Social Education October 2007

Editor's Notebook

Secondary/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. Secondary/High School    

Looking at the Law

Supreme Court Preview
Charles F. Williams

Teaching Activity by James Landman Secondary/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. Secondary/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. Secondary/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. Secondary/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. Secondary/High School    

Learning History through the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights

Hilary Landorf and Martha Fernanda Pineda Secondary/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. Secondary/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. Secondary/High School