We know that a strong understanding of social studies and history doesn’t just impact state test scores, it is key to students becoming civic-minded informed voters and participants in our democracy. Yet because of history’s high dependency on reading, and because social studies is less commonly taught to elementary students who need more academic support, this need often goes unmet. Once students reach higher grades social studies can feel not just uninteresting but unaccessible. I wrote about the first part recently, with how to make social studies engaging. This post covers how we make sure that history is accessible to all learners.
1. Offer content beyond readings and lectures. It seems obvious that when we are talking about dependent learners, many of whom are struggling readers as well, that we would accommodate that, but textbooks are written at grade level. In order for students to understand the content, they need multiple sources of information to make meaning. Videos, from the semi-musical ones provided by Flocabulary to the tongue-in-cheek parodies of Mr. Betts to the more formal materials from the History channel, give students who struggle to read more access to the content. Students can also benefit from photos and other primary source documents to understand a time in modern history and, of course, things created for an earlier populace tend to assume lower literacy in many cases. Paintings are also useful, but require a discussion of the risk of secondary sources. Rather than taking your own prep time to source these documents, consider having your students crowd source from the Library of Congress for American History especially. Finally, never underestimate the power of a map available for continual reference.
2. Give students context for recurring themes. Geography has been an ongoing source of conflict in history, but if students have never lived in a desert, they may not fully understand a fight to control waterways. Southern California students will likely struggle to fully understand how a harsh winter could be a turning point in a war. Most of our students have not lived without access to a grocery store or tracked migrating herds of food. In the same way that our students can’t possibly fully grasp early exploration without understanding the importance of salt, we need to make sure that students grasp key underlying survival issues. Each year I launch our social studies lessons with a study of Geography that we can come back to throughout the year. Students learn academic vocabulary related to landforms but we also explore how different landforms impact civilizations living near them and talk about which landforms would be most desirable.
3. Connect past power imbalances to today Many of our learners who need more support are living under our modern systems of inequity and power imbalance. They are acutely aware of the unequal distributions of power and resources that shape our world today. Connecting that to history makes things more real and salient for our kids. There are many obvious connections to the pandemic and its after effects, but also the Crusades and Exploration can be connected to modern immigration. Current conflicts over housing availability also have their connections throughout time. These connections help ground history in what students know of the present.
4. Don’t shy away from explicit vocabulary instruction With a limited amount of time, it is easy to assume vocabulary will be covered in English class, but students need the vocabulary of the academy to learn about and discuss history too. You don’t have to make time for ongoing vocabulary units, but word walls, word of the day and other quick routines ensure that students are getting the vocabulary they need to be successful in class. Hexagonal thinking is a hands-on way to help students make meaning through vocabulary as well. Make sure that when these words come up the first time there is space to address them. Student vocabulary logs are a wonderful support and scaffold.
5. Guide students to make connections across units Many of our students have been given the impression that much of what they learn, especially in content specific classes, is to be learned for an assessment and then not used again. Students who have had access to more books and museum visits may be more inclined to notice similarities between classroom content and the rest of the world, but our more dependent learners need to unlock that skill. Once students understand that there are certain repeating patterns in history, they can be on the lookout for them and it can help them to make meaning with new content by fitting it into patterns they are already familiar with. Make sure to build time for explicitly making these connections within class discussions and activities. Use a story spine or class bulletin boards. Over the course of the year, remove scaffolds so that students can begin to call out the patterns as they see them on their own.
All students have unique perspectives and value to bring to our discussions of history just as all of our students are needed to ensure the future is as bright as possible. Making sure that all students have supports to succeed in history class builds our world in that direction.
Comments