Book and Blog Post 10

After finishing the text I have a few things to say. First off, I never thought anyone could make the subject of social studies fun to teach. I have had plenty of social studies and history classes before and I could honestly say not one of them used the methods that were used in this book. 

Sarah Kartchner Clark not only wrote a masterpiece she also kept me interested in the entire book. I will definitely use most if not all the strategies that she laid out in the text.  There are very few books that I have read over the years that pertain to teaching that I could say I would hold on to; however this is one that will be in my classroom for years to come.

The author has been writing and publishing curriculum for over ten years and has written more than forty books throughout her career and it shows. The methods are well-thought-out, carefully planned, give great details for the teacher and offer tremendous insight to each lesson. 

The good thing about this book is even if you teach a subject other than social studies; you can find one specific to your content area of simply use this book and incorporate the subject that you teach.

I covered nine of the lessons in my post so far, but I haven’t even scratched the surface of what this book has in it. If you are a new teacher or someone who has been around the block like I have this is a must have.

For a new teacher it will give you great examples of lessons to try in your classroom or if you a seasoned teacher it could help with the burnout that comes with years in the field. Either way I highly recommend this book. Feel free to ask any question regarding the text at any time I will be glad to answer them if I can. The title of the book is Writing Strategies for Social Studies by Sarah Kartchner Clark, the isbn is 978-1-4258-0058-1 and I picked it up from Amazon for around twenty-bucks. This has been a great way to examine areas of this text and look forward to hearing your feedback. Signing off. 

Book and Blog Post 9

Has anyone ever heard of a method called the RAFT Assignment? Before I read this section in the textbook I am reading I can say I never have. The link provided above will explain the method in complete detail; however, I will do my best to explain its importance as well. So here we go…

RAFT stands for Role, Audience, Format and Topic, the key ingredients of writing assignments (Santa, Havens, and Harrison 1996). 

What this assignment does is changes the normal assignment where the student writes a formal essay or report. The cool thing about this assignment is a teacher could alter the assignment to fit the content area whether it is English, Science or Social Studies. For example, in social studies a teacher could ask the students to “write from the point of view of a bill (role) speaking to a group of senators (audience) in a speech (format) about the process of the bill becoming a law (topic)” (Clark pg. 172). Here is an example of a handout that you could create using the insert tab in word:

RAFT Assignment

Directions: Use this prewriting planner to organize your RAFT assignment.

Role	Audience	Form	Topic

Reminders:

·         Think carefully about your role and your point of view.

·         Consider how to best communicate to your audience.

·         Use the traits of the writing form. You may wish to create a graphic organizer specific to that genre: for example, a letter, a poem explanation, or story.

·         Stay focused on your topic. (Clark, pg. 173).

Honestly, I have to say I am looking forward to trying this in my class this upcoming semester. I have always been a math teacher for the most part, but I was asked to teach a social studies class starting in August. I was completely worried that I would not have any ideas going in; however, as I keep reading this book and looking at the examples I have more confidence. I guess the moral of the story is I was stuck in a role that I was comfortable in and never considered doing anything different, but as a teacher one should expand their knowledge and this book has allowed me to do so.

Book and Blog Post 8

After Summarizing come the next method titled the “Guided Reading and Summarizing Procedure” or GRASP. This method allows the student to learn to recall, organize and self-correct before composing a summary through teacher modeling. (Clark) The idea is both the students and the teacher provide a summary in which both their ideas will be compared and contrasted. What this does is allow the students to see the teacher’s perspective on the piece and at the same time reinforces the learning that the teacher wants to implement on the class.

This process has some flaws including students becoming subjective to bias, but if the teacher doesn’t dominate the discussion or try to change the opinion of the students then it can work. According to Ryder and Graves (2003) “[if] the teacher revise his or her summary based on the students’ suggestions and make a visible record of these changes [this will] make the revision process more concrete for the student.” This scenario will show the student that the teacher is open and values their opinion on the topic and promotes positive transfer and reinforcement.

The whole idea behind this is a good one because students want to feel valued and incorporated in the lesson and this shows them that the teacher is human as well. It reminds me of a time where I made a mistake during a math lesson. As a teacher, sometimes you feel invincible and making a mistake could be devastating, but on this particular day a student told me made this mistake. Boy did I feel uneasy, but I told the students that making mistakes is part of learning and even teachers make them. This showed them that I was not superior because I was the teacher and made the lesson more enjoyable.

The important part of teaching is to make the students feel comfortable and to promote a healthy learning environment. This exercise promotes this concept, because the students put forth the effort to suggest better ways to summarize the piece and at the same time it shows them that their opinion matters.

If you would like to incorporate this lesson in your classroom here are some tips:

After the reading in their social studies book is finished, have the students share what they remember. Write down what was remembered on the board and then instruct the students back to re-reading the text for a second time. Have the students look for any valuable information that may have been missed. This will reinforce the learning because it will open the students mind and allow them to look at the text differently.  Once this is complete you can have the students write their summary in class or for homework. 

Book and Blog Post 7

Summarizing…Harder that it sounds right? What does summarizing do for a student is the better question. Clark tells us that “summarizing improves readers’ abilities to locate the main ideas and supporting details, identify and omit unnecessary details and redundant materials, remember what is read, analyze text structure and see how the ideas are related, generalize details, clarify meaning, take notes and rethink what they read so they can process it more deeply” (pg.153). 

What? A lot more detail than I originally thought it would entail. So is the ability to summarize a lost art? Not exactly the whole idea of summarizing gets disconnected from the teacher to the student; but, a good teacher explains the method in a way that is understandable to the student.

“Summarizing is when the student summarizes the reading, and extracts the most important information and turns it into wording that s/he understands” (Duran). This statement uses less confusing terminology and basically suggests the same thing. The student reads the text, writes down what s/he thinks it means in her/his own words. See what I mean it gets easier, Right? So, you might be thinking there has to be steps…Right? And the answer is YES! Here we go:

Students need to remember three important elements to summarize effectively (Clark):

1.       Keep the information brief

2.       Identify the most important ideas

3.       Mention some supporting details

This, my friends are three easy steps to assure student success in the summarization process. Of course, students learn in different ways, so how can a teacher relate the process to those who learn differently? The answer to this question is up to the teacher. S/he could adjust the lecture on their own opinion of how to relate it back to the student. As a teacher, we all need to adapt to situations as they occur, so instruction is based on case-specific scenarios. I hope this post helps…until next-time!

Book and Blog Post 6

Another blog! Yeah! Today we will examine a concept known as the Reader-Response Writing Chart (Carey-Web, 2001). This concept is designed to ask students what both they and the author of the text bring to the passage while in a social studies class. When writing expository social studies pieces, students need to try to remain neutral and focus on the facts, data and research. (Clark) 

To elaborate, students will need to establish a clear point of view when writing in social studies and this strategy will allow students to become more aware of any bias that they may have and what writing are acceptable to use them bias’. This would be an example of a chart used to distribute to your students:

The Author	The Student
Mountain Men traveled all over the Northwest part of the United States long before the settlers arrived. The settlement in Oregon did not begin until 1834. The Oregon trail led the way to the Northwest and the wagons began to come.	I think the Men were settlers. They should have given credit for being the first settlers in the area. They may not have built the homes but the lived there first. They knew the area better than anyone.

For the teacher: The left side is where the students would write the author’s point of view of the topic along with any examples of bias or prejudice that the student feels the author may have in the piece. If you are working with older students a good practice would be to ask the students to gather proof of the bias or prejudice from the text and write it in the right column. Along with the chart, you can ask guided questions including:

1.       What do you know about the subject?

2.       What are your feelings about this topic?

3.       Have your read anything about this topic before?

4.       What do you think about this topic?

5.       Do you think the author has preconceptions (an idea or opinion formed in advance) about this topic?

These questions will help the students determine the value of the author’s opinion on the topic and allow the students to eliminate their biases that they may have. The final part to this method would be to ask the students to record whether or not their views have changed after reading the piece and if so, have them document the change. 

Book and Blog Post 5

After going through the next five sections of the textbook I have noticed a variety of ways to incorporate journal in the classroom. This text seems to be redundant at this point and  methods are all the somewhat same, but all have different names. However, after overlooking the similarities, I have never really realized the importance of incorporating journal in the classroom. One method is called Critical Incident Journal[ing] (Clark). This method is used in order to key in on one particular event in the class. The text describes it as a “aha! Moment, when a student finally understood the material [or] the confusing part of the lesson” (Clark).

 I have never experienced this in a English class, but I have seen many aha! Moments during my years of teaching math. The text gives some example questions that a teacher could relay to the students on a worksheet:

1.       What is the significant event you would like to write about in your journal?

2.       Why is this event important to you? What was your favorite or least favorite part of today’s lesson?

3.       Describe the event. What happened?

4.       What did you learn from this experience?

5.       How does it fit in with what you are learning in social studies class?

These kinds of guided questions can be incorporated in any subject and can be quite beneficial because it allows the students to describe in detail of what occurred during the lesson.

The next form of Journaling the book describes is called a Dialog Journal. A “Dialog Journal is just what the name implies […] a dialog between two or more people. Dialog Journals can be shared between a student and a teacher or a student and another student” (Clark). This is a valuable exercise that will benefit the student now and in the future and at the same time allow the teacher to see how the student comprehends the material. So, in a sense it’s a win, win.

As I continue to read this book I hope to learn other methods to use in my classroom. So far it has been a good help and has allowed me to look at things differently and open my mind to using different ways of reaching the students. At this point I will continue to read and post anything that could be valuable.

Book and Blog Post 4

How important is note taking? EXTREMELY! The reality is people are note-taking every class, in every meeting, and in everyday activities. But what separates a good note-taker from a bad one? A good note-taker understands what is the relevant information being discussed, while the bad note-taker is not engaged in the lecture or presentation.

 What it comes down to is how far you want to go in the class that you are taking or how far you want to advance in the workplace. If a student is precise in his/her note-taking… well you do the math. Clark explains, “Note taking is a crucial skill for students in upper elementary grades and beyond. High school and college students do a significant amount of note taking during classes and while reading” (98). Makes complete sense…right? As a college student how much time did you spend writing notes, revising them, studying them and regurgitating them when it became exam time?

Note-taking is also a valuable research skill to have. If a student is proficient in the skill s/he will be more likely to organize information and understand the importance of what was discussed. So now that we discussed the student’s role…what can the teacher do to reinforce note-taking as a valuable skill? Well to start off, the teacher should teach students with a “clear explanation, teacher modeling, guided practice ad explicit feedback” (Clark). What this means is, students must demonstrate proficiency before the teacher can expect them to perform independently.

As a teacher one should guide the students every step of the way so they [the student] will understand the importance while making it a necessity rather than a chore. Because what kid likes chores?

“To extend the value of note-taking, teachers can show students how to use their notes to apply new knowledge” (Clark). With that said for a teacher what’s better than gaining new knowledge and expanding a student’s vocabulary? That’s the ultimate goal for a teacher, for a student to get it and then apply it. Mastery is key while note-taking can we all agree? I will leave you with this statement:

If teachers can make the connection…the students can demonstrate their knowledge. 

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