Cantu: Chapter 2

Click to Unpack

What is Lost or Gained When Learning Outcomes

 are Narrowly Constructed?

National Public Radio (NPR) did a piece in July 2010 where they asked teachers the question:  As time marches forward, how do you make room for the new people and events that make up the recent past?

The Common Core State Standards Initiative sets the goal to deepen students' knowledge of content by having them think like historians and build their reading comprehension.  It aids in addressing the problem of an ever-growing past by shifting the focus to literacy skills and higher-level thinking.  I recognize that there are not only real educational concerns in adopting a national curriculum, but also a direct conflict of interest for many of its supporters.  These concerns can not be ignored, but neither can the political reality.  In line with my teaching philosophy, I would argue that the inquiry method of looking at social studies is the most natural and interesting way for students to unlock the past and make meaningful connections.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been a strong supporter of the Literacy Design Collaborative which has created a template model linking secondary core content to the Common Core State Standards.  The teacher guidebook can be found via this link:

Literacy Design Collaborative

for the two-page brochure on how this method works click here:

Michelle M. Herczog, the history-social science consultant for the Los Angeles County Office of Education published an article in the September 2010 issue of Social Education.  In Using the NCSS National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies: A Framework for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment To Meet State Social Studies Standards she lists six steps which should help social studies educators "unpack" the tools they'll need to shift from the textbook to the common standards themes:

• Answer this Essential Question:  Why Teach Social Studies?
• Align Learning Expectations, Instruction and Assessment.
• Unpack you State Standards to identify the "Big Ideas" or "Enduring Understandings" for each course of study.
• Adopt the NCSS National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies: A Framework for Teaching, Learning and Assessment as a resource for designing instruction and assessment.
• Align your state standards, instruction and assessment with the questions, knowledge, processes and products suggested by the NCSS Standards.
• Reflect, Revisit, Revise.