental ballistic missiles. The featured document highlights President Eisenhower's reaction and the government's response. High School