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| Elvis Costello |
How are Historians Like Detectives?
I've been a fan of musician Elvis Costello since the early 80's, when I spent a summer playing with a group of percussionists all over Door County, Wisconsin. One of my favorite songs, "Watching the Detectives" is the theme song to the PBS show History Detectives. The reading this week asked social studies educators to think about the skills students need to be equipped with before they embark on their journey through history. The National Council of Teacher of English (NCTE) offers a definition of 21st Century Literacies that I believe is particularly important to pay attention to in light of the trend towards adopting the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies.
Students engaging in historical thinking skills in today's social studies classrooms are hopefully being given the opportunity to meet these demands. The Reading Like a Historian program offers a set of 75 free secondary school lessons in U.S. history. The approach offers students a deeper understanding of content knowledge, learning to think like historians, and builds upon their reading comprehension.
Another area that all educators must now address in the classroom is the movement towards personalized learning. In an article, "Fighting the Enemies of Personalized Learning" published February 29th, 2012 in Education Week, Joseph S. Renzulli argues: (True) "differentiation of content requires adding more depth and complexity to the curriculum rather than transmitting more or easier factual material." Social studies curriculum is mentioned in the reading as being the most complex of any of the core subjects. It naturally lends itself to English language arts, modern day literacy, and student differentiation.
An additional benefit of creating a foundation of historical inquiry in the classroom is that it may be the best way to engage children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and reading disabilities. Suzanne Beilke of the Department of Graduate Studies in Education at Purdue University conducted a study comparing how children responded to and processed enhanced reading material. Novel story conditions positively aided longer sustained attention and engagement in children. Taking a peek into a 21st Century social studies classroom should be like watching the detectives.
Literacy has always been a collection of cultural and communicative practices shared among members of particular groups. As society and technology change, so does literacy. Because technology has increased the intensity and complexity of literate environments, the twenty-first century demands that a literate person possess a wide range of abilities and competencies, many literacies. These literacies—from reading online newspapers to participating in virtual classrooms—are multiple, dynamic, and malleable. As in the past, they are inextricably linked with particular histories, life possibilities and social trajectories of individuals and groups. Twenty-first century readers and writers need to
- Develop proficiency with the tools of technology
- Build relationships with others to pose and solve problems collaboratively and cross-culturally
- Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes
- Manage, analyze and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information
- Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multi-media texts
- Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments
Students engaging in historical thinking skills in today's social studies classrooms are hopefully being given the opportunity to meet these demands. The Reading Like a Historian program offers a set of 75 free secondary school lessons in U.S. history. The approach offers students a deeper understanding of content knowledge, learning to think like historians, and builds upon their reading comprehension.
Another area that all educators must now address in the classroom is the movement towards personalized learning. In an article, "Fighting the Enemies of Personalized Learning" published February 29th, 2012 in Education Week, Joseph S. Renzulli argues: (True) "differentiation of content requires adding more depth and complexity to the curriculum rather than transmitting more or easier factual material." Social studies curriculum is mentioned in the reading as being the most complex of any of the core subjects. It naturally lends itself to English language arts, modern day literacy, and student differentiation.
An additional benefit of creating a foundation of historical inquiry in the classroom is that it may be the best way to engage children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and reading disabilities. Suzanne Beilke of the Department of Graduate Studies in Education at Purdue University conducted a study comparing how children responded to and processed enhanced reading material. Novel story conditions positively aided longer sustained attention and engagement in children. Taking a peek into a 21st Century social studies classroom should be like watching the detectives.
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