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Social Education, our flagship journal, contains a balance of theoretical content and practical teaching ideas. The award-winning resources include techniques for using materials in the classroom, information on the latest instructional technology, reviews of educational media, research on significant social studies-related topics, and lesson plans that can be applied to various disciplines. Departments include Looking at the Law, Surfing the Net, and Teaching with Documents. Social Education is published 6 times per year: September; October; November/December; January/February; March/April; and May/June
The current and back issues of Social Education are available online to NCSS members.
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September 2015
Volume 79, Number 4
Editor's Notebook
Democracy Education
Should High School Students Be Required to Pass a Citizenship Test?
Diana E. Hess, Sam Stone, and Joseph Kahne
Two experts on youth and civic participation present very different views on the controversial proposal to require high school students to pass the "INS" test.
The Right First Step
Sam Stone
These 100 basic questions are the bare minimum of knowledge a person needs to begin understanding how our government works and who we are as a people.
Don't Turn Civic Education into a Game of Trivial Pursuit
Joseph Kahne
Memorizing the answers to 100 questions might prepare students for a game of Jeopardy!, but it won't promote good citizenship.
Formative Assessment Using Library of Congress Documents
Joel Breakstone, Sam Wineburg, and Mark Smith
Classroom-ready tasks that foster historical thinking provide quick feedback about student understanding when it is most useful—during the course of a unit.
Sources and Strategies
Deepening Student Understanding of the Debate over the Constitution through a Description of a Grand Procession
Stephen Wesson
The featured document from a parade to celebrate the Constitution can serve as an engaging entry point into a lesson about the founding document and the campaign for ratification in 1788.
Teaching with Documents
Prequel to Independence: Who Fired the Shot Heard Round the World?
Annie Davis
The 1775 deposition from a militia commander at Lexington, featured in this article, can be used to spark student inquiry about why the American colonials decided to go to war.
Teaching Argument Writing and "Content" in Diverse Middle School History Classrooms
Chauncey Monte-Sano, Susan De La Paz, and Mark Felton
Activities such as the Shays' Rebellion investigation outlined in this article enable students to develop inquiry and literacy practices as they integrate critical reading, historical thinking, and argument writing.
Lessons on the Law
Mandated Reporting and the Confrontation Clause: When are Teachers like Police Officers?
Phillip Trobaugh
A study of the Supreme Court case, Ohio v. Clark, about suspected child abuse reported to authorities by teachers, can ignite a stimulating classroom debate about the Sixth Amendment right to confront one's accuser.
Secondary Sources in History Classrooms: Disciplinary Frameworks and Student Learning
Dave Neumann
Secondary sources provide students valuable insight into historians' arguments, showing how they disagree, and how events of the present shape interpretation of the past.
Surfing the Net
Websites Teachers Should Have Access To and Follow
C. Frederick Risinger
The highlighted websites and programs offer wide-ranging information that will enrich classroom teaching.
Essential Books for Teaching about Armenian Culture and the Armenian Genocide
Sara Cohan
This annotated list of books and resources can help teachers implement innovative lessons during the 100th anniversary year of the Armenian genocide.
Elementary Education
Introducing Civic Activism in the Elementary Classroom: Case Studies Using Books on Non-Violence and Social Justice
Mary E. Haas and Robert A. Waterson
Teachers can advance the literacy skills and civic awareness of their students through the use of children's literature on non-violent campaigns to obtain social justice.
May/June 2015
Volume 79, Number 3
Editor's Notebook
Sources and Strategies
Connecting Students to Local Communities through the Work of the Federal Writers' Project and Zora Neale Hurston
Rebecca Newland
The featured documents from a WPA project that employed authors to write state travel guides will spark student interest in local history and can help launch a lesson on the Great Depression and New Deal programs.
Teaching with Documents
Freedom of Speech in Times of War: The Sedition Act of 1918
Annie Davis
The records of an immigrant accused of sedition during World War I can spark a classroom debate about national security and freedom of speech.
Special Section: Human Rights
Guest Editor: Rosemary Blanchard
Background and Introduction: Lesson Plans on Children's Rights
William R. Fernekes and Noel Baxter
Studying the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child will engage students developing questions and planning inquiries about the situation of children worldwide.
What are Human Rights and How Can We Ensure Them?
Daniel Valentine
This high school lesson plan introduces two essential UN human rights documents and challenges students to reflect on the causes of child exploitation and ways to reduce violations of children's rights.
Child Labor and Consumerism
Sacha Batra
In this lesson, middle school students consider the links between consumer decisions and child labor.
Becoming Ethical Consumers and Making Wise Economic Choices
Tracy Schottanes
Elementary students learn to distinguish between a need and a want and contemplate how their decisions as consumers affect other children.
Center Pullout Section (this can be found under Notables on the NCSS website)
Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People
This pullout includes the latest annotated list of exceptional books for young people that explore social studies themes.
Carter G. Woodson Book Awards
The 2014 and 2015 Carter G. Woodson Award winners include books about a Charleston jazz band of African American orphans; a Navy disaster that exposed the injustices of military segregation; and Sylvia Mendez and Barbara Johns, who waged desegregation battles on separate coasts.
More than Superheroes and Villains: Graphic Novels and Multimodal Literacy in Social Studies Education
Caroline C. Sheffield, James S. Chisholm, and Penny B. Howell
The visual and textual techniques combined in graphic novels make these books ideal for teaching multimodal literacy, social studies content, and the process of crafting a historical narrative.
What Are They Thinking? Student Interviews Inspire Strong Social Studies Curriculum
Katy M. Swalwell
Finding out students' thoughts and feelings about class topics should be an essential part of any curriculum planning process.
Surfing the Net
Effective Integration of the Arts into the Social Studies
C. Frederick Risinger
The selected websites offer resources and ideas for incorporating the arts with traditional social studies content.
Lessons on the Law
Monkeying around with Selfies and U.S. Copyright Law
Anderson Duff
The story of an Indonesian macaque who snapped "selfies" with a photographer's camera can serve as a jumping off point into an engaging lesson on intellectual property and the concept of copyright.
NCSS Position Statement
Human Rights Education: A Necessity for Effective Social and Civic Learning
NCSS Notebook
2014 NCSS House of Delegates Resolutions
March/April 2015
Volume 79, Number 2
Editor's Notebook
Sources and Strategies
Inviting Students to Consider Possible Research Paths Suggested by an Article, a Photograph, and a Sound Recording from the Nineteenth Century
Lee Ann Potter
The featured article, photographs, and related sound recordings can serve as a jumping off point into the study of a range of topics including westward expansion, the age of invention, and Native American culture.
Lessons on the Law
The Second Act: Will America Get A "Right To Be Forgotten"?
Michelle A. Silverthorn
The European Union's new guidelines on the right to have personal information removed from the Internet can be used to launch an enriching classroom debate about free speech versus privacy rights.
Special Section on Economics
Teaching about Money and the Fed
Guest Editors: Mark C. Schug, Mary C. Suiter and William C. Wood
Meet Janet Yellen: AP Economics Teacher Martha Rush Interviews the Chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors
The new Fed chair answers questions from an experienced economics educator on teaching about monetary policy and financial education.
Considering the Times: Resources for Teaching Economic and Financial Literacy in Light of the Great Recession
Mary C. Suiter and Scott A. Wolla
These Federal Reserve System resources will help teach students the essential skills to make sound economic decisions.
Five Fundamental Misunderstandings Students Have about Money and the Fed and What to Do About It
Jane S. Lopus and Kristen McDaniel
The authors correct five major misunderstandings about the function of the Federal Reserve and offer suggestions for teaching about these concepts.
Three Key Episodes in American Financial History
Mark C. Schug, Mary C. Suiter, and William C. Wood
When economics is integrated into the study of history, students gain a much deeper understanding of the way in which monetary policies changed in the decades before the Great Depression.
Too Low? For Too Long? Ghost Story IV
M. Scott Niederjohn, Mark C. Schug, and William C. Wood
In this fourth installment of a series of imaginary conversations between the Chair of the Federal Reserve System and renowned economists, Janet Yellen discusses interest rates and the direction of U.S. monetary policy with John Kenneth Galbraith and Friedrich A. Hayek.
Is Bitcoin the Money of the Future?
M. Scott Niederjohn, J.R. Clark, and Ashley S. Harrison
As a virtual currency, Bitcoin has many attractive features, but its drawbacks may prevent it from becoming a global currency.
Special Section on Technology
Developing Multiliteracies in the Social Studies
More Substance, Less Hype: Using Digital Texts to Support Diverse Readers
Sarah Lundy
When students read texts on digital devices, they have access to a range of learning supports such as text narration, video sidebars, or word definitions.
Linking Literacies, Popular Culture, and Citizenship: Using Digital Book Clubs in Social Education
Jason K. Ritter, Terri L. Rodriguez, Alexandra O. Santau, and Casey O'Donnell-Chavis
Creating classroom book clubs with e-readers helps connect adolescent interests, digital literacies, and content area academic goals.
Digital History and the Holocaust
With Their Voice: Constructing Meaning with Digital Testimony
Brandon J. Haas, Michael J. Berson and Ilene R. Berson
Students become actively engaged with Holocaust survivors through personal narratives on the USC Shoah Foundation website and can embark on video activities that deepen their comprehension of genocides.
Digital History and the Holocaust
Student Documentaries Based on the C3 Framework
Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Seth Brown
Engaging in inquiry and documentary creation related to the lives of children during the Holocaust helps young people confront the complex issues raised by genocide.
Surfing the Net
Teaching about How Inventions and Technology Have Changed U.S. History
C. Frederick Risinger
These selected websites provide information and lesson plans to study the ways in which technological changes have shaped American history and culture.
NCSS Notebook
Social Studies Up!
Michelle M. Herczog
At NCSS, we continue to advance our key objectives—to increase education resources, advance advocacy, grow our membership, and promote citizenship with the C3 Framework.
Sources and Strategies
Asking Students to Compare the Value of Information in Different Sources about the Same Event
Scott M. Waring
A close look at the spy map that helped George Washington win the Battle of Princeton can place students in the role of historians as they analyze the map and other sources to shed light on this historic event.
Teaching with Documents
Immigrants and National Security during World War I
Kimberlee Ried
The U.S. government document issued during World War I to a German immigrant and Civil War veteran can launch a classroom exploration of federal policies on national security and the rights of immigrants.
The Nobel Peace Prize: Malala, A Girl Determined to Go to School
Efleda P. Tolentino, Jean O'Neill Uhl, Iftikhar Ahmad
The story of Malala Yousafzai's fight to get an education can engage students in a study of global children's rights and the UN Convention that established them.
A Time for Social Studies: Talking with Young People about Ferguson and Staten Island
Beth C. Rubin
When students engage in discussions about civic rights and processes, their sense of discouragement transforms to a sense of empowerment.
Lessons on the Law
Zivotofsky v. Kerry: A Study in Law, Politics, and Foreign Affairs
Steven D. Schwinn
A Supreme Court case that centers on a disagreement between Congress and the Executive Branch on the status of Jerusalem can serve as a launching point for a lesson on the authority of the different branches of government.
Justice and Responsibility in a Changing Climate
The Choices Program, Brown University
This lesson guides students to consider current emissions, per capita emissions, and historical emissions of various countries to deliberate the question of responsibility for climate change.
Teaching the Battle of Gallipoli: Investigating Multiple Perspectives
Joan Brodsky Schur
Students will gain a much broader understanding of World War I by studying the Battle of Gallipoli—its outcome and effects—from multiple perspectives.
Surfing the Net
Plagues and Disease throughout World History
C. Frederick Risinger
These websites provide lesson plans and resources for teaching about how germs and disease have affected world history.
Editor´s Notes
Letter´s to the Editor
Sources and Strategies
Exploring the Legacy of Magna Carta with Students through Historic Images
Stephen Wesson
The two featured portraits of Revolutionary-era writer John Dickinson next to a book titled "Magna Charta," can launch an enlightening lesson on the thirteenth-century charter´s influence on America´s founding documents.
Lessons on the Law
Magna Carta at 800: Ten Key Questions Answered
Howard Kaplan
As the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta approaches, Lessons on the Law provides an overview of the "Great Charter" and identifies teaching materials to engage students.
Analyzing the Messages of the State of the Union Address
Mark T. Kissling and Christopher C. Martell
The president´s annual speech to Congress on the condition of the nation offers students an opportunity to examine key domestic issues as well as the president´s proposals.
Teaching with Documents
Education Equality: What Happens to a Dream Deferred?
Annie Davis and Kimberlee Ried
The highlighted documents from Boston´s desegregation case can serve as a jumping off point into an engaging classroom study of education equality and civil rights.
A New View of Civil War Photography
James A. Percoco
Cutting edge digital techniques that add richer perspective to nineteenth-century Civil War photographs will challenge students´ preconceived ideas about the war and enrich classroom instruction.
The C3 Framework: A Powerful Tool for Preparing Future Generations for Informed and Engaged Civic Life
Marshall Croddy and Peter Levine
The C3 Framework not only provides crucial guidance for creating or bolstering social studies standards—it is extremely effective for curriculum planning and professional development.
Civic Learning Success Stories: State Initiatives to Restore the Civic Mission of Schools
Shawn Healy, L. Douglas Dobson, Janis Kyser, Michelle M. Herczog, and Debbie Genzer
The stories of these four state programs on civic learning will provide educators around the country with valuable information on how to advocate for restoring the civic mission of schools.
Democracy Education
Should Teachers Help Students Develop Partisan Identities?
Diana E. Hess and Paula McAvoy
The authors examine whether schools should be helping students determine political affiliation, and spotlight the case of one high school where a legislative simulation requires students to do exactly that.
Free Press in a Constitutional Democracy
Christine Lucianek
Students will acquire a deeper understanding of freedom of the press when they consider the context for its inclusion in the First Amendment and examine its implications in the Internet age.
NAFTA: The World´s Largest Trading Zone Turns 20
Tawni Hunt Ferrarini and Stephen Day
This article looks at the results of NAFTA, 20 years after it created a controversial common market between the United States, Canada, and Mexico, and examines the ongoing free trade debate.
Surfing the Net
Teaching about Freedom Using the Internet
C. Frederick Risinger
The websites highlighted in this column offer resources and lesson plans for exploring the concept of freedom in the classroom.
Annual Index
Editor's Notebook
Looking at the Law
Supreme Court Term Review: Cell Phones, Protests, and Prayer
Mark Cohen
A review of last term's Supreme Court cases can spur lively classroom discussion on issues such as technology and the Fourth Amendment, religion and workplace benefits, and prayer at public meetings.
Mapping Early American History: Beyond What Happened Where
Andrew J. Milson
The three highlighted early American historical maps will provide students with important insight into the geographical understanding of people in the past and the implications of this limited knowledge.
Research and Practice
Teaching Thoughtfully With and About Film
Jeremy StoddardThough film is sometimes considered a device for low-level intellectual work, these teachers demonstrate that authentic and rigorous pedagogy is possible when using film in the classroom.
Climate Change in the Social Studies Classroom: A "Why" and "How to" Guide Using the C3 Framework
Lori M. Kumler and Bethany Vosburg-Bluem
The inquiry process outlined in the C3 Framework provides an ideal structure for teaching about climate change and debating the roles of citizens and the government.
Simulating Global Climate Summits
Dean P. Vesperman, Turtle Haste, and Stéphane Alrivy
This classroom simulation gives students the opportunity to examine global perspectives on climate change, and the search for common solutions.
Looking at World War I Propaganda
Chris Sperry
Analyzing propaganda posters from World War I in the classroom enables students to advance their historical knowledge and gain critical media decoding skills.
Surfing the Net
Teaching about (and with) Digital Global Citizenship
C. Frederick Risinger
These highlighted websites provide resources and lesson plans that will help classroom teachers integrate digital global citizenship concepts throughout the curriculum.
The Birth of a Nation Is Only the Beginning: The Travails of South Sudan
Samuel Totten
Just three years since it broke away from Sudan, the new country of South Sudan is embroiled in a violent civil war. This article examines what went wrong and explores the challenges of building a new nation.
Ferguson Is About Us Too: A Call to Explore Our Communities
Alexander Cuenca and Joseph R. Nichols, Jr.
The events in Ferguson, Missouri, can serve as a jumping off point into an exploration of students' own communities.
The Battle for the Senate: Key Races to Watch
Social Education Staff
With control of the Senate hinging on a few key races, this year's midterm election offers a unique opportunity to explore with students the importance of congressional control and our system of checks and balances.
Editor's Notebook
Letter to the Editor
Sources and StrategiesEncouraging Student Interest in the Economic Context of the Constitution with Continental Currency
Lee Ann Potter
A close look at the featured currency issued by the Continental Congress can launch a lesson on the economic problems that preceded the drafting of the Constitution.
Looking at the LawWhat Constitution Day Means and Why it Matters
Kathleen Hall JamiesonConstitution Day offers an opportune time for students to explore the evolution of the founding document and examine its provisions for citizens' rights and rules of government.
Implementing the C3 Framework: Monitoring the Instructional Shifts
Michelle M. HerczogThe strategies outlined by the author for implementing the C3 Framework will help teachers strengthen the study of civics, economics, geography, and history.
Re-Establishing Social Studies as a Core Subject
An Interview with Susan Griffin
The C3 Framework recognizes that inquiry is at the heart of social studies and that social studies classrooms should develop the ability to apply content knowledge to real-life issues.
The C3 Framework: One Year Later
An Interview with Kathy Swan
In the first year since its release, many states have integrated the C3 Framework into their standards while others are in the process of incorporating the key tenets–inquiry, disciplinary literacy, student agency, and civic engagement—into state policy documents.
Turning Students into Voters: What Teachers Can Do
Peter Levine
Teaching about the voting process and discussing current congressional campaign issues can boost student turnout for decades to come.
Research and Practice
Building the Civic Potential of Immigrant Youth
Kathryn M. Obenchain and Rebecca M. Callahan
Social studies teachers can play a critical role in fostering the civic development of immigrant youth.
Equal Protection, Immigration, and Education: Plyler v. Doe
Joseph R. Feinberg, Frans H. Doppen, and Matthew S. Hollstein
This lesson on the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment will give students a deeper understanding of the issues framing the current immigration debate.
Point of View
Teaching about Personal Finance: The National Standards for Financial Literacy
Andrew T. Hill and Mary C. Suiter
The financial literacy standards can help educators establish an academic base for the discipline of personal finance.
Surfing the Net
Teaching about World War I: "The War to End all Innocence"
C. Frederick Risinger
The highlighted websites offer important resources for teaching students about World War I during this hundredth anniversary year.
Maleficent Reborn: Disney's Fairytale View of Gender Reaches Puberty
Benjamin Justice
Recent Disney movies spotlighting intelligent female characters who work hard and do not define themselves in terms of men illustrate a major change from the formulaic fairy tales portraying female inferiority and dependency.
NCSS Position StatementDeveloping State and Local Social Studies Standards
NCSS Position StatementStudy about Religions in the Social Studies Curriculum
Editor's Notebook
Sources & Strategies
Teaching Students Sourcing and Contextualizing Strategies Using Newspapers and Lithographs
Rebecca Newland
The featured primary sources related to the impact of Uncle Tom's Cabin at the time of its publication provoke important questions that will deepen students' analytical skills and historical understanding.
Looking at the Law
Poetic Justice: Law and Literature in the Classroom
Donald Vish
Connecting law and literature in the classroom enables students to tackle eternal dilemmas in the search for justice.
Poems of the Great War: A Selection
Social Education Staff
Examining the World War I poems presented here can serve as an excellent entry point for studying the causes, course, and effects of the war as its hundredth anniversary approaches.
Inquiring about the Causes of World War I with Chronozoom
David Hicks, John Lee, and Samantha Shires
What exactly sparked the First World War 100 years ago? An innovative timeline tool and creative teaching materials offer an engaging approach for teaching students about the complex causes.
A Street Named for a King: A Lesson in the Politics of Place-Naming
Jerry T. Mitchell and Derek H. Alderman
As students use geospatial technology to discover streets named for Martin Luther King, Jr., they learn about politics and social power as well as geography.
Center Pullout
Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People
The NCSS Book Committee and the Children's Book Council present this year's annotated list of outstanding books for use in the social studies classroom.
The Carter G. Woodson Book Awards
The 2013 Carter G. Woodson Award winners include books about Booker T. Washington's 500-mile trek to college, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s civil rights campaigns, and Solomon Northup's kidnapping into slavery from his birthplace in New York.
Teaching Social Studies Students to "Write with Light" Using the Documentary Filmmaking Process
Mark Hofer, Kathy Swan and Sharon Zuber
Documentary filmmaking weaves together reading, writing, speaking, and production skills, enabling students to communicate understanding of important ideas and issues in a compelling manner.
Promoting Inquiry-Based Learning through National History Day
Abigail L. Kuhn and Lynne M. O'Hara
The rigorous research projects that students undertake for National History Day teaches them to work like historians while developing skills needed to become active, engaged citizens.
Surfing the Net
Using Virtual Field Trips, Music, and Art to Teach Social Studies
C. Frederick Risinger
The recommended websites feature ideas and lesson plans that will help teachers and curriculum specialists integrate social studies and the arts.
Book Review
African American Baseball History and the Social Studies
John Sturtz
The featured book offers a valuable perspective on the importance of integrating sports into education.
NCSS Notebook
2013 House of Delegates Resolutions
Editor's Notebook
Sources and Strategies
Prompting Students to Contemplate Effective Communication with a Visible Speech Chart from the 1870s
Lee Ann Potter
The featured document publicizing a nineteenth-century phonetic writing system can spark classroom research and exploration of communication tools from Visible Speech to Twitter and Google Translate.
Teaching with Documents
Is Baseball Essential?: World War I and the National Pastime
Kris Maldre Jarosik and Jenny McMillen Sweeney
Documents related to baseball players and the military draft can launch a lesson on the American home front during World War I, as the 100th anniversary approaches.
Looking at the Law
Apartheid on Trial: Mandela's Rivonia Speech from the Dock, Half a Century Later
Howard Kaplan
Nelson Mandela's words 50 years ago praising the ideal of a democratic society can serve as a jumping off point into a study of the anti-apartheid struggle.
Research and Practice
Action Civics in the Classroom
Meira Levinson
Direct civic engagement enables students to learn through citizenship rather than simply about citizenship and empowers them to take effective action in the future.
Undoing Quantitative Easing: Janet Yellen's Tiger Ride
M. Scott Niederjohn, Mark C. Schug and William C. Wood
The change in leadership at the Federal Reserve offers an opportunity for an exploration of economic policies such as quantitative easing and philosophies such as the Keynesian school of thought.
Point of View
Proposed National Standards for Financial Literacy: What's In? What's Out?
Mark H. Maier, Deborah M. Figart, and Julie A. Nelson
Financial education must go beyond focusing on the choices individuals face and examine the forces that shape and constrain these choices.
College Councils for the Social Studies: How to Support Our Newest Colleagues
Tina M. Ellsworth, Joe O'Brien, and John Moore
Councils for the social studies on university campuses offer unique services and activities and can be a great support to preservice teachers as they launch their teaching careers.
Surfing the Net
A Website Buffet: Social Studies Sites that Encourage Higher-level Thinking
C. Frederick Risinger
These websites, gleaned from readers, personal research, and exhibits at NCSS, offer useful resources for teachers to encourage higher-level thinking and skills.
Democratic Twittering: Microblogging for a More Participatory Social Studies
Daniel G. Krutka
Social media services such as Twitter can be used to promote engaging, student-centered activities that facilitate a deeper understanding of content.
From Freedom Riders to the Children's March:
Civil Rights Documentaries as Catalysts for Historical Empathy
Lisa Brown Buchanan
These four documentary films can engage students in historical thinking, expand their capacity for empathy, and hone discussion and writing skills.
Bringing the Cybersecurity Challenge to the Social Studies Classroom
Michael J. Berson and Ilene R. Berson
Engaging students in inquiries that explore the historical, ethical, and legal aspects of cybersecurity will increase their ability to address this pressing global issue.
Editor's Notebook
NCSS Notebook
The Revitalization of Social Studies
Stephen Armstrong
The NCSS conference, continued advocacy, and the C3 framework are essential components of our efforts to revolutionize social studies education.
Sources and Strategies
Strike up Student Interest through Song: Technology and Westward Expansion
Meg Steele
The featured photograph and works of music can launch an engaging lesson on the ways that technological advancements influenced westward expansion.
They Should Have Sent a Poet: Deepening Students' Understanding of History Through the Use of Poetry
Christopher Lopez
The highlighted poems offer deep insights into three wars in which America was involved.
Historical Fiction, the Common Core, and Disciplinary Habits of Mind
Sara L. Schwebel
Historical fiction draws students into the study of the past, enriches their understanding of events, and provides opportunities for cultivating historical analysis.
Teaching with Documents
"Records of Rights": A New Exhibit at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
Michael Hussey
The National Archives' latest exhibit spotlights the struggles of Americans to define rights related to citizenship, free speech, voting, and equal opportunity.
Looking at the Law
An Introduction to the International Court of Justice
Dan Naranjo
Studying the International Court of Justice and select cases can launch a stimulating class discussion about our increasingly interconnected world and the role of a global arbitrator.
Research and Practice
Achieving Authentic Pedagogy: Plan Units, Not Lessons
John Saye and the Social Studies Inquiry Research Collaborative
Authentic pedagogy engages students and spurs them to produce work that has value and impact beyond school.
Point of View
Another Look at AP
Larry Pahl
Does the College Board's AP program deserve its reputation as the gold standard for preparing high school students for college success?
Coaching Strategies for AP: Building a Successful AP European History Program
Jim Fornaciari
A former baseball coach transfers strategies for building a team-oriented winning culture on the field to promoting academic excellence in the AP European History classroom.
Surfing the Net
What I Learned at NCSS 2013
C. Frederick Risinger
The sessions at NCSS's annual conferences present a wealth of information. These websites offer valuable resources and lesson plans that build on some highlights of the 2013 conference.
The Making of Campaign 2012: Collision 2012 and Double Down
David Wolfford
Two recently published books offer behind-the-scenes insight into the 2012 presidential campaign and can help teachers illustrate important electoral concepts.
Editor's Notebook
Sources and Strategies
Helping Students Visualize the Process of Change with Historic Images
Stephen Wesson and Cheryl Lederle
The featured photographs by Lewis Hine can help launch a lesson about child labor reform and demonstrate how public debate can fuel legislative action.
Teaching about Gay Civil Rights: U.S. Courts and the Law
Robert W. Bailey and Bárbara C. Cruz
Examining the issue of gay civil rights through court decisions and government legislation will give students a deeper understanding of democratic processes within the context of human rights and legislative studies.
Looking at the Law
A Look Ahead: Supreme Court Likely to Have a Blockbuster Term
Catherine Hawke
This term, the Supreme Court has already considered hot button issues such as campaign finance and affirmative action, and will soon hear cases dealing with international child kidnappings, the Fair Housing Act, and the First Amendment and reproductive rights.
Education for Peace and Understanding
Charles Haynes
An innovative program for schools that promotes respect and understanding between major religions enables students to engage with peers around the world via videoconferencing.
Against the Grain: Teaching Historical Complexity
Dave Neumann
Skilled teachers confront students' assumptions about history and then strategically counter those notions to underscore the complexity of the past.
Surfing the Net
What's New and Updated on My Favorites/Bookmarks for Teaching Social Studies with the Internet
C. Frederick Risinger
This list of favorite social studies websites for teachers highlights sites with quality lesson plans, resources, and professional development tools.
Special Section: The C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards
Introduced and edited by Michelle M. Herczog
Beating the Odds: The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards
Kathy Swan and Susan Griffin
The C3 Framework is the culmination of an unprecedented collaboration between professional organizations representing the different social studies disciplines.
From Inquiry Arc to Instructional Practice: The Potential of the C3 Framework
S. G. Grant
Teaching through an inquiry approach demands scaffolding and the skilled use of questions that enables even young children to examine issues of substance and interest.
Is the Common Core Good for Social Studies? Yes, but…
John Lee and Kathy Swan
The Common Core State Standards has opened up an opportunity for educators to re-frame literacy instruction in the social studies.
The Links between the C3 Framework and the NCSS National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies
Michelle M. Herczog
Like the NCSS national standards, which outline content and concepts for teachers and curriculum developers, the C3 Framework delineates pedagogical approaches and guides states in upgrading their social studies standards.
Can Assessment Improve Learning? Thoughts on the C3 Framework
Bruce VanSledright
The C3 Framework shifts the conversation away from tests and towards assessments that allow students to show how well they understood what they have learned.
Taking Informed Action to Engage Students in Civic Life
Meira Levinson and Peter Levine
When students work together as citizens in response to rigorous inquiry in the social studies, they foster a more engaged, democratic, and revitalized public life.
From Receivers to Producers: A Principal's Perspective on using the C3 Framework to Prepare Young Learners for College, Career, and Civic Life
Michael Long
First graders in Los Angeles investigate rules and laws in society in a civics lesson that illustrates the inquiry approach of the C3 Framework.
Exploring the Black Death: The Medieval View and Response
Michael M. Yell
In this lesson, which supports the C3 Framework's Inquiry Arc, students explore primary sources and hypothesize on how medieval people understood and coped with the Black Death.
2013 Annual Index
Editor's Notebook
Sources and Strategies
Broadening Student Understanding of Wartime Experience through Original Works of Art and Personal Accounts
Lee Ann Potter
The featured sketches from a Navy veteran can serve as an entry point into a lesson on World War II and D-Day.
Preserving the Memories of World War II: An Intergenerational Interview Project
James A. Percoco
High school students participating in a unique video project have interviewed hundreds of World War II veterans and recorded their poignant memories for generations to come.
Mud, Blood, and Bullet Holes: Teaching History with War Letters
Andrew Carroll
From handwritten letters of the American Revolution to typed emails from Iraq and Afghanistan, correspondence from U.S. troops offers students deep insight into the specific conflicts and experiences of soldiers.
Learning about World War II at the D-Day Beaches of Normandy
Lynne M. O'Hara
Students and teachers participating in a national competition travel to Normandy, France, as part of a World War II research project to gain a profound understanding of D-Day and the soldiers' experiences of the war.
Looking at the Law
Shelby County v. Holder: What it Means for the Voting Rights Act
Steven D. Schwinn
A study of the recent Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act can fuel a stimulating classroom discussion on the civil rights movement and its legacy.
Surfing the Net
Teaching about Water Shortage as a Source of Conflict and
War Using the Internet
C. Frederick Risinger
The selected websites provide content, lesson plans, and teaching strategies for exploring the implications of Earth's diminishing water resources.
Introduction to the Special Section on AP Social Studies
Walter R. Herscher
This collection of articles reviews the growth of Advanced Placement programs and offers valuable advice on teaching AP social studies.
Back to the Future: Merit or Equity in AP Social Studies?
Robert Stevens
In this time of budget constraints, will school districts choose merit or equity when making their decisions about student participation in AP courses?
Building Reading, Writing, and Analysis in the AP U.S. History Classroom
Stephen Heller and Jason Stacy
A deeper understanding of the writing process gives students greater insight into the ways in which history is shaped by the historians who write it.
Ten Things to Consider When Teaching AP U.S. History
Andrea S. Libresco
These recommendations for creativity, higher-order thinking, and meaningful learning activities will guide teachers in constructing an engaging AP course.
The Promise of AP World History
Cristóbal T. Saldaña
The study of world history offers a unique opportunity to increase students' understanding of different perspectives, as well as their critical reading, writing, and thinking skills.
Structuring the AP Art History Course
Walter R. Herscher
With careful preparation, history teachers can lead a successful AP Art History course that familiarizes students with key works and guides them in analyzing context and historical framework.
Foundations for College and Beyond: Looking Back on AP Art History
Laurel Schoenbohm
A former AP Art History student reflects on the knowledge she gained of art and human history.
Two Successful Approaches to Teaching AP Government
Brian Ladd and Heidi Stepp
The authors engage students in civic education by offering the choice of either a combined AP Government and AP Macroeconomics yearlong course or a one-semester We the People course.
AP Human Geography and Success on the AP Test
John Roncone and Nate Newhalfen
Classroom projects that explore culture and globalization enhance the curriculum and help students see how geography directly connects to their lives.
Preparing Students for the AP Economics Exams
Sally Meek and Amanda Ashmead
The key to success in AP Economics is to teach students to understand economics, rather than to memorize rules.
Preparing Students for the AP Psychology Exam
Kristin Whitlock
These ideas will help teachers prepare students for the challenge of AP Psychology and for success on the AP exam.
Building an AP Social Studies Program with Non-Traditional AP Students
Amanda Ashmead and Sue Blanchette
The suggestions in this article can guide teachers in building a thriving AP program that will provide at-risk students with critical tools for success.
Letters to the Editor
Sources and Strategies
Piquing Student Curiosity with Title Pages from Works by Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau
Lee Ann Potter
The title pages of three books from the Enlightenment provide excellent points of entry for student research into the origins of ideas in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.
Teaching with Documents
A. Philip Randolph's Attempt at Equal Economic Opportunity: A Case Study
Joel Walker
The two featured documents from the 1940s offer insight into the African American struggle for economic opportunity in the South and can help teach about the greater civil rights movement.
Looking at the Law
The Rosenberg Trial—Uncovering the Layers of History
Bruce A. Ragsdale
Newly available online documents about the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg offer students a unique opportunity to investigate, analyze, and craft their own narratives about this high profile Cold War espionage case.
"Under God" and the Pledge of Allegiance: Examining a 1954 Sermon and Its Meaning
Eric C. Groce, Tina Heafner, and Elizabeth Bellows
A lesson exploring the Pledge of Allegiance, its history and the addition of the phrase "under God," can serve as a jumping off point into major themes of U.S. history and First Amendment freedoms.
Teaching America's Past to our Newest Americans: Immigrant Students and United States History
Kerry A. Dunne and Christopher C. Martell
Studying American history is a struggle for even the most diligent, high-achieving immigrant student. The strategies outlined here will make U.S. history more accessible for English language learners.
Research and Practice
The Unfortunate Consequences of Bloom's Taxonomy
Roland Case
Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives is one of the most popular educational theories, but it has also been the most damaging.
The Makah Whale Hunt: A Social Studies Symposium in the Classroom
Matthew Bornstein-Grove and Fred L. Hamel
The use of mock symposiums in the classroom immerses students in authentic historical thinking.
Using Conceptual Tensions and Supreme Court Cases to Increase Critical Thinking in Government and Civics Classrooms
Ayo Magwood and Krista Fantin Ferraro
Students can investigate public policies in a complex and rigorous manner by examining tensions such as individual rights versus the common good.
Surfing the Net
Teaching about Terrorism Using the Internet
C. Frederick Risinger
These websites offer information, strategies, and lessons for teaching about terrorism.
Point of View
Thinking Civically
Jack Schneider and Michael Fuerstein
Civics education must go beyond formal instruction in government, law, and democracy, and engage students in critical thinking and empathy.
Teaching Civics in a Time of Partisan Polarization
Peter Levine and Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg
The best long-term solution to gridlock in Washington may be to teach students to talk to people who disagree with them, form reasonable views, and act together constructively.
Q and A about the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards
Michelle Herczog
The C3 Framework enhances the rigor of social studies, builds the necessary skills for students to become engaged citizens, and aligns academic programs to the Common Core.
The Development of the C3 Framework
An Interview with Susan Griffin
The C3 Framework can revamp state social studies standards that have been stuck in an outdated model.
The Importance of the C3 Framework
An Interview with Kathy Swan
The C3 Framework anchors social studies in the process of inquiry while ensuring that social studies classrooms provide an emphasis on civic action.
View this Issue
Letters to the Editor
Looking at the Law
The Rule of Law and Civil Disobedience: The Case Behind King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail
Howard Kaplan
A class lesson on Walker
v. Birmingham, the legal case related to Martin Luther King Jr.'s
arrest in Birmingham, can lead to a stimulating exploration of civil
disobedience and its role in a democratic society.
A Novel Approach: Historical Fiction in the Elementary
Barbara C. Cruz
Two elementary units on the Great
Depression and on civil rights illustrate how historical fiction can advance
literacy while bringing history to life for students.
Reaching across the Color Line: Margaret Mitchell and Benjamin
Mays, An Uncommon Friendship
Jearl Nix and Chara Haeussler
The unusual correspondence between
the white author of Gone with the Wind and the
president of a black college in Atlanta in the 1940s offers students a unique
perspective on segregation.
Science Fiction in Social Education: Exploring Consequences of
Lance E. Mason
Examining a well-chosen science fiction
film in the classroom can serve as an excellent entry point for exploring the
psychological and social effects of technological advancements.
The Carter G. Woodson Book Awards
The 2012 Carter G. Woodson Award
winners include books about Native American resistance to assimilation, race
relations during World War II, and composer Leonard Bernstein's struggle
against anti-Semitism.
Travel to Learn: How, When, and Why to Apply for a Travel Grant
Erika Cook and Aaron Becker
basic tips can help educators obtain travel and research grants and experience
some of the best professional development opportunities available.
Using Competing
Visions of Human Rights in an International IB World School
William J. Tolley
teacher at an International Baccalaureate school in Brazil describes how a
human rights unit exploring U.S. or UN decisions from multiple viewpoints
helped reinvigorate his social studies courses.
the Net
Social Studies with National Anthems Using the Internet
C. Frederick Risinger
highlighted websites feature national anthems of countries around the world,
and offer unique insights in the history, international relations, ethnic
make-up, religions, and ideologies of these countries.
Water Education in The Netherlands: An Integrated Curriculum Using NCSS
Standards for Social Studies
Bron and Eddie van Vliet
curriculum developed in The Netherlands offers exciting opportunities for
students to consider domestic water use, its impact on other countries, and the
global need for water conservation.
Position Statement
Civic Learning in Our Schools
Position Statement
2012 House of
Delegates Resolutions
Editor's Notebook
Teaching with Documents
Searching for the Seventies: Photographs from the Environmental Protection Agency's DOCUMERICA Project
Bruce Bustard and Lee Ann Potter
Examining key photos from a 1970s federal project can serve as a point of departure for an exploration of the national issues and environmental crises of that decade.
Special Section: Teaching the Economics of World History
Guest Editors: Mark C. Schug and William C. Wood
Understanding World Economic History
Robert Whaples
Students will gain a better understanding of the pre-modern world when they consider the role that new technologies and institutions played in the advances of modern societies.
The Economics of Government and the Fall of Rome
Tawni Hunt Ferrarini
Studying the economic choices of the Roman Empire prior to its collapse can highlight for students the relationship between government failure and economic failure.
Business in the Middle Ages: What Was the Role of Guilds?
William Bosshardt and Jane S. Lopus
The study of medieval guilds and their role in regulating trade provides opportunities for teaching key economic concepts in a historical context.
Why Didn't China Discover the New World?
Scott Wolla
A historic look at China and its early technological advances offers an excellent opportunity to incorporate economic lessons into the study of world history.
Tokugawa Japan and Industrial Revolution Britain: Two Misunderstood Societies
Lucien Ellington
A close study of Tokugawa Japan and Industrial Revolution Britain will correct textbook depictions and reveal societies that had pro-growth government policies and significant economic freedom.
The East India Company: Agent of Empire in the Early Modern Capitalist Era
Bruce Brunton
The English East India Company provides an excellent case study for a lesson on the complex dynamics and consequences of intertwined business-government relations.
Slavery and Free Markets: Relationships between Economic Institutions
Mark C. Schug
This look at the contradictions between economic freedom and slavery provides a comprehensive view of the institution of slavery in world and American history.
Visions of Inflation in World History: Ghost Story III
M. Scott Niederjohn, Mark C. Schug, and William C. Wood
In this sequel to ghost stories in previous issues of Social Education, Ben Bernanke has a dream that explores historic cases of hyperinflation as well as current inflation fears with two of the best-known economists in history.
Special Section: Technology for Inquiry, Innovation,
and Integration in the Social Studies
Who Was Thaddeus Lee? Using the 1940 Digitized Census for Personalized Historical Inquiry
John Lee, Adam Friedman, Cheryl Mason Bolick, and Andy Mink
The release of the 1940 census can be used as a jumping off point into the study of personal, community, or state history in the post-Depression period.
Grand Challenges: Nanotechnology and the Social Studies
Meghan McGlinn Manfra
The featured lesson on nanotechnology encourages students to explore the role that science and technology play in our lives and to consider relevant social and ethical issues.
Taking It to the Street: Using QR Codes to Tell Student-Created (Hi)stories on Location
Mark van 't Hooft
Students become actively engaged in inquiry when they use digital tools to research local history and create stories accessible to the community through QR codes.
Getting to the Core: Using Digital Resources to Enhance Content-Based Literacy in the Social Studies
Ilene R. Berson and Michael J. Berson
The digital resources selected here for using literature to teach social studies will help engage learners and enliven the discipline.
Surfing the Net
The Globalization of Economics and How It's Changing Domestic Politics, International Relations, and Our Lives
C. Frederick Risinger
These highlighted websites will help classroom teachers and curriculum supervisors incorporate economic globalization into their curriculum and teaching.
Looking at the Law
Gideon v. Wainwright at Fifty: Lessons for Democracy and Civics
Kevin Scruggs
The case of Gideon v. Wainwright can serve as a point of entry into a classroom discussion of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel.
Editor's Notebook
NCSS Notebook
Facing the Issues
John A. Moore
Special Section
The Hispanic Heritage of North America: Commemorating 500 Years
Introduction to the Special Section
Guest Editor: Bárbara C. Cruz
Beyond La Niña, La Pinta, and La Santa María: The Invention and Mental Mapping of the New World
Luis Martínez Fernández
Approaching the encounter between Europe and the Americas as an intellectual rather than a physical discovery enables students to go beyond memorization to gain an understanding of Medieval and Renaissance ways of acquiring knowledge.
Charting the Land of Flowers: Exploration and Mapmaking in Spanish Florida
Rodney Kite-Powell
Two key maps that show the "known world" from the European perspective before Christopher Columbus's voyages illustrate the knowledge of intellectuals of that period and reveal tales of exploration, conflict, and change.
Borderlands of the Southwest: An Exercise in Geographical History
Stephen J. Thornton
Standard accounts of U.S. history present a chronology of events that begins in the East and moves west. An alternative approach traces Spanish exploration and settlement in what is now the American Southwest..
Operation Pedro Pan: The Flight to Neverland for 14,000 Cuban Children
Bárbara C. Cruz
Learning about the 1960s exodus of Cuban children to the United States can engage K-12 students in the study of immigration and U.S.-Cuba issues. A sidebar by Mario Minichino offers mapping activities, guided imagery, and other teaching suggestions.
500 Years of Spanish Exploration and Settlement: Children's Literature
Jason L. O'Brien and Wolfram Verlaan
Literature provides an ideal vehicle for guiding students beyond conventional accounts for a more profound exploration of Spanish influence in the Americas.
End of Special Section
Looking at the Law
How to Read a U.S. Supreme Court Opinion
Tiffany Middleton
This detailed guide will help students understand how to decipher and analyze any U.S. Supreme Court opinion.
Teaching Geography through "Chinatowns": Global Connections and Local Spaces
Li-Ching Ho and Tricia Seow
A comparison of the history and geography of different Chinatowns will allow students to gain a deeper understanding of stereotyping, migration, cultural diversity, and governance.
Surfing the Net
The Amazing Nellie Bly: Teaching about Women in United States History
C. Frederick Risinger
These recommended websites will help teachers find excellent resources and lesson plans for teaching about women in history during Women's History Month and the entire year.
Spielberg's Lincoln Defines the President's Emancipation Legacy
David Wolfford
The film Lincoln spotlights Abraham Lincoln's character and leadership and raises questions about the legislative process that enabled politicians to pass the Thirteenth Amendment that abolished slavery.
Editor's Notebook
Teaching with Documents
1863 Letter from the Department of State to the Government Printing Office
Lee Ann Potter
The featured documents relating to the Emancipation Proclamation illustrate how President Lincoln's government spread the news worldwide.
Looking at the Law
Did that Dog Sniff Violate the Fourth Amendment?
Catherine Hawke and Tiffany Middleton
A recent Supreme Court case looking at whether a drug dog's sniff gives police officers the right to get a search warrant, provides an excellent entry point into a lesson on the Fourth Amendment.
Democracy Education
Should Schools Teach Students to Vote? YES!
Diana E. Hess
Teachers can impact young people's involvement in elections by not only teaching about elections, but also about how to register to vote and how to go about voting.
New Directions in Assessment: Using Library of Congress Sources to Assess Historical Understanding
Sam Wineburg, Mark Smith, and Joel Breakstone
These newly designed assessments allow a quick evaluation of the quality of student thinking, and promote appropriate instructional action.
Research and Practice
What Makes a Good History Essay? Assessing Historical Aspects of Argumentative Writing
Chauncey Monte-Sano
Learning history and historical thinking can help students become better writers.
Surfing the Net
What Social Studies Educators can do about the Marginalization of the Subject They Teach
C. Frederick Risinger
These recommended strategies and websites can help teachers protect and improve the role of social studies in the curriculum and mobilize public support for social studies and citizenship education.
The World War II Era and Human Rights Education
Stewart Waters and William B. Russell III
This historical analysis and teaching activity offers teachers an approach for integrating human rights issues into the world history curriculum.
Case Study of Chinese Exclusion Act Enforcement
Compiled by Joanne Dufour
The featured lesson exploring early twentieth-century U.S. policies towards Chinese immigrants can serve as a jumping off point into a discussion of contemporary U.S. immigration issues.
The Rho Kappa Spirit
Mary T. McCullagh
High school juniors and seniors describe some of their enriching experiences in social studies, citizenship, and civic engagement activities since joining the Rho Kappa social studies honor society.
A Grade 5 Common Core Exemplar: Teaching about the Bill of Rights
Michelle Herczog
This lesson brings the Bill of Rights to life for students—advancing their understanding of democratic principles while strengthening their reading, writing, and language skills.
Teaching Challenging Topics with Primary Sources
Alan J. Singer
Students can develop their abilities to analyze complex topics when they evaluate primary sources such as the excerpted documents in this article.
Annual Index
Editor's Notebook
Teaching with Documents
Photograph and Speech Related to the Cuban Missile Crisis
Stacey Bredhoff and Lee Ann Potter
The featured photograph and the document from President Kennedy's speech about Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba offer an excellent entry point into the study of the presidency and foreign diplomacy at that critical moment in history.
Looking at the Law
Supreme Court Term in Review
Catherine Hawke
The recent Supreme Court term included many hot-button issues like health care, immigration, and First Amendment rights for liars, broadcasters, and unions.
The Keys to the White House
Allan J. Lichtman
This historically successful election prediction system remains firm in its forecast that Obama will win the popular vote, highlighting for students that it is governance, not campaigning, that determines the outcome of presidential elections.
Teaching about Big Money in Elections: To Amend or Not to Amend the U.S. Constitution?
James M. M. Hartwick and Brett L. M. Levy
Students will gain a profound understanding of concepts such as freedom of speech, fair elections, and responsive representative leadership with this lesson on the proposed amendment to regulate election spending.
Surfing the Net
Teaching about the 2012 Elections Using the Internet-Part 2
C. Frederick Risinger
This column focuses on the battle for the presidency as well as the fight for Congress, highlighting websites with elementary and secondary lesson plans, collaborative projects, and other learning activities.
Preparing Global Citizens through the Study of Human Rights
Toni Fuss Kirkwood-Tucker
Two key strategies—infusion and postholing—are ideal for engaging students in human rights issues.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Hilary Landorf
The document that began as a declaration of human equality and dignity has become the foundation of the human rights movement and a cornerstone of world political dialogue.
Close Up on Capital Punishment: Challenging Students' Ideas of Justice
Christopher W. Harrison
Exploring the topic of capital punishment presents an important opportunity for students to consider this controversial issue through the lens of legality and ethics.
Teaching about the Korean Comfort Women
Hyunduk Kim
The ordeal of Korean Comfort Women in World War II can spark class discussion about human rights violations by nation-states and the means of preventing such tragedies.
Child Soldiers: Rights Denied, Hope Restored
Kenneth T. Carano and Robert W. Bailey
Exposing students to international issues such as the existence of child soldiers motivates them to become engaged as global citizens.
Iranian Women: Between Education and Repression
Rina Bousalis
Studying the repression of women in Iran can launch the deeper exploration of pathways to freedom.
The Struggle for Human Rights in Myanmar
Natalie Keefer
The country of Myanmar offers a compelling case study for teaching students about human rights abuses and a people's fight for democracy.
Desperate Times, Desperate Measures: Executive Powers, Individual Rights and Guantánamo Bay Prison
Jason L. O'Brien and Kyle T. Barbieri
Students will sharpen their critical thinking skills when they take a close look at the complex issue of the relationship between security and constitutional rights.
Using Literature for Young People to Teach about Human Rights
Caroline C. Sheffield and Bárbara C. Cruz
Stories of individuals working for positive change offer an inspiring and personal approach to the subject of human rights.
Web Resources for Teaching about Human Rights
Merry M. Merryfield, Germain Badang, Christina Bragg, Aleksandr Kvasov, Nathan Taylor, Anne Waliaula and Misato Yamaguchi
This sampler of websites represents a few of the resources available for exploring the political, economic, and social rights spelled out in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Editor's Notebook
Teaching with Documents
The First Page of the Official Journal of the Constitutional Convention—Just the Tip of a Records Iceberg!
Lee Ann Potter
Looking at the Law
Demystifying the Electoral College: 12 Frequently Asked Questions
Tiffany Middleton
Teaching Critical Thinking by Asking "Could Lincoln Be Elected Today?"
Kathleen Hall Jamieson
Flip-Flopping, Presidential Politics, and Abraham Lincoln
Dave Neumann
Campaign Documentaries: Behind-the-Scenes Perspectives Make Useful Teaching Tools
Dave Wolfford
Looking at the Law
Teaching about the 2012 Elections Using the Internet
C. Frederick Risinger
10 Top Websites for Teaching about Issues in the Election Season
Andrea S. Libresco and Jeannette Balantic
Point of View
At the Core of Our Democracy: A Fragile Voting System
Lee Hamilton
Elementary Education
I like Chocolate Ice Cream: A Lesson in Thinking Civics
Robert A. Waterson
Fault lines in American Culture: The Case for Civic Debate
H. Michael Hartoonian and Richard D. Van Scotter
The "Why" and "Where" of the Tappan Zee Bridge: A Lesson in Site Location, Physical Geography, and Politics
Jerry T. Mitchell, Jeremy Cantrill, and Justin Kearse
Using The Daily Show to Promote Media Literacy
H. James Garrett and Mardi Schmeichel
Teaching Privacy in the 21st Century
Odette Edbrooke and Meg Leta Ambrose
Editor's Notebook
NCSS Notebook
The View from the Trenches
Sue Blanchette
Who, what, and how we teach has changed dramatically these last three decades; we've had to restructure and adapt, but I believe our schools will emerge stronger.
Planning the World History Course: A Reasoned Approach to Omission
Thomas P. Weinland
By leaving out many attractive events, people, and periods, world history teachers gain valuable classroom time to move beyond simple facts and help students develop a deeper understanding of history.
Teaching World History: One Path through the Forest
Eve Fisher
Two major themes outlined in this article can help teachers determine how best to approach 10,000 years of world history in the classroom.
The Challenge of World History
Cristóbal T. Saldaña
Developing students' abilities to question, to engage in debate, and to consider perspective are the hallmarks of a successful world history course.
Engaging Students in World History with a Bog Body Mystery
Michael M. Yell
This lesson from a medieval unit highlights two inquiry strategies that challenge students to think, reason, and interact.
The Reel History of the World: Teaching World History with Major Motion Pictures
William Benedict Russell III
This article highlights effective films for teaching world history and suggests related classroom activities.
Stamps, Sarcophagi, and Songs: Teaching World History with Online Resources
Kelly Schrum
The online portal World History Matters gives educators access to seven websites for teaching a range of world history topics including the French Revolution, the Soviet Gulag, and the history of 1989.
Cold vs. Hot War: A Model for Building Conceptual Knowledge in History
Geoffrey Scheurman
This Cold War lesson plan illustrates how the use of continuums can increase student understanding of the big ideas and essential concepts that enable the interpretation of historical facts and figures.
Helping Students Analyze Revolutions
Stephen Armstrong and Marian Desrosiers
Studying common patterns, structures, and characteristics of revolutions will enable students to make connections between these events across historical time.
Links to Learning: Recommended Websites for your World History Class
Laura Wangerin
These websites include supplemental resources, creative tools, and interactive technologies that can greatly enhance a world history lesson.
Teaching and Learning with Teachinghistory.org
Jennifer Rosenfeld and Kelly Schrum
This destination website offers primary source materials, teaching strategies, and lesson plans for investigating a range of world history topics.
Surfing the Net
Teaching about Global and U.S. Poverty Using the Internet
C. Frederick Risinger
The highlighted websites offer lesson plans and resources for understanding poverty, its causes, and its impact on society.
Our Civic Mission: Ask Congress to Support the Sandra Day O'Connor Civic Learning Act
Editor's Notebook
Teaching with Documents
Letter from Thomas Moran to Ferdinand Hayden and Paintings by Thomas Moran
Lee Ann Potter, Elizabeth K. Eder, and Michael Hussey
Looking at the Law
Health Care and the High Court: An Overview
The Top Five Narratives for Teaching about China's Cultural Revolution
Lindsey Cafarella and Chara Haeussler Bohan
No Place to Escape: Explaining the Cultural Revolution to American Students
Ji-li Jiang
The Carter G. Woodson Book Awards
History + English + Humanities = Critical, Creative, Global Thinkers
Jana Kirchner and Tracy Inman
The Phenomenon of Kony 2012: A Teaching Guide
Barbara B. Brown, John Metzler, and Christine Root (with background guide by Patrick Vinck)
Promoting Student Comprehension with Cooperative Learning
Linda A. Fernsten
Mexican Americans in the Era of World War II: Studying the Sleepy Lagoon Case and Zoot Suit Riots
Axel Donizetti Ramirez
Surfing the Net Integrating Art and Music into Social Studies Instruction
C. Frederick Risinger
NCSS Notebook
2011 NCSS House of Delegates Resolutions
Editor's Notebook
Letters to the Editor
The Keys to the White House: Prediction for 2012
Allan Lichtman
This election prediction system, which looks at the most consequential events of a presidency to predict the candidate who will win the popular vote, points to success for Obama in 2012 regardless of how well the Republicans campaign.
Teaching with Documents
Public Service Announcement about the 1940 Census
Lee Ann Potter and Christopher Zarr
A brief film created by the Census Bureau to encourage participation in the 1940 Census will enrich a lesson on the Constitution and fuel discussion on why the Framers saw fit to require a population count.
Looking at the Law
Perspectives: Are Voter Photo Identification Laws a Good Idea?
Tiffany Middleton
The views of several experts on new, stricter voter identification laws can spark a lively student debate on whether such laws are necessary.
The Fed and the U. S. Constitution: Too Much Independence?
Mary C. Suiter and Mark C. Schug
An examination of the history, structure, and function of the Federal Reserve System, will enlighten students about the historical debate on the constitutionality of a central bank.
Interviewing the "Lost Generation" from Prince Edward County's Closed School Era
Helen Stiff-Williams and John P. Sturtz
An oral history project by students in Southside, Virginia, exposes a neglected aspect of the civil rights movement—a generation of young people who were deprived of an education by segregationists.
Surfing the Net
What I Learned At NCSS 2011
C. Frederick Risinger
The NCSS annual meeting offers a cornucopia of information on using the Internet and Web 2.0 resources to teach social studies. The author describes his top website choices.
Teaching the Social Studies through Your Local Community
Anthony J. Filipovitch and Talip Ozturk
This list of key resources for teaching about local government and public policy will enrich any lesson on civic education.
Touch, Type, and Transform: iPads in the Social Studies Classroom
Ilene R. Berson, Michael J. Berson, and Meghan McGlinn Manfras
These strategies for integrating iPads and other multi-touch technologies in the classroom will enable teachers to raise the level of student interaction and engagement during social studies lessons.
Digital Reenactments: Using Green Screen Technology to Recreate the Past
Caroline C. Sheffield and Stephen B. Swan
Web 2.0 tools and video technology have reshaped the way students carry out historical reenactments.
Building Community through Shared Aesthetic Experience: A Multimedia Family History Project
Nancye E. McCrary
Advances in digital technology enable students to combine sight, sound, and text to create family projects that make history more personal.
Democratic Use of Blogs and Online Discussion Boards in Social Studies Education
Andrew L. Hostetler
Promoting online discussions via a dedicated blog promotes new interactions among students and engages them in meaningful democratic discussions.
Research and Practice
Around the World with Geospatial Technologies
Andrew J. Milson and Joseph J. Kerski Geospatial technology is gaining global momentum. The authors highlight five case studies that showcase how educators are mobilizing GIS and GPS around the world.
Climate Change: Where We've Been, Where We're Headed Film Review of "Plan B: Mobilizing to Save Civilization"
Lori Kumler
Editor's Notebook
Teaching Difficult Topics with Primary Sources
Lee Ann Potter
The featured documents illustrate the value of primary sources as points of entry into challenging subjects.
"I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier:" Ideas and Strategies for Using Music from the National Jukebox to Teach Difficult Topics in History
Stacie Moats and Stephanie Poxon
As a favored outlet for self-expression, music is a valuable classroom resource for addressing complex topics such as different perspectives on war.
Memory of a Nation: Effectively Using Artworks to Teach about the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy
Elizabeth K. Eder
Artwork, such as the featured pieces related to the Kennedy assassination, can teach students both content and core historical thinking skills.
Hear My Voice! Teaching Difficult Subjects with Graphic Organizers
Kim E. Barbieri
A well-designed graphic organizer combined with original documents can help students tackle issues of racism, segregation, and civil unrest.
Confronting Stereotypes
Carol Buswell
Primary-source documents can provide students with fresh perspectives on topics often laden with stereotypes—such as the issue of Native Americans and treaty rights.
Dealing with Disaster through Compassionate Giving: San Francisco Earthquake Survivors Write to President Theodore Roosevelt, January 3, 1909
Michael Hussey
The featured letter from a San Francisco couple seeking to help earthquake victims in Italy can serve as a jumping off point into the study of natural disasters and emergency relief efforts.
Evaluating Perspectives on Westward Expansion: Weighing the Evidence
Stephanie Greenhut
A unique online tool helps students analyze documents from opposing perspectives, weigh each source's significance, and come to evidence-based conclusions.
Letter to President Harry Truman about the Murder of Harry T. Moore
Megan Jones
The featured letter to President Truman about the murder of an NAACP official can be used as a springboard into the exploration of the civil rights struggle and violence, as well as the issue of presidential powers.
Encountering the Complicated Legacy of Andersonville
James A. Percoco
Teaching about the Civil War through the study of historic sites, such as the Confederate prison at Andersonville, challenges students to wrestle with tough interpretations of American history.
Looking at the Law
Norman Rockwell's "The Problem We All Live With:" Teaching Bush v. Orleans Parish School Board
Tiffany Middleton
A painting inspired by the 1960 court-ordered escort of Ruby Bridges into a New Orleans school offers an entry point into the study of the civil rights movement and a significant event in American legal history.
Surfing the Net
Teaching about Bullying and Cyberbullying with the Internet
C. Frederick Risinger
These recommended sites provide teachers with lesson plans and other resources for combating bullying.
Book Review
Research, Theory and the K-12 Classroom Teacher
Michael M. Yell
Noteworthy research and theory, of the kind highlighted in Walter Parker's Social Studies Today, should be part of the personal journey of classroom teachers.
Annual Index
Editor's Notebook
Supreme Court Review
Catherine Hawke
The new Supreme Court case line up promises constitutional "fireworks" with lawsuits dealing with Medicaid, tracking suspects with a GPS, as well as expletives and nudity on TV.
Jourdon Anderson and the Meaning of Freedom in the Aftermath of Slavery
Robert Cohen and Janelle Pearson
The featured letter from an emancipated slave to his former master illuminates the historical transition from slavery to freedom and is an excellent resource for classes in both history and literature.
Eleanor Roosevelt and Civil Rights
Toni Fuss Kirkwood-Tucker
Eleanor Roosevelt's fearless advocacy of the rights of African Americans, and the public controversy this created, offer students an excellent window into the society and politics of the United States during the 1930s and 1940s.
Who Lives on the Other Side of That Boundary: A Model of Geographic Thinking
Sandra Schmidt
An excellent way of teaching students to think geographically is to question the logic by which we divide the world into continents.
Income Inequality and U.S. Tax Policy
Margaret S. Crocco, Anand R. Marri, and Scott Wylie
The authors present statistics and a lesson plan for discussing federal income tax policy and its implications for wealth distribution in the United States.
Teaching World History and Global Issues with the Internet
C. Frederick Risinger
The recommended websites include both traditional world history content and contemporary issues for more effective lessons in global studies.
Closing the Civic Engagement Gap: The Potential of Action Civics
Alexander Pope, Laurel Stolte, and Alison K. Cohen
Action-oriented projects that address local issues like gang violence, hunger, or school closings can motivate students academically while preparing them to be active citizens in a democracy.
Judging the Credibility of Internet Sources: Developing Critical and Reflexive Readers of Complex Digital Texts
Mark Baildon and James Damico
The authors outline two sets of guiding questions that can help students judge the credibility of sources found on the Internet.
Our World of 7 Billion: Population Studies in Today's Social Studies Classroom
Pamela Wasserman
Learning about how the world's population grew to seven billion helps students understand contemporary challenges and discuss dwindling global resources.
Encouraging Student Research
Douglas Selwyn
To help students develop research skills, the author has drawn on the best ideas of experienced educators and artists.
Editor's Notebook
Letters to the Editor
Teaching with Documents
Congress Investigates: Pearl Harbor and 9/11 Congressional Hearing Exhibits
Christine Blackerby
The study of the two featured documents will illustrate for students the importance of Congress's power to investigate as part of a system of checks and balances established by the Founders.
Commemorating 9/11 in the Classroom
Social Education Staff
The National September 11 Memorial and Museum provides educational resources that explore the ongoing impact of the September 11th attacks and the ways that volunteerism and art aid in healing, recovery, and rebuilding.
Afghanistan, the Taliban, and Osama bin Laden: The Background to September 11
The Choices Program, Brown University
Ten years after 9/11, the United States is still fighting a war in Afghanistan against the Taliban. This article details key issues and events including the rise of the Taliban and the emergence of Osama bin Laden as a global terrorist figure.
Elementary Education
A Gift to America after 9/11: A Lesson for Young Learners
Robert A. Waterson and Mary E. Haas
The present from the Maasai people to the American people described in a picture book offers an ideal opportunity for teaching young students about 9/11 in a manner that highlights global citizenship and compassion.
From the Civil War to 9/11: Democracy and the Right to a Fair Trial
Alan S. Marcus
The author examines The Conspirator—a film about the trial of Mary Surratt and the plot to murder President Lincoln—and outlines four key questions to guide teachers when using historical film in the classroom.
Looking at the Law
Video Games and the First Amendment: Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association
Steven D. Schwinn
Students will explore the nuances of the First Amendment through a recent Supreme Court ruling that reversed a California court's ban on the sale of violent video games to minors.
Bridging the Information Gap: American Youth Perceptions on Torture and Civilian Protection
Emily Rose
Teaching students about the rules of international humanitarian law and the principle of respect for human dignity will prepare them to become responsible global citizens and leaders.
Surfing the Net
Saving Social Studies/Citizenship Education and Your Job Using the Internet
C. Frederick Risinger
The websites highlighted here will provide social studies educators with resources to promote and safeguard social studies/citizenship education.
In Defense of Memorization: The Role of Periodization in Historical Inquiry
Dave Neumann
Though periodization requires the memorization of dates, it is an indispensable tool of historical inquiry.
The Birth of a New Nation: The Republic of South Sudan
Samuel Totten
The author traveled to the area of South Sudan just months before that country's independence from the North. In this article, he outlines crisis points that continue to threaten the region's stability.
Research and Practice
Teaching Intellectually Challenging Social Studies in the Middle School: Problems and Possibilities
Hilary G. Conklin
How ready are middle schoolers for intellectual challenge?
Constitution Day Lesson Plans
The NCSS Publications archives and a number of educational websites offer excellent lesson plans that can help teachers prepare for Constitution Day.
Editor's Notes
The Social Studies are Essential to a Well-Rounded Education
Arne Duncan
Educators and policymakers need to recognize that social studies is a core subject, critical to sustaining an informed democracy and a globally competitive workforce.
The Essential Role of Social Studies: Reflections on Arne Duncan's Article
NCSS President Steve Goldberg and former presidents Syd Golston, Michael Yell, Gayle Thieman, and Peggy Altoff point out the effects that education policies have had on the social studies and call on our national leaders to change these policies.
Teaching with Documents
Page from the Log Book of the USS Harriet Lane and Painting by Thomas P. Rossiter, Related to the Prince of Wales's 1860 Visit to Mount Vernon
Lee Ann Potter, Elizabeth K. Eder, and Michael Hussey
The featured document and painting about the then-Prince of Wales's visit to Mount Vernon serve as excellent primary sources for a lesson on American diplomatic history.
Looking at the Law
Is Julian Assange an International Version of Daniel Ellsberg and WikiLeaks the Modern Equivalent of the Pentagon Papers?
William H. Freivogel
A classroom discussion on the release of secret diplomatic cables by the WikiLeaks website can lead to important questions about the First Amendment, the Espionage Act, and press treatment of national security secrets.
Teaching about Starbucks and Consumer Literacy
Joan Malczewski, Debra Plafker-Gutt, and Robert Cohen
Students learn about their own roles as consumers and about mass advertising through an in-depth study of a company that is ubiquitous in their lives.
Learning about America, and about Buying from Starbucks
Bryant Simon
Studying the everyday things we buy can teach us about who we are, what we care about, and the companies that cater to those desires.
Lesson Plan
Examining Corporate Messaging: Do the Claims Hold up to the Truth?
Debra Plafker-Gutt
In this lesson, students investigate corporate and consumer behavior by collecting Starbucks "artifacts," creating their own survey, and examining an ethnographic study.
Pullout Section
Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People
The NCSS Book Review Committee and the Children's Book Council present this year's list of exceptional books for use in the social studies classroom.
The Carter G. Woodson Book Awards
The 2010 award winners include books about a teenage civil rights pioneer, a Native American leader, and the immigrant experience in America.
Manifest Destiny and Competing Voices on the Eve of the Cherokee Removal
Prentice T. Chandler
Exploring westward expansion and the Cherokee Trail of Tears with primary sources from multiple perspectives enables students to develop a more nuanced understanding about the concept of Manifest Destiny.
Surfing the Net
More Recommended Favorites/Bookmarks for Teaching Social Studies with the Internet
C. Frederick Risinger
Here is an updated list of educational websites the author considers most worthy of bookmarking.
The People Unite: Learning Meaningful Civics Online
Annette Boyd Pitts, Charles Dziuban, and Jeffrey W. Cornett
Students learn how to address community issues and the role of governments when they partner with classes from other countries through an online civic education problem-solving model.
Film Review: The Response
Greg Snoad
The Response is a classroom-friendly film and excellent teaching tool for addressing the conflict between national security and constitutional rights.
NCSS Notebook
2010 NCSS House of Delegates Resolutions
Editor's Notes
Teaching with Documents
Request for a Copy of the Decision in Weeks v. The United States
Megan Jones
A Supreme Court decision banning illegally obtained evidence in federal court serves as a point of entry for the study of search warrants and the Fourth Amendment.
A Call for Wikipedia in the Classroom
Mark Kissling
Rather than battle Wikipedia's stronghold in students' lives, teachers should seize the opportunity to teach students how to read Wikipedia through a critical lens.
Wikipedia: Does it Have a Place in Research?
Ann Claunch
Wikipedia can provide useful facts for a summary report, but the anonymity and quantity of authors is problematic for historical research.
Looking at the Law
Understanding Antitrust Laws, Competition, the Economy, and Their Impact on Our Everyday Lives
Edited by Catherine Hawke and Tiffany Willey Middleton.
The history of American antitrust laws, explored in this interview, can introduce students to the globalization of markets, trade, and legal governance, as well as reinforce the study of how laws are made and affect social policy.
Students, Economics, and the Federal Reserve
Ben S. Bernanke
Students with an understanding of economics are better equipped to comprehend the forces that influence our standard of living and overall financial well-being.
It's Not Your Mother and Father's Monetary Policy Anymore: The Federal Reserve and Financial Crisis Relief
Andrew T. Hill and William C. Wood
It's important to strike a balance between traditional teaching about monetary policy and the teaching that is needed in these turbulent times.
Standards for Teaching about the Federal Reserve System: An Initiative by Two Federal Reserve Banks
William D. Bosshardt, Paul W. Grimes, and Mary C. Suiter
These newly created educational standards can guide teachers in developing citizens who are knowledgeable about the Fed and its role in our financial system and market economy.
Roadmap of Federal Reserve Resources for Teaching Economics and Personal Finance
Sara Messina, Amy Hennessy, and Caryn Rossiter
The Federal Reserve provides key resources to equip young people with essential skills in economics and personal finance.
Data and Primary Source Documents for Social Studies Classrooms from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
Mary C. Suiter and Katrina L. Stierholz
Students will increase their understanding of past and current events through the Federal Reserve Economic Data website, where they can view and download original maps, charts, tables, graphs, and raw data.
Quantitative Easing and the Fed: Ghost Story II
M. Scott Niederjohn, Mark C. Schug, and William C. Wood
In a sequel to a previous article, the authors imagine what two renowned economists might say to Ben Bernanke about how to advance economic recovery.
A Digital View of History: Drawing and Discussing Models of Historical Concepts
Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Robert M. Coven
Students become engaged in "doing history" when they examine digitized primary sources about the Great Plague in fourteenth-century Europe and create images of their own historical interpretations.
Learning History with Mini-Camcorders
Jeremy D. Stoddard and Meg Hoffman
Three activities described here engage the creativity of at-risk students by incorporating mini-camcorders into the study of the American Revolution, Civil War, and Post-Reconstruction.
Integrating Literature and the Social Studies with Google Lit Trips
Ilene R. Berson and Michael J. Berson
Students become deeply immersed in stories and their related social studies content with Lit Trips, which enable the hands-on explorations of text, by incorporating digital mapping tools, videos, and photographs.
Visualizing Economic Development with ArcGIS Explorer
Megan L. Webster and Andrew J. Milson
Students can use GIS applications to analyze a range of geographic patterns. In the lesson described here, ninth graders used ArcGIS Explorer to study economic development and the ways in which countries are classified as more, or less, developed.
Surfing the Net
How New Technology Resources are Changing Social Studies
C. Frederick Risinger
This list of recommended websites highlights the innovative use of Web 2.0 technology by teachers in Milwaukee and Kentucky, and a Houston professor who teaches students how to design podcasts that use animation, music, and narration.
NCSS Notebook
Redefining the Vistas of Social Studies
Steve Goldberg
By enhancing our professional organization and stepping up our advocacy, we can place social studies firmly in the foreground.
Teaching with Documents
Draft of the U.S. Constitution (August 1787) and Schedule of the Compensation of the Senate of the United States (March 1791)
Michael Hussey and Stephanie Greenhut
The two featured documents can serve as a starting point for a lesson on public service while students debate the amount of pay that public servants should receive.
Looking at the Law
Perspectives: Should Mandatory Voting Laws be Implemented in the United States?
In two distinct essays, voting and elections experts Norman Ornstein and Vassia Stoilov consider whether compulsory voting laws in the United States are the solution to low voter turnout.
An Approach to Integrating Writing Skills into the Social Studies Classroom
Veronica M. Zagora
When teachers incorporate writing regularly in the social studies classroom, students not only become better prepared for reading and writing assessments, but gain a deeper comprehension of social studies content.
Teaching about Racial Segregation in Postwar America using Black Like Me
Richard L. Hughes
The memoir of a white journalist who disguised himself as an African American in the pre-civil rights South provides students with greater insight into the evolution of segregation in American society.
Free Markets, Government Intervention, and Homework Passes: An Economics Simulation for the History Classroom
Ron Woolley
Students gain a greater understanding of both free market and government-controlled economics when they are forced to consider the distribution of a scarce classroom resource.
Using Community Cookbooks as Primary Sources
Cynthia Williams Resor
A close study of community cookbooks illustrates economic, cultural, and technological trends over time, such as shifts in food production, preparation, and consumption.
Surfing the Net
Effective Strategies for Teaching Social Studies
C. Frederick Risinger
This list of recommended websites includes websites on teaching methods and student achievement as well as sites that offer lesson plans and instructional strategies that exemplify these methods.
Research and Practice
Keeping, Making, and Building Peace in School
Kathy Bickmore
The approaches to conflict management that our schools select can either encourage the deepening of democracy or reproduce social inequality.
Political Civility in the Age of Reagan
Janet Tran with Tony Pennay and Krista Kohlhausen
The centennial of Ronald Reagan's birth offers an opportunity to engage students in lessons about the importance of political civility.
Editors Notebook
Teaching with Documents
Cloture Motion to Cease Debate on 1964 Civil Rights Bill
Lee Ann Potter
Students will gain a deeper understanding of legislative tactics like the filibuster when they study the featured document—the Senate motion that broke a 55-day filibuster against the Civil Rights Act.
Looking at the Law
Law, Pirates, and Piracy
Looking at the Law editor Tiffany Willey Middleton interviews international legal expert Douglas Guilfoyle on piracy, terrorism, and the law. The article highlights a case study and online discussion guide as a way to engage students in these issues.
Revisiting Academic Freedom in Social Studies: A Special Issue on the Freedom to Teach and to Learn
Nancy C. Patterson and Jack L. Nelson
The guest editors present a special issue exploring why academic freedom is important, its past and present status, and how educators most benefit.
The Need for Courage in American Schools: Cases and Causes
Jack L. Nelson with Carole Hahn
In times of social stress, academic freedom is often forsaken. Yet it is precisely in such times that social educators and teachers must stand up for this essential element of a democratic society.
Academic Freedom as Seen by the 1970s Special Issue Editor
Todd Clark
The challenges that existed when Social Education's last issue on academic freedom was published still remain, and the need to support access to information in our schools is as great as ever.
Learning about Teacher and Student Freedom
James Daly
Education programs must prepare future teachers with the knowledge and skills for exploring issues of free expression and free inquiry in the classroom.
Defending Academic Freedom: Advice for Teachers
Michael D. Simpson
There are actions teachers can take to strengthen their right to teach controversial issues.
Democracy Education
Teachers and Academic Freedom: Gaining Rights De Facto
Diana E. Hess
When they work together, teachers may gain rights de facto that they have not yet gained de jure.
Legal Issues in the Protection of Student Freedoms
Robert M. O'Neil
Many basic issues of student speech rights and limits have not yet been fully resolved, and more contemporary speech issues are emerging.
What's Stopping You? Classroom Censorship for Better or Worse
Nancy C. Patterson
As educators, we should examine limitations on teaching relevant controversial topics and use our academic freedoms to challenge those limits.
A Social Studies Teacher's Challenge: Thoughts from Experience
Anna Ochoa-Becker
While there may be no definitive answers for navigating questions of school authority and teacher independence, the author outlines some useful guideposts.
Teacher Resources for Academic Freedom Issues
This list of key websites, journals, and organizations is invaluable for educators exploring academic freedom
NCSS Position Statement on Academic Freedom
Surfing the Net
The Common Standards Movement and the Role of Social Studies on the Internet
C. Frederick Risinger
These recommended websites examine the Common Core Standards Initiative and focus on social studies and citizenship efforts and achievements.
An Open Letter to President Barack Obama
C. Frederick Risinger
Columnist C. Frederick Risinger shares his letter to the president on the risk posed to our democracy by the marginalization of social studies and citizenship education.
Annual Index
Editors Notebook
Teaching with Documents
Memorandum about the First Nixon-Kennedy Debate
David L. Rosenbaum
A memo from John Kennedy's press secretary to Richard Nixon's press secretary prior to the first televised presidential debate in history serves as a jumping off point for studying the major issues of the 1960 election.
Looking at the Law
Supreme Court Review
Charles F. Williams and Catherine Hawke
Recent Supreme Court decisions generated surprising controversy, from gun control to First Amendment issues. In 2011, the Court will weigh in on cases dealing with the hiring of illegal immigrants, protests at soldiers' funerals, and selling violent video games.
Turning Bad News into a Teaching Moment
Mat Morgan
Teaching about global events such as Haiti's earthquake can help prepare young people for playing an active role in the face of such daunting disasters.
The Bystander's Dilemma: How Can We Turn our Students into Upstanders?
Lauren Woglom and Kim Pennington
By studying moments in history where bystanders made a difference, teachers can motivate students to think critically in the face of social dilemmas.
Even Wars Have Laws: Upholding an American Tradition
TJ Adhihetty
The earliest American leaders upheld basic protections for civilians, prisoners of war, and sick and injured combatants. Such principles can serve as a guide today as we address difficult questions like the treatment of detainees and the issue of torture.
Memories of an Aid Worker
Isabelle Daoust
An attorney and Red Cross worker explores the impact that humanitarian work can have as she recalls her own personal experiences in the Ivory Coast after the country's first coup d'état.
A Bus Ride Across the Mason-Dixon Line in the Era of Jim Crow
John A. Stokes with Steven S. Lapham
Students gain a deeper understanding of the segregation period through this classroom simulation, in which randomly-assigned cards determine whether volunteers sit or stand during a long, interstate bus trip.
Surfing the Net
Teaching about the 2010 Mid-Term Election Using the Internet
C. Frederick Risinger
Mid-term elections can be as significant as presidential elections. The recommended websites can help guide students in understanding the key issues and flash points.
The ReDistricting Game: Teaching Congressional Gerrymandering through an Online Simulation Game
Emily Juckett and Joseph R. Feinberg
An innovative online simulation game that spotlights the problem of gerrymandering can help students understand the congressional redistricting process.
Resources for Teaching about the Mid-Term Election
Teaching with Documents
Introducing www.DocsTeach.org, a New Online Tool for Teaching
with Documents
Lee Ann Potter and Stephanie Greenhut
This innovative online tool from the National Archives combines primary-source content with the latest interactive capabilities.
Looking at the Law
The New World of Campaign Finance
Charles F. Williams
The upcoming midterm elections offer a prime opportunity to study the effects of money and politics following the recent Supreme Court campaign finance decision.
Advocating for Abolition: Staging an Abolitionist Society Convention
Andy Robinson and Joan Brodsky Schur
This simulation illustrates for students that the most complex debates in American history are not necessarily between those for and against social change, but among those who agree on the goal, but disagree on the means.
A Different Way of Viewing History Teaching: Balancing Competing Intellectual Challenges
Dave Neumann
Focusing on three intellectual challenges at the core of historical understanding—time; scale; and pattern—will help teachers promote a more meaningful understanding of history for students.
Surfing the Net
What I Learned (And Didn't) At NCSS 2009
C. Frederick Risinger
These noteworthy Web 2.0 resources and software demonstrated at the NCSS annual meeting will help teachers design stimulating projects, courses, and curricula.
Grab 'em While They're Young (Before They Become Disillusioned and Cynical)!
Sally Broughton
Three new lessons plans—for the elementary, middle, and high school levels—will help actively engage students in the upcoming election process.
Education or Indoctrination? The Development of Social Studies Standards in Texas
Sue Blanchette
At a public hearing before the final vote on the Texas standards, NCSS's president elect makes a plea for social studies standards that allow students to examine a range of viewpoints and come to independent conclusions.
Excerpts from the Revised Social Studies Standards
NCSS Standards Task Force
NCSS is about to publish National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies: A Framework for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment. These revised national standards continue to be based on the ten themes of social studies, but offer a stronger focus than the original standards on Purposes, Questions for Exploration, Knowledge, Processes, and Products.
The Revised NCSS Standards: Ideas for the Classroom Teacher
Syd Golston
The revised social studies standards offer invaluable strategies for teachers to plan powerful units and create engaging lessons.
Using the NCSS National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies: A Framework for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment to Meet State Social Studies Standards
Michelle M. Herczog
The revised national standards are a great framework for meeting state standards while making learning relevant and meaningful for students.
Elementary Education
Using Social Studies Themes to Investigate Modern Egypt
Janie Hubbard
The topics described here will help refocus the study of Egypt to expand students' perceptions of Egyptian history and introduce contemporary society.
Editors Notebook
Looking at the Law
Trials as Stories: Teachable Trials in the Social Studies Curriculum
Mark S. Weiner
Dramatic landmark trials can be powerful tools for teaching key principles at the core of democratic citizenship.
Teaching with Documents
It is My Desire to be Free: Annie Davis's Letter to Abraham Lincoln and Winslow Homer's Painting A Visit from the Old Mistress
Michael Hussey and Elizabeth K. Eder
A study of the featured document and painting will give students a greater understanding of the multi-step process of emancipation and the changing relationship that developed between freed slaves and former slave owners.
Remember The Alamo? Learning History with Monuments and Memorials
Alan S. Marcus and Thomas H. Levine
Studying monuments and the political, ideological, or social perspectives they represent advances students' historical thinking skills while highlighting for them the subjective nature of history.
A Living History Classroom: Using Re-Enactment to Enhance Learning
Mark L. Daniels
Teachers and students can bring history to life by donning period clothing or carrying objects common in past eras to engage students and enhance classroom presentations.
Surfing The Net
Using Online Field Trips and Tours in Social Studies
C. Frederick Risinger
While cuts in funding have forced schools to reduce supportive activities like field trips, students can benefit greatly from noteworthy virtual tours, such as those highlighted here.
The Carter G. Woodson Book Awards
The 2009 award winners include books about a pioneer of Native American rights, the challenges faced by migrant families, the Jim Crow era, and the involvement of children in the civil rights movement.
Mapping a Crisis, One Text Message at a Time
Jennifer Bauduy
Interactive Web 2.0 tools are changing the way crises—from earthquakes to blizzards—are being tracked and managed, and everyday citizens are playing a new and important role.
Research and Practice
Youth Civic Identity Development in the U. S. History Course
Beth C. Rubin
A "design experiment" illustrates that one way to transform civic learning is to engage young people with civic questions that are timely and relevant to their lives.
Econocast: The Production, Consumption and Distribution of Economic Podcasts
Kathy Swan, Mark Hofer, Gerry Swan, and Joan Mazur
The highlighted website advances a creative approach to engaging students in economics through podcasting.
The Berlin Wall: A Simulation for the Social Studies Classroom
William B. Russell III
This article describes a classroom-tested simulation for teaching the Berlin Wall and provides a list of relevant resources.
Book Review
Ravitch Recants (somewhat)
Walter Parker
In her latest book, educational policymaker Diane Ravitch distances herself from key education ideas that she once helped promote.
Point of View
History and Politics: Reflections on the Texas Controversy
Don Bragaw
The Texas State Board of Education's proposed history standards has once again alerted us to the dangers of having standards developed by political activists rather than scholars.
NCSS on the Development of State Social Studies Standards
NCSS Notebook
2009 House of Delegates Resolutions
Editors Notebook
57, 114
Letters to the Editor
Special Section: History Face to Face
Students Preserve an Emancipation Site with Archaeological Technology
Paul LaRue
High school students in Ohio combine study with experience as they unearth and clean artifacts in order to re-create the history of an early settlement of emancipated slaves.
National History Day: Student Historians
Ann Claunch
When students are challenged by National History Day to probe into history?s unanswered questions, they sometimes become the first to provide the answers.
?Life in a Jar?: A National History Day Project that Touched the World
Norman Conard
After learning about a Polish woman who saved 2,500 Jewish children during World War II, students in Kansas created a play for National History Day that is still being performed today, more than 10 years later.
The Pleasant Valley School: A Living History Project
David L. Buckner, Pamela U. Brown, and John Curry
In Stillwater, Oklahoma, fourth graders from around the state can step back in time and experience a day at the turn of the twentieth century in a one-room schoolhouse.
Since You Asked: Remembering America's Veterans
Barbara Hatch
Through the Arizona Heritage Project, students work to document their local history and preserve the stories of Arizona?s military veterans.
The WPA American Guide Series: Local History Treasures for the Classroom
Syd Golston
The state guidebooks created by writers, academics, and historians under FDR?s jobs program offer a wealth of social history that will lead students to a greater understanding of their own towns as part of the panorama of American history.
Realia: It?s Not Just about Field Trips Anymore
Kyle McKoy
Financial constraints and testing pressures have forced many school districts to cut back on field trips to museums. But with traveling trunks, museums are making sure that students still have access to primary source artifacts.
Historic Sites and Your Students
William E. White
Field trips to historic sites, such as to the house in Colonial Williamsburg of Revolution-era scholar George Wythe, offer students a tangible and physical connection to the past.
Learning and Writing about Local History Using the Internet
C. Frederick Risinger
The websites presented here will help educators integrate local history projects that not only stimulate student interest, but build research and presentation skills.
Who Will Stimulate the Economic Recovery: A Ghost Story
M. Scott Niederjohn, Mark C. Schug, and William C. Wood
The authors imagine what two of the most renowned economists in our history might say to Ben Bernanke about promoting economic recovery.
Polar Bears, Hot Coffee, Wireless Schools, and Much More: Teaching American Studies in Norway
Lee Ann Potter
Our Teaching with Documents editor reports from Oslo on her year as a Fulbright Roving Scholar teaching lessons with primary source documents in upper secondary schools.
Teaching with Data: Using Our Nation?s Statistical Snapshot
Kim Crews
Students will learn about the uses of data for research, planning, and policymaking when they review the census from 100 years ago and gather contemporary information about their own households.
Looking at the Law
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: Regulating Nuclear Weapons Around the World
Tiffany Willey Middleton
An interview with three experts on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty can serve as a jumping off point to explore with students the legal issues surrounding nuclear weapons.
Teaching with Documents
The Constitution by Cell
Stephanie Greenhut and Megan Jones
A pilot program at the National Archives challenges students to determine how certain documents illustrate the Constitution ?in action,? then create digital stories using cellular phones and web tools.
Special Section Twenty X: The Beginning of a New Decade for Technology and the Social Studies
Far Beyond Show and Tell: Strategies for Integration of Desktop Documentary Making into History Classrooms
Bruce Fehn, Melanie Johnson, and Tyson Smith
Creating documentary productions on computers motivates students and enables teachers to guide student historical thinking skills and practices.
Researching, Producing, Presenting: Students? Use of Technology for Global Advocacy in the Social Studies
Brad M. Maguth, Misato Yamaguchi, and Jeff Elliott
Students have the opportunity to research, create, and present potential solutions to important global challenges when they make their own videos, which many choose to upload to social networking websites.
Webby Award Winners: Interactive Media for the Social Studies
Ilene R. Berson and Michael J. Berson
Educators will find the winners of a leading Internet award to be exellent resources for enhancing teaching and learning in the classroom.
Blogging to Learn: Educational Blogs and U.S. History
Meghan McGlinn Manfra, George E. Gray, Jr., and John K. Lee
Multimedia and Web 2.0 technologies offer opportunities to successfully engage low achieving students while promoting in-depth thinking and increasing student participation.
Editor's Notebook
NCSS Notebook
The Civic Mission of Schools
Syd Golston
Six principles outlined by the Civic Mission of Schools Campaign can help us achieve our objective of preparing competent and responsible citizens.
Kathleen Woods Masalski and Tedd Levy
This special issue offers perspectives on China that will help teachers move beyond outdated assumptions in order to better educate students and encourage further study of this vast and complex country.
Letter to Social Studies Teachers from the
U.S. Ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman
Teachers have an essential role to play in preparing young Americans for the future relationship between the United States and China.
Panda-Huggers and Dragon-Slayers: How to View Modern China Today
Rob Gifford
Two extreme positions that have long characterized outsider views of China--panda-hugger or dragon-slayer--have become increasingly untenable in the context of contemporary China.
What I Wish My College Students Already Knew about PRC History
Kristin Stapleton
Five main themes outlined in this article can help secondary students integrate conflicting views on China, particularly since the establishment of the People's Republic.
Chinese Geography through Chinese Cuisine
Jonathan N. Lipman
Teaching China's cuisines provides an engaging way of illustrating the diversity of Chinese society.
A Reemerging China: The Time for Hasty Predictions is Past
Shiping Zheng
The profound economic and social transformation that China is undergoing defies the simple predictions of many experts.
Confucianism on the Comeback: Current Trends in Culture, Values, Politics, and Economy
Stephen C. Angle
The ancient principles of Confucius, which challenge unexamined thinking, are experiencing a multifaceted revival in China.
28 - 41
Personal Experiences
A Journey Between China's Past and Present
Peter Hessler
A former Peace Corps volunteer and author highlights misconceptions between Chinese and Americans and the desire both peoples share for knowledge about one another.
Life On Liberation Avenue
Ryan Bradeen
Studying the ups and downs of China's economic growth, as seen from the perspective of one neighborhood in Hubei province, can help students appreciate the process of development.
Richard's Story
Richard Wang
This personal story describes the two sides of China—the rural, developing side and the urban, developed one—and how the lives of Chinese people are affected by where they are born.
Juefei's Story
(Interview by Kathleen Woods Masalski)
Juefei Wang describes growing up in China during the early years of the People's Republic—his family's struggles, his relocation to the countryside, and his determination to further his education.
Curriculum Reform and the Writing of High School History Textbooks in the People's Republic of China
Qi Chen
This past decade, China has taken a closer look at the role of history education and has revamped its history curriculum standards.
Teaching About Ethnicities in China
Caryn White Stedman
The study of China's ethnic minorities presents students with an opportunity to examine questions of identity as well as civil and human rights.
Ten Top Films for Teaching About China Today
Tanya Lee
This recommended list of films offers teachers a wealth of resources for engaging students with contemporary China.
Editor's Notebook
Teaching with Documents
Bridge to the Future: Franklin Roosevelt's Speech at the Dedication of the Triborough Bridge
David L. Rosenbaum
The featured document from FDR's speech inaugurating the Triborough Bridge provides an entry point for the study of New Deal programs and discussion of the government's role in planning, funding, and creating infrastructure.
Research and Practice
Should Social Studies Be Patriotic?
Joel Westheimer
The author explores two different approaches to teaching patriotism: One that advocates loyalty to a centralized leader or group; and another that promotes commitment to the principles that underlie democracy.
Looking at the Law
Mexico: Democracy and the Future
Kathleen Bruhn
Even as Mexico undergoes a transition from historic one-party rule, important challenges to democracy remain.
Using YouTube to Teach Presidential Election Propaganda: Twelve Representative Videos
Wayne Journell
Teachers can use this selection of campaign ads to help students analyze various aspects of political propaganda.
Surfing the Net
Citizenship Education: The Goal Of Education
C. Frederick Risinger
The highlighted websites offer lesson plans and classroom activities to advance the skills needed in a participatory democracy.
The Meaning of Memory: Establishing the Martin Luther King, Jr., Holiday
Mira Cohen
Some memorable days in our nation's history are declared holidays, while others are considered days of remembrance. This article explores the process of establishing a holiday to commemorate Martin Luther King, Jr.
Learning from a Bike Trip
Mike Koren
Each year, seventh and eighth-grade students in a Milwaukee-area school culminate a unit on map reading by planning and carrying out a 25-mile bike ride that develops skills in social studies, science, math, and reading.
Rapping the 27 Amendments to the Constitution
Adam Knaresborough
Students bring the Constitution to life by summarizing the amendments in their own words and composing a rap song.
Democracy Education
Teaching about Same-Sex Marriage as a Policy and Constitutional Issue
Diana Hess
Engaging secondary students in policy and constitutional questions related to same-sex marriage promotes the skills and content that advance a democratic education.
Lesson Plan on Afghanistan
Bayard Faithfull
During this nine-day unit, high school students consider evidence from a variety of primary and secondary sources to determine the best policy for the United States and NATO on Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Annual Index
Editor's Notebook
Teaching with Documents
Letter to the Senate Banking Committee about Wall Street Reform Legislation during the New Deal
Christine Blackerby
The featured document on federal aid for school lunches and the accompanying essay on the School Lunch Act provide students with a unique chance to study the role of government.
Looking at the Law
Supreme Court Review
Charles F. Williams
The Supreme Court term opens with its first Hispanic justice and a list of highlights that includes two high-profile First Amendment cases and an important property rights case.
Social Studies for English Language Learners:Teaching Social Studies that Matters
Bárbara C. Cruz and Stephen J. Thornton
As the number of English language learners continues to rise, four key principles will help teachers ensure a valuable social studies education.
The Guide on the Stage: In Defense of Good Lecturing in the History Classroom
Jason Stacy
Interactive lectures require a strong familiarity with the content being taught and compel students to actively engage the material.
Surfing the Net
Teaching about U.S. Climate Policy and the 2009 Copenhagen Conference
C. Frederick Risinger
This list of recommended sites offers resources and lesson plans for teaching about the climate change conference in Denmark and the cap and trade system.
Life in the Aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide
Samuel Totten
The author details his findings after six months of research on the lives of genocide survivors in Rwanda.
The Other September 11: Teaching about the 1973 Overthrow of Chilean President Salvador Allende
Katy Benedetto, Alexandra Lamb, and Robert Cohen
With the help of primary sources, teachers can give students the opportunity to reflect on the complexity and contradictions of U.S foreign policy by introducing them to Chile's September 11.
Point of View
In Pursuit of the "Faerie Folk": Identity, Self-determination, and Multiculturalism in Louisiana
Paul Nagel and Dayna Bowker Lee
Creole culture is part of the fabric of America and an excellent topic for classrooms studying cultural diversity.
Point of View
The Coverage of the Holocaust in High School History Textbooks
David Lindquist
Though coverage of the Holocaust has become standard in history textbooks, it is often superficial and fails to provide the groundwork for meaningful student inquiry into that devastating genocidal event.
Editor's Notebook
Letters to the Editor
Teaching with Documents
Letter about the School Lunch Program
Missy McNatt
The featured document on federal aid for school lunches and the accompanying essay on the School Lunch Act provide students with a unique chance to study the role of government.
Looking at the Law
The Chicago 8 Trial, 40 Years Later: A Case Study in Teaching U.S. v. Dellinger (1969)
Jeanne Polk Barr
A class reenactment of the Chicago 8 trial offers students a close look at the rights and restrictions of free speech and dissent in America.
Living Democracy: How Constitution High School Molds Better Citizens
Marc Brasof
One school's experiment in social education illustrates what can happen when students are encouraged not only to study democracy, but to practice it.
Tampering with History: Adapting Primary Sources for Struggling Readers
Sam Wineburg and Daisy Martin
Adapting sources for classroom use allows teachers to steer students toward authentic historical inquiry and away from a version of history determined exclusively by the textbook.
Surfing the Net
Teaching about Comparative Government
C. Frederick Risinger
Educators will find the websites highlighted in this column useful for teaching about the history of government and government systems around the world.
The U.S. and Iran: Confronting Policy Alternatives
Choices for the 21st Century Education Program, Brown University
In this lesson, students consider the principal alternatives facing U.S. policymakers dealing with Iran, before formulating their own points of view.
Copenhagen 2009: Could a Cap-and-Trade Market Combat Global Warming and Conserve Earth's Tropical Forests?
Harold Beedle and Bruce Calhoun
This background essay and accompanying handout can help students learn how global citizens can conserve tropical forests and reduce global warming.
Bottled or Tap? A Controversy for Science, Economics, and Society
Steven S. Lapham
Every year, Americans spend billions of dollars on bottled water. Students can learn about the costs and consequences of this choice.
Remnants from the Past: Using Scrapbooks to Make U.S. History Personal and Meaningful
John J. DeRose
Students learn how local history has coincided with national events and trends when they create scrapbooks to document the history of their high school.
Elementary Education
Creating Biography Webs to Investigate Individuals' Historical Contexts
Gary Fertig and Rick Silverman
Creating biography webs helps young learners recognize how people, economic conditions, and significant events shaped the personal development of historic individuals.
The Dutch are Missing in the American Curriculum
Anne Claunch
The Dutch contribution to America's economic system and cultural fabric was highly significant, yet history textbooks barely mention their early seventeenth-century influence on America.
NCSS Position Statement
Powerful and Purposeful Teaching and Learning in Elementary School Social Studies
Editor?s Notebook
Teaching with Documents
George Washington?s Printed Draft of the Constitution and Mike Wilkins?s Preamble
Lee Ann Potter and Elizabeth K. Eder
The featured artwork highlights the 52 words of the Preamble to the Constitution. The accompanying document shows, however, that these well known words underwent many changes before reaching their final form.
Looking at the Law
The Reporter?s Privilege Under Fire: Is the American Press Still Free?
Natalie West
When students study the issue of reporter?s privilege they will understand why the courts and legislatures still struggle to define this protection, more than 150 years after the first American reporter was jailed for refusing to reveal a source.
Using Artifacts to Understand the Life of a Soldier in World War II
Staci Anson
High school students in New Jersey practice artifact analysis and learn about soldier life in World War II when they interact with wartime relics, including medals, gas masks, ration coupons, and letters home.
Surfing the Net
Integrating Literature and the Arts Using Internet Resources
C. Frederick Risinger
The highlighted websites offer lesson plans, book lists, or other resources that can help teachers integrate literature and the arts into their social studies instruction.
The Carter G. Woodson Book Awards
The 2008 award winners describe racial barriers in sports and military institutions, the immigrant experience, and the stories of selected female blues and jazz singers.
Elementary Education
Folk in the History Classroom: Using the Music of the People to Teach Eras and Events
Michael G. Lovorn
The featured lesson uses Woody Guthrie?s ?Dust Storm Disaster? to study the Dust Bowl from the perspective of those most affected.
Research and Practice
Isn?t Culturally Responsive Instruction Just Good Teaching?
Kathryn Au
Culturally responsive instruction that builds on students? home and community experiences can improve academic achievement and increase chances for success.
Increasing the Relevance: A Who Done It Mystery
Nancy Peterson
This lesson describes a creative approach to teaching the judicial system with a simulated murder mystery.
NCSS Position Statement
Media Literacy
NCSS Notebook
House of Delegates Resolution
Editors Notebook
Teaching with Documents
Teaching with Documents, and Documents, and More Documents: The National Archives Digital Partnerships
Lee Ann Potter
A new National Archives partnership has made thousands of additional federal records available online free of charge.
Social Studies 2.0: Thinking, Connecting, and Creating with Technology
Where and Why There? Spatial Thinking with Geographic Information Systems
Andrew J. Milson and Mary Curtis
High school students develop real-world geography and GIS skills when they perform a site selection analysis to determine the best location for a new business.
Teaching with Rather than about Geographic Information Systems
Thomas C. Hammond and Alec M. Bodzin
Using GIS in the classroom can present unique challenges. Here, the authors outline key strategies for maximizing student understanding while minimizing technical friction.
Making Sense of Social Studies with Visualization Tools
Ilene Berson and Michael Berson
A web-analysis tool known as a word cloud offers a creative approach to analyzing documents such as presidential speeches.
Making Connections: Using Online Discussion Forums to Engage Students in Historical Inquiry
Whitney Blankenship
Communicating in an online forum advances student reasoning and decision making while enabling teachers to interact more effectively with students and the curriculum.
Using Digital History to Investigate Desegregation and Massive Resistance in Norfolk Public Schools
Meghan McGlinn Manfra
A new digital library chronicles the integration of all-white public schools in Virginia and offers students the opportunity to read related oral histories, editorial arguments, and legal decisions.
Worth the WAIT: Engaging Social Studies Students with Art in a Digital Age
B. Scott Crawford, David Hicks, and Nicole Doherty
This unique Web 2.0 tool enhances students' literacy and inquiry skills as they critically engage with art.
The "Day in the Life of a Teenage Hobo" Project: Integrating Technology with Shneiderman's Collect-Relate-Create-Donate Framework
Justin Reich and Thomas Daccord
In this multi-day investigation of teenage homelessness during the Great Depression, students use a range of technologies—search engines, blogs, and podcasting tools—to investigate the political, economic, and social history of the time.
Surfing the Net
What I Learned at the NCSS Annual Meeting—2008 Edition
C. Frederick Risinger
The featured websites provide a glimpse of the countless resources—such as textbooks, trade books, maps, supplementary materials, and audio-visual materials—available in the NCSS conference exhibit hall.
Looking at the Law
Supreme Court Biographies as a Classroom Resource
John Paul Ryan
Supreme Court biographies can offer students new perspectives on American history and politics. In this column, the author interviews biographers of three renowned justices.
Editors Notebook
Looking at the Law
How Do Tax Laws Reflect American Values?
An Interview with William J. Wilkins
Taxes have played a significant role throughout American history—provoking revolution, inspiring representative government, and financing war and major domestic initiatives.
Special Section:
Teaching Economics in a Time of Unprecedented Change
Guest Editors: Mark C. Schug and William C. Wood
The Crash of 2008: Causes and Fed Response
James D. Gwartney and Joseph Connors
The current economic crisis is primarily a story about unintended consequences and what happens when the incentive structure is damaged by unsound institutions and policies.
Keynesian, Monetarist and Supply-Side Policies: An Old Debate Gets New Life
M. Scott Niederjohn and William C. Wood
Keynesian fiscal policy—out of fashion with economists and policymakers for decades—has enjoyed a revival under President Obama's new economic policy team, but competing approaches also have their advocates.
Are High School Economics Teachers the Same as Other Social Studies Teachers? The Results of a National Survey
Mark C. Schug, David Dieterle, and J.R. Clark
A survey of more than a thousand teachers reveals some interesting distinctions about economics teachers.
Is Free Trade Out of Date?
Dwight R. Lee
We may never achieve perfectly free international trade, but the struggle to reduce existing trade restrictions is a noble one.
Advanced Placement Economics Improves Both Merit and Equity
Sally Meek and John Morton
AP economics courses are a positive-sum game students gain important skills and learn to determine the most advantageous combination of costs and benefits.
Do Businesses Have a Social Responsibility?
The National Council on Economic Education
In this activity, students debate whether a business best serves society by maximizing profits or by promoting social justice policies.
Surfing the Net
Teaching Students Financial Literacy Using the Internet
C. Frederick Risinger
The highlighted websites can help teachers explain the financial crisis as well as help raise studentsí overall financial literacy.
Trend Alert: A History Teacherís Guide to Using Podcasts in the Classroom
Kathleen Owings Swan and Mark Hofer
Podcasts may be useful in the classroom, but teachers need to consider the instructional purpose and†context within which they are†used.
Editor's Notes
NCSS Notebook
Embracing the Future through Social Studies
Michael M. Yell
Today's educators must deliver instruction that is forward-looking to equip our students with the skills and perspectives needed in this fast-changing world.
Teaching with Documents
Child's Letter to President John F. Kennedy about Physical Fitness
Missy McNatt
The featured letter from a nine-year-old boy to JFK will highlight the need to promote physical fitness in our schools, and can ignite class discussions of issues such as federalism, Title IX, and the overall health of Americans.
The Baghdad That Was: Using Primary Sources to Teach World History
Joan Brodsky Schur
The documents presented here will help students imagine Baghdad at its height as a hub of civilization under the Abbasid Empire.
Looking at the Law
Abraham Lincoln: American Lawyer-President
Brian Dirck
Teaching Activity by Tiffany Willey
The same characteristics that made Lincoln a tenacious lawyer also made him a formidable president.
Surfing the Net
Apocalypse When? How to Teach about Human Survival Using the Internet
C. Frederick Risinger
The selected websites provide information and lesson plans for educating students about the looming food crisis, soil degradation, and other natural forces threatening humankind.
Get in the Groove, Let's Make a Move!: Students in Israel Confront a Transition with Service Learning
Abigail S. Chill
Faced with the challenge of a school move, eleventh-grade students take on the roles of photographers, mapmakers, researchers, artists and public speakers to help prepare their school community for the transition.
The Civil War Battle That Helped Create a State
Kay A. Chick
What makes an event worthy of the history textbooks? In this lesson, students study a little-known Civil War battle to broaden their understanding of historical significance.
Point of View
Teaching Social Studies as a Subversive Activity
Charles L. Mitsakos and Ann T. Ackerman
The constraints created by NCLB and under-performing textbooks mean that teachers have to devise new ways to advance education for democracy.
Research and Practice
Authentic Intellectual Work: Common Standards for Teaching Social Studies
M. Bruce King, Fred M. Newmann, and Dana L. Carmichael
Students who have the opportunity to construct knowledge, rather than simply reproduce what they have been given, experience far greater learning, engagement, and achievement.
Book Review
Revealing the Invisible: Confronting Passive Racism in Teacher Education by Sherry Marx
Margaret Crocco
Letters from George Washington and Samuel Cabble, and Speeches by Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy
Lee Ann Potter
Students will grapple with what it means to "embrace the future" when they study primary documents related to four noteworthy individuals who embraced the future in distinct ways.
345An Interview with Author Firoozeh Dumas
Michael Yell
Firoozeh Dumas discusses growing up as an Iranian in America with NCSS President Michael Yell.
Special Section on 21st Century Skills
347 Embrace the Future: NCSS and P21
Michael M. Yell and John Box
The resources and ideas unveiled by NCSS and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills will enable social studies educators to better prepare students for the challenges of this century.
Social Studies Disciplines
Poetry and Postholes: Making Authentic Pedagogy Deeper and More Personal
Geoffrey Scheurman
Teachers who feel pressured by testing and curricular requirements should reach beyond mundane facts to make social studies more personal and poetic.
354 Geography: The Essential Skill for the 21st Century
Paul Nagel
In this ever changing, interdependent world, students need a geographic awareness that includes familiarity with different cultures, beliefs, and lifestyles to understand and address global issues.
359Economic and Financial Education for the 21st CenturyMark Schug and Jane Lopus
Young people cannot participate properly in the economy of the future without a deep understanding of basic economics.
363Scaffolding Social Studies for Global AwarenessMerry M. Merryfield
We cannot isolate our nation's wellbeing from that of others across the planet. We must help students develop the habit of thinking globally.
367 Explore the Past to Understand the Present and Shape the FutureSusan Graseck
The featured lesson places students in the role of decision makers as they explore four distinct alternatives for 21st century U.S. foreign policy and then consider their own views.
372A Voice from the CongoMike Koren
When a high-ranking politician from the Democratic Republic of the Congo visited a social studies class in Milwaukee, students got a deeper understanding of the political strife and humanitarian crisis in that country.
373 Democratic Education to Reduce the DivideDiana Hess
If we are to improve the civic and political literacy of our nation's youth, we must first address the disparate education that they are receiving.
377 Teaching the Constitution to Twenty-first Century StudentsPeggy S. Jackson, Elizabeth R. Hinde, and Nancy S. Haas
This lesson plan involves students directly in the Bill of Rights—challenging their thinking skills while increasing their knowledge of the founding principles of government and the judiciary.
379Point of ViewCitizenship Must Not Be the Last of the Three "C's"Peggy Altoff
Educators must become passionate about advocacy and urge local, state, and national legislators to help maintain and enhance citizenship education.
Making the Most of Technology
380Surfing the NetTeaching and Learning about Skills for the 21st Century Using the InternetC. Frederick Risinger
The author highlights websites that offer teachers information on using newer tools and strategies, such as Web 2.0 technologies.
383Technology: An Integral Part of Students' Learning and LivesJoseph O'Brien
The Literacy Map presented here offers teachers concrete examples for helping young people use technological tools effectively for academic and civic purposes.
38621st Century Learning: Law-Related Education in South TucsonSyd Golston
An Arizona high school magnet law program offers the ideal 21st century education—one that teaches skills through core subjects and interdisciplinary themes, uses innovative learning methods, and emphasizes higher order thinking skills.
Teaching Thinking Skills
388Critical Thinking in a World of Accelerating Change and Complexity
Linda Elder and Richard PaulThe authors present the types of questions teachers should ask to advance student thinking skills.
392 Asking the Right Questions to Develop Thinking Skills
Beth RatwaySharpening thinking skills is the key to helping students break down complex 21st century issues.
The Updated Verdict of the Keys
Allan J. Lichtman
Read this article to see what a historically accurate prediction system forecasts as the outcome of the popular vote this presidential election.
Surfing the Net
Using the Internet to Teach about Political Cartoons and Their Influence on U.S. Elections
C. Frederick Risinger and Ray Heitzmann
The visual imagery of political cartoons offers teachers the opportunity to explore the presidential election with students from a unique and stimulating angle.
The Electoral College
Social Education and PBS NewsHour Staff
Lesson Plan by Lara Maupin and PBS NewsHour Staff
The Electoral College can normally seem dry to students, but it becomes very real in a close presidential election. In the featured lesson, students determine whether to keep or change the Electoral College system.
Turning Students On and Out to Vote Helpful Websites as Election Day Draws Near
Social Education Staff
These election-related websites offer material that is specialized, timely, and appealing to students.
Point of View
Not by Votes Alone…The Vital Imperative of Restoring the Civic Mission of Schools
Ted McConnell
Active citizenship requires more than spending a few minutes in a voting booth each November.
Teaching with Documents
The Digital Vaults
Suzanne Isaacs and Lee Ann Potter
A recently launched National Archives online exhibit is a creative teaching tool that features 1,200 specially chosen documents, artifacts, sound recordings, and much more.
Challenging History: Essential Questions in the Social Studies Classroom
Heather Lattimer
By providing a critical frame through which to study history, essential questions engage students and facilitate deeper thinking about the content under investigation.
Special Section on Canada
Edited by Nadine Fabbi, University of Washington
Teaching about Aboriginal Canada through Picture Books
Marilynne Black
This set of books offers insight into Canadian aboriginal cultures and the contributions of these groups to the fabric of the nation.
A Comparative View of Diversity in the United States and Canada
Cherry A. McGee Banks
Students will gain a more profound understanding of multicultural issues by examining the ways in which Canada and the United States have diverged when addressing race and culture.
Teaching Social Studies through Storytelling: The Enduring Spirit of the Arctic
John Kilbourne
Stories such as the featured account of an ill-fated Inuit walrus-hunting trip serve as an important part of that culture's tradition of passing down lessons and experiences from one generation to the next.
Book Review
History in the Making: An Absorbing Look at How American History Has Changed in the Telling over the Last 200 Years, by Kyle Ward
Robert Shaffer
Editors Notebook
Looking at the Law
Ensuring Access to the Ballot Box: Voting Rights in the United States
Elizabeth M. Yang and Kristi Gaines
A close look at contemporary voting rights issues—voter identification laws, "English only" laws, and felon disenfranchisement—demonstrates ways in which voting rights can be restricted by seemingly ordinary requirements.
Question: Who Can Vote?
Misty D. Rodeheaver and Mary E. Haas
Key historical events changed voting practices in America and extended the right to vote. This article spotlights a few of those events, as well as contemporary voting issues, and outlines a teacher-tested lesson on voting.
Habeas Corpus and "Enemy Combatants"
Carolyn Pereira and Nisan Chavkin
The writ of habeas corpus has been a critical tool for balancing the rights of individuals with the government's responsibility to protect the nation's welfare. The featured elementary, middle, and high school lessons explore the significance of this right.
Was the Constitution Pro-Slavery? The Changing View of Frederick Douglass
Robert Cohen
Many have questioned whether the document on which our nation is based sanctioned slavery. But renowned abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who originally condemned the Constitution, came to view it in a much different light.
Frederick Douglass Changed My Mind about the Constitution
James Oakes
Like Frederick Douglass, this historian had originally viewed the Constitution as pro-slavery. Yet a close look at Douglass's writings revealed a Constitution that empowered the federal government to abolish slavery.
Surfing the Net
Remapping Neural Circuits, Civics, and Presidential Libraries: Coincidences? You Be the Judge
C. Frederick Risinger
This review of the "Presidential Timeline" and 12 existing presidential library websites will help teachers and students to focus on the presidency.
Research and Practice
The Two World Histories
Ross E. Dunn
Despite the urgent need to improve the world history curriculum, disagreements on the subject have divided scholars, educators, and policymakers into different camps at cross purposes with each other.
Elementary Education
Conducting Interviews to Learn about World War II
Mary E. Haas
The two featured lesson plans offer student interviewers the opportunity to evaluate multiple perspectives, interpret information, and draw historical conclusions.
Elementary Education
Fear, Panic, and Injustice: Executive Order 9066 A Lesson for Grades 4-6
Theresa M. McCormick
In this lesson, students use primary sources to understand how a climate of fear influenced the president to sign the order that forced the incarceration of Japanese Americans.
Teaching with Documents
Rough Journal Page Documenting Ratification and Final Page of the Treaty of Paris, 1783
Lee Ann Potter
The featured documents highlight for students the significance of the Treaty of Paris, not only in ending the Revolutionary War, but also in transforming British North America.
NCSS Position Statement
A Vision of Powerful Teaching and Learning in the Social Studies
Editors Notebook
Looking at the Law
Using Literature to Teach the Rule of Law
James Landman
Some children's novels offer entertaining and provocative explorations of the rule of law that can engage students and increase their understanding of law.
Teaching with Documents
Letter to, and Paintings by, George Catlin
David Rosenbaum, Lee Ann Potter, and Elizabeth K. Eder
A letter from the Secretary of War to painter George Catlin in the 1830s and Catlin's subsequent paintings of Native Americans in the West help students explore the
encounter of two cultures.
Images of Struggle and Triumph: Using Picture Books to Teach about the Civil Rights Movement in the Secondary Classroom
Karen H. Wilkins, Caroline C. Sheffield, Martha B. Ford, and
Bárbara C. Cruz
Picture books often address complex topics and can provide a visually arresting approach for teaching secondary as well as special needs students.
Point of View
Behind the Mask: Social Studies Concepts and English Language Learners
Terence A. Beck
As an adult student in a foreign country, the author gained a greater understanding of the challenges faced by English language learners. He offers teachers suggestions for creating an ELL-friendly classroom that benefits all students.
The Carter G. Woodson Book Awards
This year's winners spotlight experiences of sharecroppers, migrant workers, and the civil rights movement.
Legacy of the American West: Indian Cowboys, Black Cowboys, and Vaqueros
S. Kay Gandy
Wild West shows helped construct the stereotypical image of the cowboy. But a study of this aspect of American culture reveals a rich history of men and women of many ethnicities.
Integrating Government and Literature: Mock Civil and Criminal Trials Based on To Kill A Mockingbird
Lori Kumler and Rina Palchick
In a project that connected social studies classes with literature classes, students honed academic skills as they constructed mock trials from the events of a famous novel.
Dear Miss Breed: Using Primary Documents to Advance Student Understanding of Japanese Internment Camps
Patrick Westcott and Martha Graham Viator
The authors highlight the Carter G. Woodson award winner Dear Miss Breedówhich recounts the stories of 19 children of Japanese descent interned in U.S. camps during World War IIóas an excellent resource for studying the Japanese American wartime experience.
Welcome Home Annie: Rethinking Ellis Island and Annie Moore in the Classroom
Mia Mercurio
The story of Annie Moore, the first immigrant to be processed on Ellis Island, has (until recently) been recounted incorrectly. This article highlights the challenge of
differentiating fact from fiction.
NCSS Notebook
House of Delegates Resolutions
NCSS Position Statement
Curriculum Guidelines for Social Studies Teaching and Learning
Visions of Technology Past and Present
Editors Notebook
Looking at the Law
Standing: Who Can Sue to Protect the Environment?
Marisa A. Martin
Teaching Activity by James Landman
Individuals, organizations, and government entities are increasingly turning to the courts to resolve environmental debates, but plaintiffs must first prove that they will be harmed in a personal way.
Teaching with Documents
The Technology of Unequal Rights for Women: Patent Drawings of a Voting Machine
Michael Hussey
The featured voting machines patents can inspire thoughtful classroom discussion on voting rights, voting privacy, and the accuracy of voting machines.
Visions of a Technological Past and Present
Steam Man and Airships: Technology of the Future in the Past
Caroline C. Sheffield, Kenneth T. Carano, and Michael J. Berson
The Frank Reade dime novels reveal the strict, xenophobic, social class system of the late nineteenth century, while offering insight into the influence of technology.
Window Into the White House
Stephanie van Hover, Marc J. Selverstone, and Patrice Preston-Grimes
The digital resource highlighted in this article offers students a window into the
policymaking and personalities of six presidents as they negotiate complex and
challenging historical events.
Using Digital Resources to Explore the Role of Children in the Framing of Social Issues
Ilene R. Berson
Students will gain important insight and foster critical skills when they analyze how
children are used in campaign ads to shape public opinion.
Historicalthinkingmatters.org: Using the Web to Teach Historical Thinking
Daisy Martin, Sam Wineburg, Roy Rosenzweig, and Sharon Leon
The featured web-based resources focus on teaching students how to read historical
documents critically and how to synthesize textual evidence into coherent narratives.
The Starving Time Wikinquiry: Using a Wiki to Foster Historical Inquiry
Jeremy D. Stoddard, Mark J. Hofer, and Molly G. Buchanan
Highlighting a wikinquiry on the Jamestown colonys starving time, the authors demonstrate a wikis power to promote student collaboration, enhance communication, and improve construction of knowledge.
Sharpening Citizenship Skills through Electronic Discussion
Catherine Snyder
A world history assignment, kicked off with a question on the French Revolution and furthered with a political cartoon, demonstrates the power of electronic discourse to enhance instruction and increase student participation.
Open Secrets: Using the Internet to Learn about the Influence of Money in Politics
Scott K. Scheuerell
Students can learn a great deal about our political system by examining how politicians are financed. The highlighted website that tracks campaign contributions is a rich resource for teaching about the influence of money in our political system.
Surfing the Net
What Websites Are on My Favorite List?
C. Frederick Risinger
The author presents his favorite websites, focusing on those that are interesting, well designed, and useful to social studies educators.
Climate Change and its Consequences
Editor's Notebook
Teaching with Documents
Letter from a Young Boy Following the PanayIncident
Trevor K. Plante and Lee Ann Potter
The featured 1937 letter from a Japanese primary school student apologizing for the sinking of the USS Panay by Japanese aircraft provides an entry into the study of U.S.-Japanese relations before World War II.
Climate Change Draws World Attention:
The 2007 Nobel Peace Award Goes to Al Gore and IPCC
Beverly Milner Bisland and Iftikhar Ahmad
The latest Nobel Peace Prize selection offers a timely opportunity to study the political, economic, and ecological consequences of climate change.
The Causes of Poverty:
Thinking Critically about a Key Economic Issue
Josh Otlin
To be active citizens in the twenty-first century students must be able to evaluate economic arguments related to Social Security, welfare, and immigration.
Why They Just Can't Print More: Money Supply and Prices
Greg Schreur
This silent auction activity can clarify the relationship between money supply and inflation and explain to students why the government cannot simply "print more money" to solve the national debt.
Sliding U.S. Dollar Packs a Wallop to Wallets Worldwide
PBS NewsHour Extra (Quinn Bowman and Annie Schleicher)
The federal deficit, the trade deficit, and most recently the housing and mortgage crunches have caused the value of the dollar to plummet. A closer look at this issue will help students understand its impact on ordinary citizens.
Cross-State Variation in Economics Content Standards in the Primary Grades
Yana V. Rodgers, Shelby Hawthorne and Ronald C. Wheeler
There is a great difference in the economics concepts and principles outlined in state standards for the primary grades. The authors offer strategies for lagging states to strengthen their approach.
A Presidential Election Simulation:
Creating A School-Wide Interdisciplinary Program
Helen M. Joyce
This mock school-wide election program involves students at all levels of the vote process, raising their political awareness and informing them about real candidates and campaign issues.
Looking at the Law
You Should Have the Body: Understanding Habeas Corpus
James Landman
As the Supreme Court considers whether Guantanamo prisoners have the right to habeas corpus, this article and activity will clarify for students the writ's origins, its development, and current points of controversy.
Surfing the Net
What I Learned at the NCSS Annual Meeting—2007 Edition
C. Frederick Risinger
Following up on an earlier column, the author highlights Internet-oriented resources as well as companies, not-for-profits, and government agencies that exhibited at December's NCSS conference in San Diego.
Natural Disasters and Their Aftermath
Editor's Notebook
NCSS Notebook
Crossing Borders, Building Bridges
Gayle Y. Thieman
Through collaboration and involvement, we can meet the five critical challenges facing social studies educators today.
The Keys to the White House: Prediction for 2008
Allan Lichtman
Students will comprehend the many factors that influence an election when they analyze why this successful prediction system forecasts a popular vote victory for the Democrats in 2008.
Teaching with Documents
"Summer Schedule" and "The Fishin' Season": Cartoons by Clifford Berryman
Christine Blackerby
The two featured political cartoons will stir classroom debate on how presidential election campaigns are planned.
A Special Section: Natural Disasters
Edited by Valerie Ooka Pang
Addressing Student Trauma in the Wake of California Wildfires
Valerie Ooka Pang, Marcelina Madueño, Miriam Atlas, Tamiko Stratton, Jennifer Oliger, and Cindy Page
Although natural disasters occur with alarming frequency, most citizens are unprepared. The authors outline strategies for handling unexpected catastrophes and facilitating student healing.
How Schools Can Help: California Teachers Recall the Wildfires
Dana Riggs, Marcelina Madueño, and Miriam Atlas
Three San Diego teachers describe how sharing stories and volunteer work helped students recover from the wildfires and gain a greater sense of community.
Weathering Natural Disasters with a Net of Safety
Ilene R. Berson and Michael J. Berson
With the right resources, teachers can foster safe and supportive environments for children coping with the trauma of natural disasters.
Research and Practice
High Quality Civic Education: What Is It and Who Gets It?
Joseph Kahne and Ellen Middaugh
If our democracy is to fulfill its promise of enabling citizens to participate fully and equally, we must do more to address why schools often fail to provide equal access to civic learning opportunities.
Looking at the Law
Across the Color Line: Diversity, Public Education, and the Supreme Court
Michelle Parrini
This review of key Supreme Court cases dealing with school integration can foster class discussion on racial progress and the role of the courts in determining educational policy.
Lessons from History: Defining Moments in the American Presidency and Foreign Policy
Ann Claunch
A close look at two critical presidential moments of the twentieth century will help students grasp the significance of foreign policy in an election contest.
Teaching Democratic Values
Teaching with Documents
1889 Consular Dispatch from Baghdad
Lee Ann Potter
The featured document from the first U.S. consul in Baghdad serves as an excellent point of departure for studying the nineteenth century links between the United States and the Middle East.
Puritan Day: A Social Science Simulation
Joan Brodsky Schur
Eighth-grade students gain a greater understanding of social control and tyranny when they participate in a Puritan Day simulation.
"Degrees of Freedom:" A Five-Part Framework for School Leadership
Sam Chaltain
Key strategies outlined in this article describe how educators can foster democratic schools that honor individual freedom and civic responsibility without "turning the asylum over to the inmates."
Looking at the Law
Chew Heong v. United States: Chinese Exclusion and the Federal Courts
Edited by James H. Landman
A close look at the case of Chew Heong, a Chinese immigrant who challenged the nineteenth-century Chinese exclusion laws, provides important insight into early U.S. efforts to control immigration.
Media Construction of Presidential Campaigns
Chris Sperry and Sox Sperry
A study of select campaign posters, cartoons, and ads teaches students to critically analyze messages from media sources and to understand the role media have played throughout the history of American elections.
The Great Communicator Files
Mira Cohen
Students will learn a great deal about the process of presidential speechwriting when they study primary documents related to well-known speeches such as President Reagan's "Omaha Beach Memorial Remarks."
Surfing the Net
Crossing Borders and Building Bridges Using the Internet
C. Frederick Risinger
In keeping with this year's NCSS conference theme, the author offers a list of websites that successfully link teachers and students together through pen pal programs, paired classrooms, or partner schools.
Humanities and the Social Studies: Studying the Civil War through the Third Space
Trace Schillinger
Blurring the boundaries between disciplines can yield notable results, as was demonstrated when an eighth-grade class approached history through literary activities.
Researching the Viet Nam War Inside Viet Nam: U.S. Student Teachers Explore War Myths
Robert E. Vadas
Aiming to correct myths about the Viet Nam War, this author regularly leads groups of students to learn about the country firsthand.
395 Annual Index
341 Editor's Notebook
Examining Historic Issues
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.
Looking at the Law
Supreme Court Preview
Charles F. Williams
Teaching Activity by James Landman
With two new justices, the last term saw a greater number of closely divided decisions on the Supreme Court. This term, the Court will weigh in on the rights of prisoners at Guantanamo, federal sentencing guidelines, and candidate party identification on ballots.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
Learning History through the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights
Hilary Landorf and Martha Fernanda Pineda
The 1948 UN declaration on human rights can serve as a blueprint for students to examine historical issues and analyze world events.
Reading in the Social Studies: Using Subtitled Films
Kerry Holmes, William B Russell III, and Allison Movitz
Foreign films not only engage students with other countries and other cultures, but can also promote reading through their subtitles.
Teaching with Documents
October 1957 Memorandum Related to Sputnik
Missy McNatt and 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.
289 Editor's Notebook
The Constitution In Action
Teaching with Documents
The Constitution In Action
Lee Ann Potter
Students take on the roles of archivists and researchers when they study primary documents at the Constitution in Action Lab.
Democracy Education
9/11 and Terrorism: "The Ultimate Teachable Moment"
in Textbooks and Supplemental Curricula
Diana Hess and Jeremy Stoddard
A survey of curricular materials developed to address 9/11, reveals there is great discrepancy on how the topic should be covered and what students should be learning.
Looking at the Law
Out of Range: An Interview with Mark Tushnet on the Second Amendment
James H. Landman
Teaching Activity by Michelle Parrini
The study of competing interpretations of the Second Amendment illuminates for students why an acceptable compromise on gun policies has been so elusive.
243 An Idea Called America
Michael Hartoonian, Richard Van Scotter, and William E. White
A featured lesson plan invites students to consider the tension between private wealth and common wealth through a debate on healthcare.
Surfing the NetWhat I Learned at the NCSS Annual Meeting
C. Frederick Risinger
With nearly four decades of NCSS conferences under his belt, the author reflects on the valuable networking and stimulating sessions, and highlights key educational websites from the increasingly technologically-adept exhibits.
Research and PracticeHigh-Stakes Testing: How Are Social Studies Teachers Responding?
S. G. Grant
While some teachers are tailoring content, instruction, and assessments to state exams in this era of high-stakes testing, ambitious teachers continue to create opportunities for powerful teaching and learning.
Advocating for Social Studies: Documenting the Decline and Doing Something About It
Katherine A. O'Connor, Tina Heafner, and Eric Groce
Three North Carolina educators set out to meet with lawmakers in person about the negative effects of NCLB on teaching elementary social studies. An advocacy handout provides tips for other educators wanting to take their own initiatives.
Elementary EducationA School-Wide Effort for Learning History via a Time Capsule
C. Glennon Rowell, M. Gail Hickey, Kendall Gecsei, and Stacy Klein
As an elementary school prepared to move to a larger building, the entire community joined together to create a time capsule for their counterparts of the future.
Connections to the Past: Creating Time Detectives with Archaeology
S. Kay Gandy
Students' natural fascination with buried treasures and lost civilizations means that the study of archaeology can be an excellent manner of developing skills of historical investigation.
Archaeology in the Classroom: Using the "Dig Box" to Understand the Past
Amelia G. Chisholm, Mark P. Leone, and Brett T. Bentley
Mock excavations, or "dig boxes," offer students a hands-on opportunity to explore artifacts and to learn the principles of context and soil stratigraphy.
222 Editor's Notebook
Teaching about Latin America through the Humanities
Guest Editor: Bárbara C. Cruz
Editors Notebook
Stories from Afar: Using Childrens and Young Adult Literature to Teach about Latin America
Bárbara C. Cruz
Teaching about Latin America through prose, poetry, and picture books helps bring a human dimension to the study of the region.
Bringing Latin America to Life with Films in the Classroom
Harry E. Vanden
Films and videos allow students to explore Latin American reality while prompting classroom discussions that deepen their understanding.
The Flowering of Identity:Tracing the History of Cuba through the Visual Arts
Noel Smith
The study of Cuban art and architecture highlights unique aspects of the island's historyfrom prehistoric times through conquest and colonialism, to independence and revolution.
Teaching Modern Latin America in the Social Science Curriculum: An Interdisciplinary Approach
Adriana Novoa
The creation of thematic units around such topics as ethnicity, progress, conflict, and migration, offers a valuable structure for teaching about a region as diverse as Latin America.
Carter G. Woodson Book Awards
The 2006 award winners include books on overcoming racial barriers in sports and music, the rise of the farm workers union, and an undervalued civil rights leader.
Pullout Section
Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People 2007
The NCSS Book Review Committee and the Children's Book Council present this years list of outstanding books for use in the social studies classroom.
Democracy Education
From Banished to Brother Outsider, Miss Navajo to An Inconvenient Truth: Documentary Films as Perspective-Laden Narratives
Diana Hess
Documentary films are widely used in the social studies classroom. This column spotlights three films and explains why their explicit viewpoints can enhance classroom discussion and student learning.
Looking at the Law
Object Lessons: The Law of Cultural Property
James H. Landman
Teaching Activities by Michelle Parrini
Many interests can be at stake in conflicts over cultural property. A close look at three recent cases can guide students to reflect on issues related to ownership and control of cultural property.
Teaching with Documents
Letter by Stephen Decatur and Painting by Thomas Chambers Related to the War of 1812
Lee Ann Potter and Elizabeth K. Eder
This article pairs a textual document with a painting of the related 1812 sea battle, underscoring the value of visual images in fostering new insights about historic events, people, and ideas.
NCSS House of Delegates Resolutions
Letters to the Editor
Editors Notebook
Teaching with Documents
The Presidential Timeline of the 20th Century
Paul Resta, Betty S. Flowers, and Ken Tothero
This interactive website with digitized resources from 12 presidential libraries offers students a close-up look at key moments of a presidents term.
Digital Voices
Sounds Good to Me: Using Digital Audio in the Social Studies Classroom
George B. Lipscomb, Lisa Marie Guenther, and Perry McLeod
Recent innovations in audio content, such as streaming, podcasts, and vodcasts, engage auditory learners and enrich the classroom experience.
For Kids, By Kids: Our City Podcast
Tony Vincent and Mark vant Hooft
Young people eagerly plan, research, write, and edit a podcast that tells the history of their city when they know that this creation will have an authentic listening audience.
Listen Up: Studying the American Labor Movement Through Oral Histories
Cheryl Mason Bolick, Lisa Norberg, and Dayna Durbin
A growing collection of digitized oral history interviews on topics such as labor, civil rights, and womens issues, allows students to hear firsthand about the experiences of individuals during critical periods in American history.
Digital Simulations
Exploring Complex Social Phenomena with Computer Simulations
Ilene R. Berson and Michael J. Berson
New technological tools that imitate real life phenomena, such as agent-based modeling and simulations, help students explore how individual actions can contribute to the emergence of social patterns.
Discovering Africa through Internet-based Geographic Information Systems: A Pan-African Summit Simulation
Andrew J. Milson, Kathleen M. Gilbert, and Brian D. Earle
World geography students discover Africa on their own with Internet-based interactive maps and geographic data.
Digital Connections
The Course of the Republic: American Responses to Technology in the Nineteenth Century
Meghan McGlinn Manfra
This overview with teaching activities on the Lowell textile mill and Ralph Waldo Emerson offers creative approaches to studying the political and technological changes of the nineteenth century.
Building Connections and Community: The Roles Self-Reflection and Technology Can Play in Tolerance and Democratic Education
John M. Fischer, Grzegorz Mazurkiewicz, Zeb Kellough, and Jen Presla
Participants in this international expedition are using new forms, such as I-movies, chat rooms, and posting narratives and images online, to record and share their experiences.
Looking at the Law
The Great Firewall of China
Shawn Healy
Teaching Activities by Michelle Parrini
Chinas Internet censorship and the collaboration of some American companies with Chinese policies serve as a starting point for a discussion of the First Amendment and the extent to which freedom of expression varies from nation to nation.
History Matters: An Institutional Approach Examination of the U.S. Constitution
Tawni Hunt Ferrarini and Mark C. Schug
Studying the evolution of the Constitution can help young people appreciate how choices made by their ancestors continue to impact our economy today.
Why Did the Colonists Fight When They Were Safe, Prosperous, and Free?
Mark C. Schug
When historical events are framed as mysteries, students gain fresh insights into U.S. history topics, including the American Revolution.
The Founding Entrepreneurs: Americas Prosperity
Gerald Gunderson
The entrepreneurs who spurred Americas exceptional development offer students a model of what can be accomplished when individuals identify problems and seek productive solutions.
What Caused the Great Depression?
Jean Caldwell and Timothy G. ODriscoll
A review of the three major schools of thought on the causes of the Great Depression provides deeper understanding of both the history of the Depression and basic principles of economics.
Lesson Whatdunnit? The Great Depression Mystery
National Council on Economic Education
This simulation activity offers clues to why the American economy went from unprecedented prosperity in the 1920s to unprecedented misery in the 1930s.
Lesson The U.S. Constitution: Rules of the Game National Council on Economic Education
In this lesson, students examine key economic clauses in the Constitution to understand why the document served as an effective force in promoting growth within a market system.
Cool Websites and Other Technology Resources for Teaching about the United States Economy
Tawni Hunt Ferrarini and Joseph Calhoun
Electronic resources can be extremely effective in teaching economics. In this article, the authors highlight exemplary sites that foster economic understanding.
Looking at the Law Seeking Good CreditAnd Keeping It
Katie Fraser
Teaching Activities by James H. Landman
Young people must learn basic concepts about credit long before they sign up for credit cards of their own. This article outlines ways to establish a credit record and looks at the legal consequences of failing to properly manage credit.
Teaching with Documents
Eyewitness Account of Dr. Robert King Stone, President Lincolns Family Physician
Stacey Bredhoff
Teaching Activities by Lee Ann Potter
The featured document presents testimony from Abraham Lincolns doctor on the presidents last moments. Accompanying teaching activities help students approach the presidential assassination from various angles.
Ford: Not a Lincoln but a Hayes? A Lesson in History and Political Science
John A. Donnangelo
What makes a president successful? This article evaluates the presidency of Gerald Ford in the light of four theories by political scientists on presidential performance, highlighting one of them.
NCSS Letter to Congress
In a letter to the 110th Congress, NCSS stresses the need for improving NCLB and emphasizes the importance of social studies in preparing students for their roles as citizens.
NCSS Notebook
Building the Relationships That Matter
Peggy Altoff
By nurturing our professional relationships, we can increase public recognition of the vital role of social studies.
Editors Notebook
Letters to the Editor
Nobel Peace Laureate Muhammad Yunus: A Banker Who Believes Credit is a Human Right
Michelle Yvonne Szpara, Iftikhar Ahmad, and Patricia Velde Pederson
The Nobel Committees 2006 peace prize selectiona microfinance organization and its founderoffers teachers an opportunity to explore links between poverty and peace.
Using Music to Teach about the Great Depression
Robert L. Stevens and Jared A. Fogel
Students will gain new perspectives on the socio-economic circumstances of the Great Depression through an analysis of song lyrics of the time.
Point of View
Teaching about Genocide in a New Millennium
James G. Brown
Should digital simulations be used to teach about such tragedies as the genocide in Darfur?
Congo: Elections and the Battle for Mineral Resources
Social Education Staff
Teaching about current events in the Democratic Republic of the Congo can illustrate for students the connection between technologies we enjoy in the Westcell phones, laptops and play stationsand fighting in a mineral-rich nation.
Looking at the Law
Search and Seizure in the Schools
Kari Staros and Charles F. Williams
Students will learn about key Fourth Amendment concepts and the extent to which the amendments protections apply to their lives in and out of school.
Surfing the Net
Website Potpourri
C. Frederick Risinger
The author provides a collection of noteworthy sites that can stimulate useful activities and projects for teachers and students.
Comparing International Textbooks to Develop Historical Thinking
John J. DeRose
This lesson plan offers students the opportunity to compare how American and Vietnamese textbooks portray specific events of the Vietnam War.
The Saffron Scourge: Society, Politics and Disease
Diane Luke and Ann Winkler
By taking a closer look at various Yellow Fever outbreaks, the authors demonstrate for students the social, governmental, and economic impact of epidemics upon cities.
Life Behind the Wall: Palestinian Students Online
Doug Hart
English classes seemed boring to the authors tenth-grade Ramallah students, until they decided to launch the first Palestinian online youth magazine.
Book Review
How Robert Scheers Playing President Might Help Remediate the Problem of Shallow Textbooks and Political Apathy
Reviewed by James Michael
Mamer Books such as Playing President: My Close Encounters with Nixon, Carter, Bush I, Reagan, and Clintonand How They Did Not Prepare Me for George W. Bush can help raise awareness of contemporary politics and history.
Book Review
Protective Custody: Prisoner 34042
Reviewed by Sanford Gutman
This memoir of a Holocaust survivor offers a unique perspective on the experience of women in concentration camps.
Editors Notebook
Teaching with Documents
Documents Related to the Flu Pandemic of 1918
Raphael Mazzone and Lee Ann Potter
As World War I neared its end, a worldwide epidemic claimed more victims than the war itself. The two featured documents recall the loss of life and havoc in the United States.
Research and Practice
Maps and Map Learning in Social Studies
Sarah Witham Bednarz, Gillian Acheson, and Robert S. Bednarz
Maps are essential learning tools, but they represent varying points of view; so teaching about maps must go hand-in-hand when teaching with maps.
Point of View
Musings on Meaning, Meatloaf, and Moe
Reflections on The State of Social Studies
Ron Levitsky
This veteran teacher concurs with a recent report that social studies gets no respect, but while pondering key issues, he asks: Are things that bad?
Surfing the Net
Promising Practices in Using the Internet to
Teach Social Studies
C. Frederick Risinger
From classroom blogs, day-to-day assignments, research links, or descriptions of special history projects, teachers and schools are expanding their use of the internet. The author reviews some particularly noteworthy teacher- or school-designed websites.
Harvest CeremonyBeyond the Thanksgiving Myth
Johanna Gorelick and Genevieve Simermeyer/The Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of the American Indian
While the modern story of Thanksgiving describes the original feast as a friendly gathering of neighbors, in reality it had much more to do with political alliances, diplomacy, and an attempt at peaceful coexistence.
Rwanda: A Nation Resilient in the Aftermath of Genocide
Samuel Totten
Twelve years after genocide, Rwandans work hard to overcome the scars; yet a recent trip showed the author that division and rage still threaten the nations stability.
Countering Textbook Distortion:
War Atrocities in Asia, 19371945
Yali Zhao and John D. Hoge
When Japan approved a textbook glossing over wartime atrocities in Asia, it not only sparked regional protests, but also exposed a hole in World War II studies on this side of the Pacific.
The U.S. in Iraq: Confronting Policy Alternatives
Choices for the 21st Century Education Program, Brown University
This lesson plan enables students to consider the principal alternatives facing U.S. policymakers in Iraq and to formulate their own points of view.
Looking at the Law
The Constitution in a Time of National Emergency:
An Interview with Judge Richard Posner
James Landman
In this interview, Judge Richard Posner explores the balance between constitutionally-protected liberties and security concerns.
Annual Article and Author Index
Editors Notebook
Democracy Education
Identifying and Teaching against Misconceptions:
Six Common Mistakes about the Supreme Court
Diana E. Hess
Most Americans misunderstand the function of the Supreme Court. Correcting students misconceptions promotes engaged citizenship and will foster a better understanding of the institutions influence on U.S. society.
Looking at the Law
Supreme Court Preview
Charles F. Williams
Recent Supreme Court decisions showed that the new Court is split on hot-button issues. Topics this Court will tackle in 2006 include race and schools, the partial birth abortion ban, and punitive damages.
Teaching with Documents
Letter in Support of the National Historic
Preservation Act of 1966
Lee Ann Potter
Progress and development has sometimes led to the destruction of landmarks. The featured document highlights the struggle to preserve historic sites and leads students to consider the value of their own communitys landmarks.
Academic Freedom:
A Teachers Struggle to Include Other Voices in History
Prentice T. Chandler
Some parents were mightily displeased when this teacher included documents from Howard Zinns compilation in an advanced history class. The author provides tips for educators assailed for breaking out of the mold.
Picturing Women:
Gender, Images, and Representation in Social Studies
Christine Woyshner
Photographs and drawings of nineteenth-century dress reformers provide an excellent jumping off point for studying images of women in history.
Examining a Seven-Flag Chieu Hoi Pass:
A Primary Document from the American War in Viet Nam
Ted Engelmann
A close analysis of the Chieu Hoi pass, dropped over areas of Viet Nam to encourage enemy surrender, provides a unique approach to studying the Viet Nam war.
Becoming Critical Public Historians:
Students Study Diversity and Access in Post
Brown v. Board Los Angeles
Ernest Morrell and John Rogers
After studying about Brown v. Board of Education in textbooks, high school students in L.A. examine the decisions impact on their local community.
Surfing the Net
Teaching about the 2006 Elections with the Internet
C. Frederick Risinger
These websites provide an array of resources, lesson plans, and information for teaching about the midterm elections.
Lesson Plan
Mid-term Elections:
The Impact of Local and National Issues
Lisa Prososki/PBS NewsHour Extra
This lesson plan helps students understand the significance of midterm elections, learn about election issues in depth, and create projects that teach their fellow classmates about selected issues.
Congressional Elections: A Political Turning Point?
Social Education Staff
Will this years congressional elections force a change in control of the House or Senate? This informational feature reviews influential midterm elections in the past and identifies 24 key House races and 8 competitive Senate races for classes to monitor.
Editor's Notebook
Social Studies: The Heart of the Curriculum
Jeff Passe
Together, we need to stop the marginalization of the social studies.
Should Intelligent Design Be Taught in Social Studies Courses?
Diana Hess
As policymakers look for an escape route from the controversy about teaching intelligent design as science by passing this hot potato into social studies, are they creating more problems than they can solve?
Nobel Laureate Mohamed ElBaradei: Preventing Nuclear Proliferation Peacefully
Joanne Dufour
The Nobel Committees selection for the 2005 peace prizethe International Atomic Energy Agency and its chiefoffers teachers an opportunity to revisit the topic of nuclear proliferation at a time when arms control efforts appear stalled.
The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (Teaching with Documents)
Kahilil Chism
The Freedmens Bureau was one of few agencies established to improve the lives of former slaves. Four documents highlight for students the bureaus efforts to help African Americans acquire land, secure jobs, legalize marriages, and pursue education.
Selecting Supreme Court Justices: A Dialogue (Looking at the Law)
The nomination process of Supreme Court justices is often fraught with political tension. A panel of experts discusses the judicial nomination process, the role of interest groups, and the possibility for reform.
Teaching about International Issues, Geography, and Multiple Points of View Using the Internet (Surfing the Net)
C. Frederick RisingerListening to shortwave radio broadcasts like Radio Moscow or Radio Peking in the 1950s prompted this author to become a social studies teacher. Today, internet-based radio provides students easy access to international ideas, attitudes, and opinions.
Seeking Truth in the Social Studies Classroom: Media Literacy, Critical Thinking and Teaching about the Middle East
Chris Sperry
Students are bombarded daily with a torrent of media messages, many of them with historical content. By selecting the right media documents for decoding, teachers can teach core content while guiding students to think critically about these messages.
Holocaust Fatigue in Teaching Today (Research and Practice)
Simone Schweber
Where students once viewed the Holocaust with awe, some now seem to trivialize it. The author reflects on the commodification of the Holocaust, teaching approaches, and current politics.
Educating Students about the Holocaust: A Survey of Teaching Practices
Mary Beth Donnelly
While educators continue to value Holocaust education for raising awareness on human rights abuses and genocide, a yearlong study reveals that the range of different teaching practices and rationales is wider than many think.
Editor's Notebook
Teaching Civics with Primary Source Documents
Lee Ann Potter
Thomas Jefferson was shocked when war veteran Jacob Koontz wrote to him asking for presidential help seven years after Jeffersons presidential term had ended. A look at Jeffersons letter noting Koontzs lack of civic awareness highlights for students the importance of civic literacy.
Making the Abstract Concrete
Lee Ann Potter
Ronald Reagan made history when he nominated Sandra Day OConnor as the first female justice of the Supreme Court. His letter to the Senate is an excellent jump off point for teaching about the separation of powers and checks and balances.
The Evolution of a Bill: Teaching Legislative Process
Christine Blackerby
Most students who learn how a bill becomes a law never actually see a law. This article highlights three documents that trace one bills journeyfor a holiday to honor the nations veteransto becoming a law.
The Constitutional Amendment Process
Kahilil Chism
Why have only 27 amendments out of 10,000 been passed? Why did Congressional pay raises take 203 years to be ratified? What sparked the repeal of Prohibition? A close-up look at the 18th, 21st, and 27th amendments sheds light on the intricate amendment process.
Documents and Civic Duties
Lee Ann Potter
A one-sentence letter from school boy Anthony Ferreira to President Ford stating, &I think you are half right and half wrong & is one of several primary sources featured in this article that highlight for students the value of responsible citizenship.
Five Star Leaders: Learning through Civic Engagement
Students are immersed in the study of democratic leadership as they simulate the roles of Churchill, Eisenhower, Roosevelt, or Edward R. Murrow, in preparing for D-Day and other historic events.
Civil Conversations Using Primary Documents
Laurel Singleton and Carolyn Pereira
Students involved in a discussion of the text of the Preamble to the Constitution obtain a better sense of the purposes of our government.
Documents Informing Students, Students Informing Officials: The Project Citizen Mayoral Youth Conference
Maria Elena Sardinas
The We the People program has taught countless students how to monitor and influence public policy. In Miami, students considered tax exemptions to spur economic growth, stronger driving license regulations for seniors, and a sales tax to fund public schools.
Websites for Primary Sources and Civics Education
Daniel Rulli
This annotated list of selective websites offers access to primary source documents useful for the civics classroom.
The Civic Mission of Schools
Social Education Staff
The Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools is leading efforts to advance the cause
of civic education.
Annual Author and Story Index
Editor's Notebook
Looking at the Law
Charles F. Williams
The roundup features significant Supreme Court decisions on the separation of church and state, the death penalty, and property rights. Looking ahead to the next term, the author considers how changes in the Courts composition may influence future decisions.
Surfing the Net
C. Frederick Risinger
Young people feel a greater connection to history when they are learning about others their age. Here, the author provides a list of websites about children throughout history.
Global Health in the Social Studies Classroom
David J. Smith
Students walk a figurative mile in the worlds shoes, when they carry water from a lake to better understand how factors like access to water can affect a communitys health
Protecting the Rights of Whistleblowers
Lauren Robinson
Thousands of federal workers play key roles in safeguarding our nations security. Yet, when some of those workers speak up about government errors or corruption, the consequences they suffer can be dire.
Learning about the Civil War through Soldiers Letters
Joseph Hutchinson
Letters home from young soldiers give students a close-up view of the Civil War; their sense of empathy further deepens when they must use their imagination and write their own letters home.
Teachers, Classroom Controversy, and the Media
Tracy Faulconer and Ayesha Coning Freeman
After a local radio station criticizes Ayesha Freeman for her classroom lesson on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, she and her co-author consider ways that educators can learn to work with journalists and be better prepared for such media attacks.
Does History Matter? Ask the Armenians
Samuel Totten
Thousands of Armenians recently gathered in the Syrian Desert to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Armenian genocide. Genocide scholar Samuel Totten describes the two-day memorial and the ongoing impact of that genocide.
A Brief History of the Armenian Genocide
Sara Cohan
This article describes the history of the Armenian people,the problems they faced under Ottoman rule, and the genocide perpetrated against them in the final years of the Ottoman Empire.
Lesson Plan
New England and the African Slave Trade
Choices for the 21st Century Education Program, Brown University
Although many people in the United States think of slavery as a Southern institution,
New England has a more complex history of slavery and slave trading than many realize.
Book Review:
Waging Nonviolent Struggle: 20th Century Practice and 21st Century Potential by Gene Sharp
Reviewed by Robert Stevens
Literature, Literacy, and Legacy: Teaching about the Civil Rights Movement
Elizabeth K. Wilson and Kathy Shaver Wetzel
The authors describe how a novel, such as The Watsons Go to Birmingham 1963, can draw students into the study of the civil rights era.
Editor's Notebook
Teaching With Documents
Lee Ann Potter
The U.S. Constitution is one of the most influential and most enduring constitutions in the world. Two little-known documents from the Constitutional Convention shed light on the Constitution s evolution.
Lesson Plans on the Constitution
Private v. Public Rights (High School)
It's My Right (Middle Grades)
No Time for Teas (Elementary Grades 35)
Stacie Fieth and Neil Deason
Surfing the Net: An Internet Guide to Teaching the Constitution
C. Frederick Risinger
The author spotlights some key websites teachers can consult for resources and lesson plans on the Constitution.
Looking at the Law
The Shadow War
Michelle Parrini and Charles F. Williams
A renewed U.S. government emphasis on espionage to guard against future terrorist attacks brings with it a host of legal challenges concerning the identification and
exposure of covert agents and their legal rights.
The Kingdom of Heaven: Teaching the Crusades
Scott Alan Metzger
A recent Hollywood film about the Crusades helps students better understand the ongoing conflict between Islam and the West.
Connecting with Our Pioneer Past: Letters from the Homestead
Gary Fertig
In the process of creating homestead dioramas and writing letters from the perspective of pioneers, students learn how geography and natural resources affect the economics and social relations of a community.
Telling Tales:The Teaching of American History through Storytelling
Tony R. Sanchez and Randy K. Mills
Teachers can relate the excitement, paradox, and importance of American history to students by conveying the challenges of life in the past with stories.
Enduring Lessons of Justice from the World War II Japanese American Internment
Nancy P. Gallavan and Teresa A. Roberts
Investigating the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II helps students develop an appreciation of constitutional rights and civil liberties.
Research and Practice: Social Studies and the Social Order:
Transmission or Transformation?
William B. Stanley
Educators have long pondered whether their duty in the classroom was to convey the status quo or to facilitate change. Here, the author presents three historic positions on the role of teachers with respect to the social order.
Book Review:
Voices of a People s History of the United States
Reviewed by Andrea S. Libresco
Editor's Notebook
NCSS House of Delegates Resolutions
Looking at the Law
Balancing Act: First and Sixth Amendment Rights in High-Profile Cases
James H. Landman
As media coverage of high profile cases continues to intensify, so have tensions between two of our most fundamental constitutional rights: the media's right to observe and report on a trial, and the defendant's right to an impartial jury.
Reel to Real: Teaching the Twentieth Century with Classic Hollywood Films
Karl A. Matz and Lori L. Pingatore
Classic films can serve as windows into the past. Like artifacts and photographs, films bring students closer to the people and events they are studying.
Surfing the Net
Take Your Students on Virtual Field Trips
C. Frederick Risinger
Students can travel to historical sites, explore museums, and study notable art without ever leaving their computers. The author recommends some exceptional websites for these virtual field trips.
Book Talks: Generating Interest in Good Reading
Thomas N. Turner
Presenting students with a variety of social studies-related fiction and nonfiction books can inspire them to read more and learn about issues from a range of perspectives.
Carter G. Woodson Book Awards
This year's winners for outstanding nonfiction that focus on ethnic minorities and race relations include books on early civil rights reformers, a Japanese American family in an internment camp, abolitionist Sojourner Truth, migrant leader César Chavez, Lewis and Clark guide Sacagawea, and poet Gwendolyn Brooks.
Pull Out Section
Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People 2005
The NCSS Book Review Committee and the Children's Book Council present their annual list of outstanding books for young people that advance important social studies themes.
Research and Practice
Perspective Matters: Social Identity and the Teaching and Learning of National History
Terrie Epstein and Jessica Shiller
Students' identities and affiliations influence what and how much they learn from school subjects. Understanding this can help teachers build on students' perspectives.
The Revolution in Kyrgyzstan: A Social Studies Educator's Eyewitness Account
William W. Wilen
Stranded in a former Soviet republic when anti-government riots paralyzed the country, a social studies professor offers a detailed account of the upheaval and considers how to utilize his experience in the classroom.
The Dropping of Atomic Bombs on Japan
Thomas Holmes
As the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki draws near, a classroom teacher shares four approaches to exploring this momentous event with students.
The Art and Science of Diplomacy: A World War I Activity
James J. Sheehan
This simulation of events leading up to World War I helps students understand the role of diplomats in managing international crises.
Film Review
Close Up on a Genocide: Rwanda, 1994
Sometimes in April
Reviewed by Jennifer Bauduy and Daly Valet
Book Review
The Best Political Cartoons of the Year, 2005
Reviewed by Syd Golston
Editor's Notebook
Teaching with Documents
Documents in the Digital Age
Lee Ann Potter
As more and more documents exist only in digital form, archivists and historians are faced with new challenges: preserving and providing access to computer-readable historical records.
Looking at the Law
Update on Death Penalty for Juveniles: Supreme Court Decides Roper v. Simmons
Charles F. Williams
The Supreme Court decision against the death penalty for juvenile offenders raises important questions on the nature of the Constitution and the relationship between the Supreme Court and lower courts.
Does the First Amendment Have a Future?
Sam Chaltain
Recent research has shown that our students' knowledge of the First Amendment is severely deficient. Our schools can play a major role in turning this around by becoming more open to debate and the exchange of ideas.
Middle School, the Middle East and a War: Debunking Myths and Stereotypes
Marguerite W. Parks and Deborah A. Hilscher
A group of Wisconsin seventh grade students studying the Middle East reach beyond the headlines to form a connection and friendships with students at a nearby Muslim school.
Exploring 350 Years of Jewish American History on the Internet
Michael J. Berson and Bárbara C. Cruz
For teachers who want to explore the rich history of Jewish involvement in the country's social fabric, development, and politics, this article provides significant online and print resources.
Women, WebQuests and Controversial Issues in the Social Studies
Margaret Smith Crocco and Judith Cramer
Using technology to teach controversial issues can motivate students and advance instruction. Here, the authors explore the benefits and constraints of WebQuests for studying gender issues in a global context.
Surfing the Net
Social Studies, Interdisciplinary Teaching, and Technology
C. Frederick Risinger
The author provides a list of innovative projects that bridge the gap between traditional K-12 subject areas and are likely to stimulate student interest and involvement.
Using Technology to Teach Historical Understanding
Robert P. Stephens, Jane L. Lehr, Daniel B. Thorp, E. Thomas Ewing, and David Hicks
Doing history in the digital world helps students deepen their historical analysis skills.
Twenty Years of Technology: A Retrospective View of Social Education's Technology Themed Issues
Cheryl Mason Bolick, Meghan M. McGlinn, and Kari Lee Siko
More than 20 years ago, Social Education offered readers its first technology-themed issue. After a detailed retrospective, the authors offer suggestions for the future.
Considering the Move to Online Discussions
Bruce E. Larson
Teachers can use electronic boards as well as classroom discussion to help students consider opposing opinions, understand alternative viewpoints, and identify commonalities.
The Persistent Issues in History Network: Using Technology to Support Historical Inquiry and Civic Reasoning
John W. Saye and Thomas Brush
The authors provide a support structure to assist teachers and students with the problem-based study of major U.S. historical developments.
Editor's Notebook
Financial Education
The Importance of Financial Education Today
Alan Greenspan
Educators can help prevent young people from making poor decisions that have enduring consequences by providing students with a foundation of financial literacy.
The Interdependence of Economic and Personal Finance Education
John S. Morton
To improve the weak presence of personal finance education in our schools, we must establish its home within the economics curriculum.
The Stock Market Crashes of 1929 and 1987: Linking History and Personal Finance Education
Jane S. Lopus
By tapping into students' curiosity about the stock market, teachers can motivate them to learn many important personal finance concepts.
Teachers Can Be Millionaires, Too
Mark C. Schug and William C. Wood
Even people of modest means, such as teachers, can build wealth over time if they adhere to certain simple strategies.
Lesson Plans
Credit: Your Best Friend or Your Worst Enemy?
National Council on Economic Education
In this lesson, students learn how quickly credit card balances can grow and how long it can take to pay them off; they also learn some sensible ways to use credit.
What Are Mutual Funds?
National Council on Economic Education
Students learn how mutual funds work by forming a class investment club and observing the changes in their stock value over time.
Teaching about Saving and Investing in the Elementary and Middle School Grades
Mary Suiter and Bonnie T. Meszaros
Financial education in the early grades can establish the basis for wise saving and spending habits that will serve students throughout their lives.
Surfing the Net
Teaching Consumer Literacy with the Internet
C. Frederick Risinger
Though our educational system does little to prepare students to be intelligent consumers, the internet provides innovative educators with a wealth of information and resources.
Teaching Social Studies on a Shoestring Budget
S. Kay Gandy
Increased testing is forcing schools to prioritize reading and math, and very little funding is available for social studies. This creative teacher offers a variety of suggestions for teaching in the economically challenged classroom.
Looking at the Law
Enemy Combatants and the Courts
Michelle Parini and Charles F. Williams
The War on Terror is unlikely to have a formal end, which presents unique challenges concerning the detention of suspected terrorists. Here, the authors look at three key cases involving enemy combatants.
Book Review
The World Court in Action: Judging Among the Nations
Reviewed by Kim Bush
Editor's Notebook
NCSS Notebook
Democracy and Diversity: Social Studies in Action
Jesus Garcia
As we work to build a better future, let's strive to make our own organization more inclusive and make social studies once again a core subject.
"In the Midst of Strange and Terrible Times": The New York City Draft Riots of 1863
Bárbara C. Cruz and Jennifer Marques Patterson
The riots that shook New York City more than a century ago can provide contemporary students a useful framework for studying such complex issues as race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and immigration.
Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai: Connecting Trees, Civic Education, and Peace
Iftikhar Ahmad
In 2004, the Nobel Committee for the first time awarded its peace prize to an environmentalist, a move intended to highlight the link between protecting natural resources and ensuring peace on earth.
Lesson Plan
Understanding Energy Concerns
The rising cost of gasoline affects individual countries differently. This lesson plan guides students to explore oil dependency and its impact on different countries, as well as alternate forms of energy.
28 Becoming Global Citizens: Disadvantaged Students Reach Out to Kids in Hurricane-Ravaged Island
Lynnette B. Erickson, Sharon Black, and Daniel Seegmiller
Today, citizens around the world are searching for ways to help tsunami victims. Students can learn from one sixth grade class who aided peers in the Caribbean after a hurricane several years ago.
Youth Voting in the 2004 Election
The Staff of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE)
While some reports have downplayed the participation of young voters in the recent presidential election, this study confirms a rise in youth voter turnout.
Research and Practice
Education and Diversity
James A. Banks, Peter Cookson, Geneva Gay, Willis D. Hawley, Jacqueline Jordan Irvine, Sonia Nieto, Janet Ward Schofield, and Walter G. Stephan
This team of scholars outlines twelve essential principles relating to diversity that can help educational practitioners increase student academic achievement and improve intergroup relations.
Women of the World, Re-write!: Women in American World History High School Textbooks from the 1960s, 1980s, and 1990s
Roger Clark, Kieran Ayton, Nicole Frechette, and Pamela J. Keller
Social forces like feminism have pushed textbook writers to include more women. But this analysis of world history textbooks demonstrates that much more needs to be done.
How Do Teachers' Political Views Influence Teaching about Controversial Issues?
Diana E. Hess
Educators know that teaching about contentious subjects can spark controversy; in order to approach such subjects, we need to identify and critique how our own views influence what and how we teach.
In Focus
Chronology of the Iraq War: 2004
Social Education Staff
Iraq was rocked by continued violence and upheaval in 2004. This special section offers a detailed chronology of significant events that affected the country last year.
Teaching With Documents
The First Act of Congress
Lee Ann Potter
In the early days of this nation, Congress considered numerous acts as it established the laws of the land. Yet the first ever act of Congress concerned an oath to support the Constitution.
The Darfur Atrocities Documentation Project
Samuel Totten
Tens of thousands have been killed in a conflict in Sudan. Recently, the author joined a team of experts on the border of Sudan to interview those who had fled the violence in order to determine whether genocide was being perpetrated.
Sudan Genocide Declaration Stirs the World
PBS NewsHour Extra
What happens once "genocide" is declared? This lesson plan looks at the events in Sudan and at the issue of genocide. Discussion questions lead students to consider what role the international community should play.
The International Criminal Court
The Center for Teaching International Relations
Members of the international community banded together to create a tribunal to try individuals who seriously violate international law. In this lesson, students will learn about the ICC and discuss whether the U.S. should join.
Torture and the War on Terror
Ed O'Brien
Educators can equip students with the knowledge and judgement necessary to confront situations such as those that occurred at Abu Ghraib by exploring issues raised by torture, discussing constitutional protections, and teaching about international commitments.
From Crisis to Civic Engagement: The Struggle Over Social Studies Standards in Minnesota
Paul Spies, Jennifer Bloom, Michael Boucher, Carrie Lucking, Lisa Norling, and Rick Theisen
When parents, teachers, and other community members in Minnesota learned that inaccurate and biased social studies standards were going to be implemented in their state, they mounted a rapid opposition and effective campaign.
Surfing the Net
Home Grown: Models of Excellence in Teacher-Designed Social Studies Websites
C. Frederick Risinger
This column takes a look at exemplary websites designed by teachers and supervisors that help students with resources, activities, and other course-related information.
The Cherokee Response to Removal
National Museum of the American Indian
This lesson plan offers insight into the Cherokee experience during the native group's forced nineteenth-century relocation by the federal government in what became known as the "Trail of Tears."
Experiencing World History through the Eyes of Ordinary Women
Jada Kohlmeier
Primary documents about a young girl growing up during China's cultural revolution, a Russian peasant living under Stalin, and a woman in sixteenth century Germany offer students a unique perspective of important historical periods.
Research and Practice
Blurring the Lines Between Content and Pedagogy
Avner Segall
While it is common to separate knowledge of teaching and knowledge of content, the author explores whether they can or should be considered distinct from each other.
Islamist Movements in Iraq
Social Education Staff
As Iraq nears elections scheduled for early next year, Islamist movements are playing an increasing role in the political landscape. This special section offers an overview of the key groupsboth militant and pragmatic.
Editor's Notebook
Book Review
Making Community Connections: The Orton Family Foundation Community Mapping Program
Annual Index
Special Section: Election 2004
A Guide to the Presidential Debates
Social Education staff
Televised debates offer students a rare opportunity to see candidates discuss issues face-to-face. This guide outlines handy teaching tips for incorporating the debates into the classroom.
Teaching U.S History with Primary Sources
Editors Notebook
What are they?
Connecting with the Past
Lee Ann Potter
History becomes much more than past events and important dates, when students investigate the subtle clues buried in primary sources.
Big and Famous is Not Always Better
Daniel F. Rulli
Documents do not need to be elaborate to be useful classroom tools. Short, lesser-known documents can teach students a world of history.
The Words We Live By: The Constitution in Context
Linda R. Monk
When students understand the historical context of a given document, they learn much more than simply the words of a text.
Where are they?
From Attics to Graveyards: Where to Locate Documents for Your Classroom
Tom Gray and Susan Owens
The most valuable information may be in the least obvious placesattics, file cabinets, or the local cemeteries.
Online Resources from the National Archives
Lee Ann Potter
This article provides practical tips for finding key sources on the National Archives website.
Online Resources from the Library of Congress
Judith K. Graves and Marilyn Parr
The authors outline major areas and search tools for navigating the Library of Congress website.
Archival Facilities Across the Nation
Heres a useful list of National Archives facilities around the country. Also included is a list of state archives that are responsible for preserving valuable records.
How do I use them?
Primarily, Its Serendipity
James A. Percoco
The correspondence between a baseball commissioner and President Franklin Roosevelt offers a creative approach to teaching World War II during baseball season.
My Reward: Outstanding Student Projects Based on Primary Sources
John Lawlor
Students research their homes, local ruins, or urban ecologyamong other fascinating subjectsas part of term projects that challenge them to investigate history using primary sources.
Students Facing History: The White House Decision Center
Tom Heuertz
Students assume the roles of president, presidential advisors, and press corps while they act out actual post-World War II scenarios during a four-hour experimental learning program.
Suggested Methods for Integrating Primary Sources into Classroom Instruction
National Archives and Records Administration
Document Analysis Worksheets
National Archives and Records Administration
Annual Index
No complete electronic copy of this issue has been found.
The links below are not connected to files. Articles will be made available as soon as possible.
Teaching with Documents
Telegram Relating to the Slave Trade
Karen Needles and Lee Ann Potter
Slave trader Nathaniel Gordon was found guilty of illegally transporting African slaves in 1861. A trail of documents recounts the legal battle waged by his supporters to try and stop his execution.
Looking at the Law
Supreme Court Preview
Charles F. Williams
Are get-tough-on crime laws or sex offender registries constitutional? This fall, the Supreme Court is slated to consider these questions and also hear some high profile cases with racial overtones like Virginias prohibition on cross burning.
What Patriotism Means Today in the Wake of 9/11
Roger Wilkins
This university professor, who served as assistant attorney general in the Johnson administration, points out that dissent can be a form of patriotism, especially in times like these when the blood is hot.
I Like Those Other Cultures Now: Teaching High School Anthropology
Claire Berkowitz
By studying other cultures, a group of high school students in Arizona learns that weird is relative, and that not everyone has heard of the cheeseburger.
What Will Our Students Remember?
Teresa Brain
A teacher ponders how to plan a curriculum to catch students interest, without relying on conflict or sensationalism.
The Lessons of Vietnam
Toni Fuss Kirkwood-Tucker and Janet E. Benton
The authors explore using literature to teach controversial topicslike the Vietnam Warfrom a global perspective.
Service Learning in Contemporary Japan and America
Joseph Feinberg
Both Japan and the State of Maryland are experimenting with student service learning requirements as a way to indirectly combat violence, bullying and truancy.
A Cultural Immersion Experience in Xalapa, Mexico
H. James McLaughlin, Shirley Hotch, and Gail Sargent
After a cultural exchange program in Mexico, a group of American teachers learned to better understand the experience of their immigrant students.
Evaluating Brain-Based Curricular Claims
Doris Bergen
Can educational products stimulate specific types of development in childrens brains? The author explores the links between childhood experience and brain structure.
Alien Enemy Registration During World War I
Helen Divjak and Lee Ann Potter
German immigrants who had not yet become citizens of the United States found their world turned upside down by a presidential proclamation declaring them enemy aliens in World War One.
Research and Practice
Teaching Tolerance: What Research Tells Us
Patricia G. Avery
At a time when it is more important than ever to promote tolerance of diverse beliefs, educational research shows how teachers can play their part.
Learning to Legislate in an e-Congress
Angela Stokes
This Internet simulation of Congress allows students to learn by doing as they draft legislation on important topics and try to get it passed.
Using Newspapers to Teach about the Election: A Lesson Plan
Colette Yeich
By following the authors suggestions, teachers will be able to lead students beyond the headlines into meaningful research and systematic analysis of this fal#146;s elections.
Mandatory School Uniforms: A Debate for Students
John D. Hoge, Stuart J. Foster, Pat Nickell, and Sherry L. Field
Do school uniform codes limit students freedom of expression? And do they refocus student attention away from fashion toward academics? Students can research and debate the issues by examining what happened in Polk County, Florida, when the school board implemented a school uniform policy for K-8 students.
An Elusive Ideal: Judicial Selection and American Democracy
James H. Landman
This article compares state systems that elect judges with other systems for the appointment of judges, in the light of a recent Supreme Court decision that might lead to judicial elections becoming more political.
Teaching About September 11 and its Aftermath
Howard D. Mehlinger
Educating students about a historical watershed like the attacks of September 11 and the U.S. response to them requires careful selection of the right teaching approach. Here are some good options.
In the Aftermath of September 11: Listening, Learning and Teaching
This handy, annotated guide identifies the resources provided by NCSS periodicals in the last year for teaching about September 11 and its effects.
Economics and Ethics
Michael Hartoonian
Businessmen with a single-minded drive for profits often seemed to be heroes in the 1990s, but recent scandals and bankruptcies remind us of the disasters that occur when businesses spurn ethics.
Testy Times for Social Studies
Susie Burroughs
State assessments of social studies have proliferated, and often have high-stakes consequences. This review includes results from a survey by the NCSS Instruction Committee of the perspectives of social studies teachers on the current situation.
Elementary Education
Studying the Community
Dot Schuler
Explorations of the local community can lead to an excellent voyage into knowledge for elementary students.
The War of the Words: Letters to the FCC Regarding Orson Welless 1938 Broadcast
Lee Ann Potter
Orson Welless famous 1938 broadcast of The War of the Worlds incited a mixed responseranging from terror to delightfrom listeners across the country.
A Poet and a Mystic: Jalaluddin Rumi
Carol Tell
This thirteenth-century Persian poet can help students learn about a culture and a history far different from their own. But Rumis poetry also points to universal themes, such as love, loss, and the search for meaning in a chaotic age.
Exploring Hispanic Culture through Trade Books
Judy A. Leavell, Barbara Hatcher, Jennifer Battle, and Nancy Ramos-Michail
The authors describe a variety of trade books that present diverse and rich Hispanic cultures, along with teaching tips on how best to use these books in the classroom.
A Poetic Approach to the Social Study of the Americas
Jorge Alegría Alegría, Carlos Muñoz Labraña, and Ron W. Wilhelm
The poetry of such writers as Gabriela Mistral and Pablo Neruda can help motivate and inspire students to learn about the Americas.
Resources for Latin American Cultural Studies
Ron W. Wilhelm
The author provides background materials, journals, and publishers that focus on Latin American history, politics, economics, and geography.
The Carter G. Woodson Book Awards
These annual awards honor books dealing with subjects about U.S. ethnic minorities in a manner suitable for readers at the elementary and secondary levels. This years winners include books on Sitting Bull, black women freedom fighters, and jazz.
Poisoning Young Minds in Nazi Germany: Children and Propaganda in the Third Reich
Mary Mills
Nazi propagandists attempted to indoctrinate German children of the Third Reich through the use of disturbing anti-Semitic childrens literature.
Two Different Worlds: The Dilemma Facing Social Studies Teachers
C. Frederick Risinger
Will preparing students for standardized tests also help prepare them for the world of 2015 and beyond?
Point of View
Like It Or Not: Social Educators Must Keep Up with Popular Culture
Jeffrey Passe
We may not like watching NASCAR, Dawsons Creek, or the latest episode of Survivor, but as social educators, Passe argues, it is our responsibility to know and teach aspects of popular culture.
Conflicts Global and Local: An Elementary Approach
Kathy Bickmore
From warring nations to bickering siblings, conflict is a reality that even elementary-age students experience. Learning about conflictwhat it is, what causes it, and how it can be handledis the focus of this fourth and fifth grade unit.
Improving Economic and Financial Education: A Program for Urban Schools
Mark C. Schug, Robert L. Wynn II, and Tracy J. Posnanski
This Milwaukee program attempts to improve the quality of economic education by teaching urban students the fundamentals of economics.
The 1930 Census
Lee Ann Potter
What did it take to be a census enumerator for the 1930 census? What does a sample census schedule look like? The article examines the 1930 census and includes teaching activities that help students understand the importance of the census to the history of our nation.
Minority Religions and Limitations on Religious Freedom
Eric Michael Mazur
America was founded on ideals of religious libertybut all liberties have limits. The author explores the cases of three minority religionsthe Mormons, Jehovahs Witnesses, and Native Americansand their encounters with the American constitutional order.
Teaching with Tech
Ideology and the Web
John K. Lee
The World Wide Web is an excellent source of information for social studies classes, but teachers should be aware of the ideologies, both visible and invisible, that frame particular websites.
To Russia with. . . Technology
Candy Beal
With the help of new technologies and some old-fashioned determination, a social studies educator took thousands of North Carolina sixth graders on a virtual trip to Russia.
Handheld Computing in the Social Studies
Shelli A. Whitworth, Kathleen Owings Swan, and Michael J. Berson
The latest technology hitting social studies classrooms is the handheld computera portable device that is less expensive than desktop computers and offers useful capabilities.
Documenting the American South: Thomas H. Jones and the Fugitive Slave Law
Cheryl Mason Bolick
Online research archives are making it easier for students to do in-depth research with primary sources on a historic topic. Here are activities to help students learn how the Fugitive Slave Law affected one mans life.
Book Review
Inquiry with an E-Book: A Natural Strategy for Social Studies
Michael M. Yell
An e-book on discrepant event inquiry can help teachers hook their students and engage them in higher order thinking skills.
What Constrains Meaningful Social Studies Teaching?
Catherine Cornbleth
The author describes the restricting climates that make it hard for social studies teachers to teach effectively and for students to learn well.
In Focus
Ruth Levy Guyer and Jonathan D. Moreno
Since September 11, the fear of a bioterrorist attack has become widespread. The authors look at the roots of bioterrorism, as well as the recent anthrax scare, and suggest ways that teachers can address bioterrorism with their students.
In the Wake of September 11: Civil Liberties and Terrorism
Bruce G. Peabody
The conflict between civil liberties and the war on terrorism involves three specific issues: the governments right to eavesdrop on conversations between alleged terrorists and their attorneys, deportation and the right to be silent, and military tribunals.
Military Tribunals and the War against Terrorism: An Interview with Frank Moran
Seva Johnson
The executive director of the Boston Bar Association and former military judge explains the ins and outs of military tribunals.
The Aftereffects of September 11: What the Polls Tell Us
Kevin Pobst
How have American attitudes changed since September 11and how have they stayed the same?
Globalization: The Inside Story of Our Interconnected World
Daniel Yergin
A Pulitzer-prize winning author explores the term globalization, how it has changed since the 1990s, and what the future may hold for our global economy.
A Bill to Relieve Certain Legal Disabilities of Women
Lee Ann Potter
After a long struggle, Belva A. Lockwood became the first woman admitted to the Bar of the Supreme Court.
Eli Landers: Letters of a Confederate Soldier
Stephanie Wasta and Carolyn Lott
Eli Landers, a young Confederate soldier in the Civil War, wrote poignant letters home to his mother, in which he described the battles he fought in, his fears and dreams, and the suffering he endured and witnessed.
Preserving Civil War Diaries
John Michael Priest
An afterschool program gives students the opportunity to transcribe and edit primary sources from the Civil War.
Unmotivated Students or Unmotivating Teachers?
Jennifer Deng
A student teacher, working with students on the Onondaga Nation Reservation, learned important lessons about how to inspire students.
Cases, Controversy, and the Court
NCSS Notebook
2001 NCSS Presidential Address
Adrian Davis
In today's world, how can we--as social studies educators and as citizens--continue to celebrate and improve on our "American Experiment"?
In Focus
The Women of Afghanistan
Carol Tell
Years of oppression by the Taliban regime have left Afghan women in a tragic situation.
Restoring the Rights of Afghan Women:
An Interview with Nasrine Abou-Bakre Gross
An Afghan American woman and activist talks with Social Education about the role of education, the future of women's rights, and her hopes for Afghanistan.
A Thoughtful Patriotism
Robert Stevens
Through poetry, art, and patriotic speeches, students can deliberate on the true meaning of patriotism and become thoughtful and devoted citizens.
Update on Afghanistan
Steven Lapham
Current news, information, maps, and statistics on the war in Afghanistan.
[PDF version]
Special Section
Cases, Controversy, and the Court: Teaching about the Supreme Court
Diana Hess and Lee Arbetman
In this special section on the Supreme Court, editors Hess and Arbetman examine how social studies educators can broaden and deepen the ways that they teach about the highest court in the land.
"The Cult of the Robe": The U.S. Supreme Court in the American Mind
Barbara Perry
Although it has received some criticism recently, the U.S. Supreme Court still holds a position of dignity, decorum, and authority in the minds of the American people.
The Rehnquist Court
Erwin Chemerinsky
Since 1986, Chief Justice William Rehnquist has left his mark on the Supreme Court. How has this Court differed from those of earlier years?
Supreme Court Voting Patterns 1994-2001 [PDF version only]
Aaron Epstein
This chart shows how the current Supreme Court justices have voted on major issues, from civil rights to states' rights.
Using Moot Courts in the Classroom
Kathy Bell
Abstract legal principles become real and engaging when students participate in moot courts.
The Road to the Court
Lee Arbetman
When students from a small town in New York wanted their Christian student group to meet on school grounds, they had no idea that their case would make it all the way to the Supreme Court.
The United States Supreme Court and the World Wide Web
Charles F. Williams
Obtaining copies of briefs or arguments of the Supreme Court is relatively easy with the help of the Internet.
Which Cases Should We Teach?
Diana Hess and Anand Marri
Teachers need to teach not just the well-known and well-regarded Supreme Court cases but also "live" cases, whose decisions are still controversial today.
Controversial Dimensions of U.S. Supreme Court Cases
Marshall Croddy
Here are some descriptions of the most controversial Supreme Court cases.
Supreme Court Coverage
Charles Bierbauer
Cameras may not be allowed in the courtroom, but journalists covering the Supreme Court still have work to do, from following cases and reporting on decisions, to giving the public a glimpse into the minds of the justices.
Teaching Brown v. Board of Education
Jennifer Brandsberg-Engelmann
Brown v. Board of Education, which ruled against the segregation of schools, is one of the most widely taught Supreme Court cases today.
Making a Case for the Case Study Method
Maureen McDonnell
Supreme Court case studies can help students learn about significant Supreme Court cases and how to think like lawyers.
Debating War and Peace in Washington Square Park
Robert Cohen, Diana Turk, and Emily Klein
This sampling of comments posted in Washington Square Park after September 11 shows that, along with sadness and anger, a democratic spirit is alive and well in New York City.
Media Literacy Skills: Interpreting Tragedy
Renee Hobbs
With the onslaught of media coverage about terrorism and war, students must learn to question, analyze, and think critically about the values and perspectives behind media messages.
Following a Tragic Event: A Necessary Challenge for Civic Educators
Laurel R. Singleton
Far from advancing a single perspective about recent events, teachers need to encourage discussion and debate in the classroom.
In War, Is Law Silent? Security and Freedom After September
Ed OBrien
From airport security to wiretapping to racial profiling, in times of crisis, how do we balance the desire for personal freedom with the need for national security?
Surfing the Web
Teaching about Terrorism, Islam, and Tolerance with the Internet
C. Frederick Risinger
Internet sites exploring such subjects as the Taliban, U.S. foreign policy, the Muslim religion, teaching tolerance, and more.
Civil War in Afghanistan
Gayle Mertz
This lesson plan on the civil war in Afghanistan includes a current map of the region, a brief history of the country, and a description of the warring factions.
Teaching With Documents
1919 Presidential Proclamation to Schoolchildren About the Red Cross
Lee Ann Potter
With the encouragement of President Woodrow Wilson, young people across the United States joined the Junior Red Cross to help with the war effort during World War I. Since then, the Red Cross has motivated youth to serve the community and beyond.
War Crimes: An End in Sight?
Joanne M. Dufour
Will all crimes of war one day be investigated and punished in an international court of law? The author presents background information on the significant war trials of the twentieth century and the development of the idea of an International Criminal Court.
Looking at the Law
Is Federal Power Shrinking or Growing? New Debates on Federalism
John Paul Ryan
The debate over the distribution of power between the federal government and the states continues over such issues as education, environmental policy, and religious freedom.
Student Views of Democracy: The Good and Bad News
Carole L. Hahn
A recent survey indicates how U.S. ninth graders view democracy and citizenship.
We Are Living History: Reflections of a New York City Social Studies Teacher
Joan Brodsky Schur
The attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, had a profound impact on the nation and the world. A social studies teacher chronicles the events as they happened in her own neighborhood in lower Manhattan.
The Trauma of Terrorism: Helping Children Cope
Ilene R. Berson and Michael J. Berson
In the wake of tragedy, how can we help our students make sense of events, feel safe and protected, and even learn from the experience?
At Risk of Prejudice: Teaching Tolerance about Muslim Americans
Karima Alavi
Common misperceptions about the religion of Islam threaten to distort views of Muslim Americans and their convictions. The author answers questions about the Muslim faith, community, and beliefs.
At Risk of Prejudice:The Arab American Community
Zeina Azzam Seikaly
As Arab Americans face growing resentment from segments of the U.S. population, how can we protect our Arab American students from encountering such prejudice, educate all our students about the Arab American community, and emphasize tolerance over bigotry?
Looking at the Law
Supreme Court Trends
Charles F. Williams
The year 2000 was a significant one for the Supreme Court. Many decisions affected education and childrenfrom tobacco advertising to religion in the schools.
Surfing the Web
Teaching Economics and the Globalization Debate on the World Wide Web
Frederick Risinger
A listing and description of the best websites related to economics education, globalism, world trade, and international economics.
Hyperinflation and the Confederacy: An Interdisciplinary Lesson in Economics and History
Brooke Graham Doyle
The Confederacys answer to revenue deficits during the Civil War was to print more money, leading to hyperinflation on an unprecedented scale.
Economists in the School
Angela Breidenstein, Richard Butler, and Nipoli Kamdar
Economic literacy is crucial, but far too often it is not adequately addressed in school curricula. A school-university program in San Antonio, Texas, proves that students of all ages can enjoy learning basic economic concepts.
Solving Problems with Twenty Questions
William D. Edgington
Teachers can use problem solving techniques, such as a version of the game Twenty Questions, to enhance students inquiry skills and content knowledge.
Teaching with Documents
The Navajo Code Talkers: A Secret World War II Memorandum
Adam Jevec and Lee Ann Potter
During World War II, when military secrecy was a top priority, the U.S. Marine Corps enlisted Navajos to send and receive codes in their native language. These Navajo code talkers provided an essential line of radio communication that was versatile, secure, and error-free.
Latina Women Speak: Using Oral Histories in the Social Studies Curriculum
Grace C. Huerta and Leslie A. Flemmer
Oral histories can be useful tools for students to learn about complex social issues. This oral history model, detailing the lives of three Latin American women, shows how Latinas confronted ethnic, gender, and religious discrimination.
Elementary Education
A Pictures Worth: Analyzing Historical Photographs in the Elementary Grades
Keith C. Barton
Elementary teachers can use historical photographs in the classroom to engage young students in authentic historical inquiry. Students critical skills develop beyond mere observation as they consider what life was like when the photographs were taken.
Asking the BIG Questions: Teaching about the Great Irish Famine and World History
Alan Singer, Maureen Murphy, and Maureen McCann Miletta
An examination of the nineteenth-century Irish potato famine shows how teachers can explore big questions and challenge students to relate historical events to broader contexts and contemporary concerns.
Conflict Resolution in History: The War with Mexico as a Case Study
Arlene L. Gardner and John Chambers
By applying conflict resolution strategies to such events as the Mexican-American War, students grapple with difficult historical disputes, learn mediation and negotiation skills, and gain a deeper understanding of the costs, complexities, and consequences of conflict.
Surfing the Web
Teaching Elementary and Secondary History Using the Internet
C. Frederick Risinger
Historical resources can make a social studies classroom come alive. Here are some comprehensive and useful websites for history teachers at all grade levels.
Eugenics Past and Present: Remembering Buck v. Bell
Michael J. Berson and Bárbara C. Cruz
The seventy-fifth anniversary of the Buck v. Bell case is an appropriate time for students to explore the ethical questions underlying eugenics principles, policies, and practicesfrom Nazi Germanys sterilization laws to the Human Genome Project.
Book Review
Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts by Sam Wineburg
Elizabeth Yeager
Historical thinking, the author tells us, is a stimulating, engaging process but requires skills that do not come to us automatically. Wineburgs book investigates how both students and teachers make historical meaning and situate themselves within the broader scope of history.
Point of View
Addressing the Null Curriculum: Teaching about Genocides Other than the Holocaust
Samuel Totten
Many U. S. schools teach about the Holocaustbut sometimes at the expense of teaching about other genocides. Students need to learn about other genocides, such as those that occurred in Armenia, Rwanda, and Bosnia, to understand that the Holocaust was not a mere aberration of history.
Point of View
The NCSS Standards: A Response to Anna Ochoa-Becker
Susan Adler
Do the NCSS Standards run the risk of promoting conformity and uniformity in the teaching of social studies? Adler addresses the critique.
NCSS Position Statement
Creating Effective Citizens
National History Day
Michael Simpson and Steven S. Lapham
National History Day is a unique opportunity for middle and high school students to engage in high-level history projects and share their talents.
"Enemies of the People": Poetry and Politics in the Time of Stalin
David Morse
The Stalin Purges of the 1930s affected all sectors of Soviet society, but none more deeply than writers and other members of the Russian intelligentsia. At stake was the role of literature in society and how any form of free thought could survive when the aim of the State was, in the words of writer Nadezhda Mandelshtam, to destroy not only people, but the intellect itself.
Making a Difference - One Village at a Time: The Peace Corps Partnership Program
James G. Miller, Jr.
Through partnerships with Peace Corps volunteers, students at Corcoran High School and adjacent Roberts Elementary School in Syracuse, New York, have helped build six primary schools, a village well, two maternity wards, a medicinal herb garden, a community health center, and a school for the blind, among other projects, in various nations around the world. This article explains how your school can become involved in this form of service-learning.
The Carter G. Woodson Book Awards 2000
These annual awards honor books that deal with subjects relating to U.S. ethnic minorities in a manner suitable for readers at the elementary and secondary levels. This years highest awards go to Sharon Linnéa for Princess Kaiulani: Hope of a Nation, Heart of a People at the secondary level, and to Ruby Bridges for Through My Eyes at the elementary level.
Graphic Representations as Tools for Decision Making
Judith Howard
The ability to make good decisions is a fundamental skill needed by citizens of a democracy. The tools described here can help students sharpen their analytical and decision-making skills though graphic representation of the weight or force of alternative choices and their possible consequences.
Teaching Middle School Social Studies: Who Is at Risk?
Sherry L. Field, Ron Wilhelm, Pat Nickell, John Culligan,
and Jan Sparks
Turning Points, a Carnegie report of 1989, drew attention to the unique aspects of the middle school years and what this implied for teaching and learning during these years. This article explores the methods used by two experienced middle school teachers to engage adolescent learnersboth those designated as at risk, and the larger number who may be at risk but whose needs receive no special recognition.
Elementary Education
Building a Community in Our Classroom: The Story of Bat Town, U.S.A.
Andrea McGann Keech
As the passing of time and the changing of the landscape became familiar concepts to them, children in one third-fourth grade combination class used their growing knowledge of their towns past as the starting point for creating a model community of their own.
Building Bridges: Miami "Ambassadors" Visit Russia
Toni Fuss Kirkwood
Three young adults look backward to reflect on what they gained from a cross-cultural exchange between Russian and American high schools students in 1996. The studentsall minority group members with some experience of racial discrimination at homerecall how little race figured as an issue among their Russian counterparts, and how much they needed to overcome their own stereotypes of the Russian people.
NCSS Position Statement
Service-Learning: An Essential Component of Citizenship Education
Book Review
For Mortal Stakes by Paul F. Cummins and Anna K. Cummins
Arthur R. Poskocil
The authors view childhood as an end in itself, a time of innocent celebration of life, and the real goals of education as supporting childrens natural passion, joy, and engagement in learning. Schools that recognize no mission beyond the childs cognitive development will, say the authors, fail to reach even this unrealistically circumscribed goal.
NCSS Notebook
The 44th Annual Meeting of the NCSS House of Delegates
History Matters: The U.S. Survey Course on the Web
Kelly Schrum and Roy Rosenzweig
Teachers do not always have the time to screen Internet information for its quality or relevancy. The History Matters website serves as a gateway to more than four hundred prescreened, quality websites, while also offering a variety of other activities and services.
A Teachers Guide to the Holocaust: An Online Resource
Anne E. Barron and Roy Winkelman
In 1994, Florida adopted a law mandating Holocaust education. A Teachers Guide to the Holocaust was designed to help prepare Florida teachers to teach this sensitive subject. Now the site has grown into a useful resource for teachers nationwide.
WebQuest: Using Internet Resources for Cooperative Inquiry
Andrew J. Milson and Portia Downey
The authors define a WebQuest as an inquiry-oriented activity in which most or all of the information used by learners is drawn from the Internet. This approach offers access to online primary sources and a structure for evaluating these sources, all the while increasing student participation and cooperation.
With a Little Help From Our Friends: Implementing Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in K-12 Schools
Daniel P. Donaldson
From classrooms across the country to the television series The District, GIS is gaining the attention of those who seek to better the quality of education through technology. The author explores the question, To what degree are schools ready to implement GIS?, basing his conclusions on two recent surveys of educators.
Enhancing Social Science Education through Tele-Collaborative Teaching and Learning
Stephanie W. Karran, Michael J. Berson, and Cheryl L. Mason
The Internet has not lived up to the expectations of many educators, who envisioned it as the answer to their collaborative tele-learning needs. Enter Internet2, a broadband, fiber-optic network able to provide the quality-of-service guarantees necessary for tele-education.
Surfing the Net
Casting a Wider Net: Web Tools for Social Studies Teachers
C. Frederick Risinger
The author encourages social studies teachers to make use of the Internet as a resource not only for social studies-related sites, but for useful (and fun) teaching tools as well.
Charts and Graphs in Japanese Elementary School Social Studies Textbooks
Gary DeCoker and Erica Erickson
The ability to interpret charts and graphs is an important skill, yet one relatively overlooked by U.S. elementary social studies textbooks. Hoping to provide a model for change, this article examines the widespread use of charts and graphs in Japanese elementary textbooks.
Point of View
A Critique of the NCSS Curriculum Standards
Anna S. Ochoa-Becker
The setting of standards by a national organization may contribute to conformity and uniformity in its implicit assumption that one set of standards fits all schools. The author calls for a revision of the NCSS Curriculum Standards, outlining her reasons for doing so, and inviting others to join in the debate.
Census Watch
Results of the Census of
The U.S. Bureau of the Census has begun to publish the results of the Census of 2000. Here is some early information about population totals.
Leading discussions well is one of the great difficult things in teaching, as anyone knows who has tried it and is honest about the results. The author reports on two teachers who use varying forms of discussionseminar and deliberationto stimulate critical thinking among secondary students.
Teaching with Documents
Letter from House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford to President Richard M. Nixon
Lee Ann Potter and Wynell Schamel
When Vice President Spiro T. Agnew was forced to resign from office, President Nixon was faced with the historical first of putting to use the new Twenty-fifth Amendment. This article features one of the many letters the president received about whom he should nominate for vice president.
A Profile of Elementary Social Studies Teachers and Their Classrooms
Mary E. Haas and Margaret A. Laughlin
Elementary teachers want to provide meaningful social studies instruction, but may be thwarted by their perception that social studies is not viewed as an important content area in elementary schools. This is one of many observations in this profile of NCSS members who teach at the elementary level.
Book Review
Teach Me: Kids Will Learn When Oppression is the Lesson
by Murray Burton Levin
Reviewed by Joe Auciello
Retired professor Murray Levins efforts to teach black and Latino students in an alternative school in Boston led him to conclude that expecting public schools to solve all the problems of disadvantaged students reversed the natural order. When the economy begins to serve true human needs, the schools will produce responsible and engaged human beings.
Presidents Address
Creating Public Spaces in the Social Studies Classroom
Susan Adler
Democracy means more than the promotion and protection of individual rights; it requires an active commitment to the common good and a willingness to work with others to achieve it. Our schools have a vital role to play in this process.
Prospects for the Electoral College after Election
Jennifer Truran Rothwell
For the first time in more than a century, the United States experienced a presidential election in which the popular and electoral college votes diverged. Should the electoral college be abolished, reformed, or kept as it is? There is no lack of opinions on this thorny subject.
Teaching with Documents
The 1963 March on Washington
Natalie Lloyd, Wynell Schamel, and Lee Ann Potter
Planners of the 1963 March on Washington hoped it would unify the Civil Rights Movement and influence President John F. Kennedy to energetically support its goals. Their hopes were best expressed in the historic I Have a Dream speech that Martin Luther King delivered at the Lincoln Memorial.
Frederic Remingtons Image of the Frontier
Robert L. Stevens
Even as the Western frontier was disappearing in the 1880s, Eastern illustrator Frederic Remington was conjuring up an image of it that found wide popularity among the urban public. More myth than reality, Remingtons works helped to obscure the real nature of the struggle between white settlers and American Indians over land in the West.
Elementary Education
Hard Times and New Deals: Teaching Fifth Graders about the Great Depression
Gary Fertig
The study unit on the Great Depression described here makes use of recent findings about how children develop historical understandings. The unit includes a simulation on the stock market crash of 1929, a letter-writing activity based on study of letters real children wrote to Mrs.
Roosevelt, and the creation and performance of historical scenarios involving Depression-era characters.
Doing REAL History: Citing Your Mother in Your Research Paper
Andrea S. Libresco
When a student from El Salvador told how he had once seen his fourth grade teacher shot in front of him, attitudes toward immigration among his American classmates began to take on more shades of gray. Exploring immigration through an extensive oral history project made history more real to the high school students in this teachers classroom.
Treasures in Waiting at NARA Presidential Libraries and Regional Records Centers
Lee Weber
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has a wealth of historical materials available at and from its ten presidential libraries and sixteen regional records centers. So far, educators have not been taking full advantage of the vast resources of this government agency.
Empathizing with the Many Voices of Our Past: Two Teachers Help Their Students Connect with United States History
Elaine Metherall Brenneman
The common goal of the teachers described in this article is to connect students to contemporary social concerns through the development of historical empathy. By inviting students into the mixture of voices that have talked about social issues over time, these teachers hope their students will become part of the ongoing conversation about our nations history.
Research into Practice
What Can Forrest Gump Tell Us about Students Historical Understanding?
Sam Wineburg, Susan Mosborg, and Dan Porat
Children gain impressions of our history from a wide variety of sources in school and out, but the notion that all these sources form a coherent whole mocks the complexity of social life. The authors suggest that by investigating the history students bring with them to school, we can consider anew the role of the classroom.
Uncovering Pompeii: Examining Evidence
Michael M. Yell
The lesson offered here makes use of a teaching strategy called interactive presentation to bring the life and times of ancient Pompeii into todays middle school classrooms.
Environmental Politics and the Endangered Species Act
David Sahr
It is questionable whether Congress understood the scope of the Endangered Species Act it passed in 1973. Teachers looking for a legal case study might well choose this act to exmplify how science and politics may collide.
Bioethics Cases and Issues: Enrichment for Social Science, Humanities, and Science Courses
Ruth Levy Guyer, Mary Lou Dillon, Linda Anderson, and Lola Szobota
Case studies in bioethics can enrich high school classes across the curriculum and help prepare students for the complex questions and dilemmas that new medical technologies pose for society.
Privacy, Individual Liberty, and the Public Interest
John Paul Ryan
Privacy is not an absolute value, but one that must be balanced against other needs of society. This article reports on a discussion in cyberspace among six scholars whose disciplines relate to questions of privacy.
Protecting Academic Freedom in the 21st Century
William J. Stegmayer
What would, and what should, your school do in situations where a teachers academic freedom comes under question? Three case studies provide the basis for thinking about this vital issue.
Colonizing Our Future: The Commercial Transformation of Americas Schools
Alex Molnar
Modern mass marketing is increasingly being applied to children in school as well as out. But, argues the author, The fundamental difference between marketers and teachers distorts teaching as surely as a funhouse mirror distorts the image of anyone who looks into it.
Trumans Firing of General Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War
Amy Patterson, Wynell Schamel, and Lee Ann Potter
The collision of wills between two commanders in chiefPresident Harry Truman and General Douglas MacArthurresulted in one of the most important demonstrations of the civilian control of the military called for by the Constitution in U.S. history.
Other-Wise: The Case for Understanding Other Cultures in aUnipolar World
Leon E. Clark
We should all embrace migration of our minds to other cultures, not only to better understand the ways of others, but also to better know ourselves.
Surfing the Net
Teaching Social Issues Using the Internet
C. Frederick Risinger
Teaching about controversial issues should not be confined to U.S. government or problems-oriented courses, but can be undertaken throughout the social studies curriculum.
Book Reviews
I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years, 1933-1941 and
I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years, 1942-1945
by Victor Klemperer
Samuel Totten
Slowly but inexorably, these diaries of a German Jew draw the reader into the claustrophobic, increasingly threatening, and all-pervasive fear that the Nazi terror had on each and every Jew living in Germany.
Victory at Home and Abroad: The Tuskegee Airmen Research Project and Seminar
John Adelmann
Sometimes it is difficult to get students to put pen to paper, but these students were so enthusiastic about their project on the Tuskegee Airmen that they wrote and published a book.
Special Section: Teaching Social Studies in Challenging Settings
Guest Editor: Elizabeth Anne Yeager
Thoughts on Wise Practice in the Teaching of Social Studies
Elizabeth Anne Yeager
Much has been written to describe bad teaching practices, but we need to do more to understand the characteristics of good ones.
The Geography of Connection: Bringing the World to Students
Mary S. Black
The techniques described here make it easier to teach about foreign places and cultures.
California Dreams in Southeast Baltimore: Using Technology in a Challenging School Setting
Timothy D. Slekar
Rap lyrics were the starting point for a project that involved these students in the cause of urban renewal.
Transforming the Spirit of Teaching through Wise Practice
Karen Lea Riley, Elizabeth K. Wilson and Terry Fogg
A student-centered approach and imaginative class activities characterize the constructivist-influenced teaching described in this article.
On Display: Preservice Teachers in the Museum
Linda H. Cox and Jill H. Barrow
Museums are much more than destinations for an annual field trip, and it is important to learn how to use them better.
Dismantling the Wall, One Brick at a Time: Overcoming Barriers to Parochialism in Social Studies Classrooms
Stuart J. Foster and John D. Hoge
In homogeneous communities, teachers can play a vital role in opening students eyes to the rich diversity of the world outside.
Writing about Immigration: Authentic Assessment for U.S. History Students
Patricia G. Avery, Dana Carmichael-Tanaka, Jennifer Kunze, and Nonie Petersen Kouneski
This unit made many students more aware of the experiences of their immigrant peersand, looking back, of their own family histories.
Election 2000: The Keys Point to Gore
Allan J. Lichtman
According to this prediction system with a highly successful track record, Al Gore is likely to be the victor in this years presidential election, regardless of how well he or George W. Bush organize their campaigns.
Instructional Technology
The E-Citizen
John K. Lee
The Internet has already begun to change the opportunities citizens have to participate in politics.
U.S. Supreme Court Trends
Charles F. Williams
Many decisions made by the Supreme Court last year had 5-4 majoritiesa number that politicians in this election year view with keen interest
We the Students: Supreme Court Cases for and about Students
by Jamin B. Raskin, reviewed by Jennifer Brandsberg-Engelmann
At a time when schools are testing grounds for constitutional tenets, this collection of cases identifies landmark decisions that have affected public school students.
Presidential Elections in the Age of Television
Jennifer Truran Rothwell
Television, as both news medium and commercial venture, has exerted a profound influence on American elections since its entry into the political arena in the late 1940s.
Presidential Character in Election 2000
James J. Lopach and Jean A. LuckowskiThis year's presidential election may be more heavily influenced than usual by questions of character. What makes up the "character" of a candidate for the highest office in the land?
Selecting Presidential Nominees: The Evolution of the Current System and Prospects for Reform
Scott Piroth
Critics argue that the process by which we choose our presidents is too long, too costly, and too divisivemaking it hard for presidents to govern. How did we get to the current system? And what might improve it?
Teaching with Documents
Documents Related to the Disputed General Election of 1876
Wynell Schamel, Lee Ann Potter, and Katherine Snodgrass
The presidential contest between Tilden and Hayes in 1876 put the electoral college system to the test and was only resolved by a political compromise that brought an end to Reconstruction.
Developing Strong Voters through Democratic Deliberation
Diana Hess
The careful deliberation of political issues in the classroom can help form citizens with a strong commitment to voting.
Elementary Education
How Fishing in Costa Rica Landed a Voter Education Project in America
Jay L. Cravath and Thomas M. McGowan
The model for Kids Voting USA, a civics education program that involves students in voting alongside their parents at the polls, originated with a school curriculum developed in Costa Rica.
Elementary Civics and the Election Year: Exercises on the Web
Linda B. Bennett
Two Internet-based projects help young students become engaged in the presidential election.
Surfing the Net
Democracy.gov? Thomas Jefferson, the Internet, and the Future of American Democracy
C. Frederick Risinger
Is the foundation of U.S. democracy shifting from a Madisonian to a Jeffersonian model? And, if so, is it good for democracy?
The Constitutional Struggle for Voting Rights in Washington, D.C.
Rebecca Kingsley and Jamin B. Raskin
The struggle of D.C. residents for equal voting rights has taken several forms, from seeking a constitutional amendment, to proposing a D.C. statehood bill in Congress, to the recent attempt to use the courts to attain the goal of one person-one vote.
Teaching with Cartoons
Looking at Elections through the Cartoonists Eye
Wm. Ray Heitzman
Although students often like political cartoons, many have trouble understanding them. The author proposes a step-by-step approach to help students develop the analytical skills needed to interpret cartoons.
Looking at the Law
Balancing Campaign Finance Reform Against the First Amendment
Elizabeth M. Yang
The rationale for campaign finance reformpreventing corruption or even the appearance of corruption in the electoral processmust be balanced against the constitutional rights protected by the First Amendment.
Presidential Debates: Not a Spectator Sport
These activities designed to help students analyze presidential debates are part of a curriculum produced by the Commission on Presidential Debates in collaboration with Kids Voting USA.
In Our Own Backyard: An Interview on Elian Gonzalezs Stay in Washington, D.C., with YFUs Sally Grooms Cowal
When Elian Gonzalez and his family came to stay on the Youth for Understanding property in Washington last spring, NCSS staff members became witnesses to a slice of history in the making.
"Dreams that You Dare to Dream:
Hopes and Ironies of the New York Worlds Fair, 1939-1940
Jared A. Fogel and Robert L. Stevens
A belief in the ability of technology to produce a better world for all was the optimistic theme of the New York Worlds Fair; but the bubble was burst as Germanys invasion of Poland in September 1939 launched the second total war of the 20th century.
Looking at the Law
Law and Pop Culture:
Teaching and Learning about Law Using Images from Popular Culture
Paul R Joseph
One way to teach about law is by comparing reality with the images seen in popular culture. Popular treatments of the law can, at best, encapsulate important legal issues; at worst, they still may offer a valuable exercise in critical thinking.
Lies, Damned Lies, and History:
An Interview with James Loewen
David Hicks
James Loewen, chronicler of lies told in U.S. history textbooks and across the American landscape, believes the study of historical causation is the central skill necessary for the intelligent exercise of citizenship.
Mixing It Up:
A Multilevel Book Room and Flexible Literature Circles
Andi Stix
When New York City recently mandated that middle school students should read 25 books a year, social studies teachers at one school responded by creating a multilevel book room that has proved both useful and popular with students.
The 1999 Carter G. Woodson Book Awards
Top honors in this years awards for books depicting ethnicity and race relations in the United States go to Rinna Evelyn Wolfe for Edmonia Lewis: Wildfire in Marble (secondary level) and John Duggleby for Story Painter: The Life of Jacob Lawrence (elementary level).
Violent Kids:
Can We Solve the Problem?
Michael deCourcy Hinds
American teenagers are the most violent when compared with their counterparts in other developed nations. This article looks at three possible causes of youth violence and the remedies proposed to solve them.
Elementary Education
Teaching Students with Mild Disabilities in Elementary Social Studies
Howard E. Taylor and Susan M. Larson
Public policy mandates that special education students be mainstreamed into regular classes. Teachers at all levelsbut especially where mainstreaming most commonly occursneed better preparation for helping these students to succeed academically.
Teaching with Documents
Telegram from Ho Chi Minh to Harry S. Truman
Lee Ann Potter and Wynell Schamel
The friendly relations that existed between American officials and the Viet Minh during World War II were not destined to survive the curtain descending between East and West in the early postwar years.
Book Review
Bringing History Home:
Local and Family History Projects for Grades K-6
Mary E. Haas
The reviewer finds this book, by M. Gail Hickey, as practical and comprehensive a guide for teaching local history at the K-6 level as I have seen.
Reconstructing a School's Past Using Oral Histories and GIS Mapping
Marsha Alibrandi, Candy Beal, Ann Thompson, and Anna Wilson
Uncovering the "invisible" history of their school--once the only black public high school in Raleigh, North Carolina--taught students at Ligon Middle School both new skills and old truths about their community.
Learning and Teaching with Interactive Simulations
John Zola and Andri Ioannidou
Building interactive simulations of past events is not just for the computer-savvy, but can enrich the historical understanding of all students.
Amy Wallace: Information Age Teacher
Howard Mehlinger
A retiring sixth grade teacher reflects on the profound changes technology made in her teaching as she says goodbye to the classroom in the year 2015.
Surfing the Net
Social Studies Portals: More than Just a Web Page
C. Frederick Risinger
In addition to having excellent home pages, some schools are doing an outstanding job of connecting their students to the best of the Web.
Virtual Field Trips and Newsrooms: Integrating Technology into the Classroom
Elizabeth Wilson
A voyage through time on the Internet can whet students interest in historic places and events.
Teaching What Matters: Great Videos on the Common Good
Gloria Alter
The use of the right videos can make classes on the common good come to life.
Software Reviews
GIS Programs: Geography Tools for Teachers and Students
Joseph Braun, Jr. and Corsandra Stallworth
The authors examine two new programs involving the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to teach the five themes of geography.
Diminishing the Complexity and Horror of the Holocaust: Using Simulations in an Attempt to Convey Historical Experiences
Samuel Totten
Using simulations to teach about the Holocaust may leave students with only a thin grasp of both its complex causes and its horrific effects. Why not let the victims and survivors speak for themselves?
Looking at the Law
The Legal Struggles to Gain Americans the Right to Vote
Samia J. Amamoo
The right to vote was hard won, but many citizens do not use it. Could more referendums and ballot initiatives reinvigorate our democracy?
Caribbean Crucible: History, Culture, and Globalization
Kevin A. Yelvington
The Caribbean may be seen as one point of origin in the modern system of globalization; understanding this means considering not only the Caribbeans role in the world, but the worlds role in the Caribbean.
Caribbean Politics: A Matter of Diversity
Paul Sutton
The Caribbean is an area of immense political diversity. This, coupled with the physical insularity of its nations and territories, makes it difficult to define common interests and achieve common goals.
Teaching Ideas
Mapping the Caribbean Region
Pedro R. Bermúdez and Bárbara C. Cruz
This lesson asks students to make mental maps of the Caribbean as a starting point for developing their understanding of the physical and cultural geography of the region.
Cuba: Background to a Revolution
Alejandro de la Fuente
Despite forty years of Soviet-style socialism, the fate of Cubaboth its future promise and the formidable obstacles facing itremains linked with that of the surrounding island nations.
The Marginalization of Jamaican Immigrants of Color in the United States: An Interview
Toni Fuss Kirkwood
Jamaican immigrants of color face complex issues, rooted in both their own and American history, in their attempts to assimilate to life in the United States.
Womens Voices from the Caribbean: An Annotated Bibliography
Jason OBrien
The experiences and concerns expressed by Caribbean women authors are fertile ground for broadening students perspectives on the complex nature of Caribbean cultures.
The Caribbean Online: Exploration through Internet Resources
Michael J. Berson
This list of websites offers a variety of perspectives on the Caribbean, including those of organizations that promote awareness and/or support development of the region.
Resources for Teaching about the Caribbean
Toni Fuss Kirkwood
This article highlights some of the excellent resources and organizations that can aid educators in teaching about the Caribbean.
Teaching with Documents
Legacy of Health: Documentary Photographs of the Panama Canal Construction
Wynell Schamel and Lee Ann Potter. Guest Editor: Jean M. West
The success of public health efforts against yellow fever and malaria may be the most lasting benefit of the U.S. enterprise in Panama.
Acculturation and Immigrant Children: Implications for Educators
Beth Kurtz-Costes and Elizabeth P. Pungello
Immigrant children in the classroom pose both challenge and opportunity for teachers. The authors present five recommendations aimed at fostering multiculturalism in our nations schools.
Book Reviews
A Passion for the PastCreative Teaching of U.S. History by James A. Percoco
Murry R. Nelson
This book conveys the excitement one teacher experiences in taking his students beyond the textbook and the classroom in pursuit of historical truth.
Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong by James W. Loewen
George T. Swain
Loewen takes pen in hand to correct more errors in U.S. history-telling; his subject this time is the stories conveyed by historic sites throughout the American landscape.
Presidents Address
Social Studies Education: A Challenge, A Choice, and a Commitment
Richard Theisen
It can be hard for teachers producing "900 shows a year" to stop and ask "why?" do a lesson in this way rather than another. But the involvement of teachers in considering the large questions about the social studies is vital to our role in training future citizens.
Challenges to the Common Good in the Age of Globalism
Benjamin R. Barber
The idea of the common good that underlies our democracy is under challenge from globalization and the forces that flow from it. These include the privatization of public power, the commercialization of what is privatized, and the infantilization of citizensviewed solely in their role as consumersaround the world.
The Filmmaker as Humanist: An Interview with Tim Robbins on the Making of Cradle Will Rock
Terrence C. Mason
The role of the artist as social critic is examined in an interview with filmmaker Tim Robbins that centers on his new film about a WPA theater production cancelled presumably on political grounds late in the New Deal era.
Special Section
Preface: Footsteps of a New Millennium
H. Michael Hartoonian and Richard Van Scotter
The essays presented here examine how our contemporary conditions are connected to the past, and pose questions about what we must do to achieve a more sane and just society in the future.
Students at the Millennium
John Driscoll
This is an unsettled time in which to be coming of age; helping students to obtain clarity of vision about our republic and what constitutes the role of citizen is the best we can offer as social studies teachers.
The Changing Face of Knowledge
Simon Hooper and Brad Hokanson
How we can make the most intelligent use of the computer technology becoming ubiquitous in our schools depends on our understanding of how learning occurs and what current research teaches us.
Navigating a New Information Landscape
Charlie Fitzpatrick
The new information landscape presents a dual challenge to educators: students must be taught the traditional skills needed to evaluate information critically, while teachers must become more comfortable with the computer and Internet as tools of learning.
The Real Business of America: Ethics and New Economic Realities
H. Michael Hartoonian and Richard Van ScotterThe current tension between democracy and capitalism can best be resolved if we understand the individual not merely as "economic man," and "wealth" not primarily as the accretion of material objects.
Where have we come from and where are we going? The various perspectives about major issues for the next century offered here are drawn from both older and younger Americans.
Changing Family Forms
M. Therese Seibert and Marion C. Willetts
While family forms have changed greatly over the past century, institutional and cultural adjustments to these changes have been slower in comingmaking family issues the subject of an intense debate that shows no signs of flagging as we enter the new millennium.
Citizenship: The Democratic Imagination in a Global Context
John J. Cogan, David Grossman, and Mei-hui LeiIf global forces are to increasingly shape the world, then what kind of citizen is needed to function in global society? This article views citizenship as having four dimensionspersonal, social, spatial, and temporal and discusses ways for teaching the concept of multidimensional citizenship.
Civic Organizing and the Renewal of Public Education
Tony Massengale and Peg Michels
Our major institutions need to offer more support to those who seek to practice good citizenship.
School Voucher Plans Raise Key Church-State Issues
Charles White and Charles F. WilliamsThis article looks at the issue of tax-funded school voucher programs through the prism of the constitutional question it raises involving the "wall of separation" between church and state.
Mulling Over the Millennium
Charles Cross and William Hewitt
Is the end of the millennium and the 20th century a "defining moment" in history? What can we learn from looking backward and forward in time?
Teaching With Documents
The 1897 Petition Against the Annexation of Hawaii
Wynell Schamel and Charles E. Schamel
The U. S. annexation of Hawaii in 1898 was a paradox of democracy, using the trappings of democratic forms to circumvent the wishes of the Hawaiian people.
Culture Shock: Using Art and Art Controversy to Teach History
Robert McBride, Jr.
Students access to art is greater than at any time in history, making it all the more imperative to confront honestly the kinds of questions art may raise about the prevailing notions of society.
Understanding Political Polls: A Key Citizenship Skill for the 21st Century
Kevin Pobst
Most campaign polling firms are as invisible to the public as the caterer at an election victory party; how not to swallow bad findings is an important skill of citizenship learning.
The Keys to Election 2000
Allan J. Lichtman
The prediction model outlined here is based on thirteen key questions stated as propositions favoring the reelection of the incumbent party. The outcome of the presidential election may hinge on whether there is a serious contest for the Democratic Party nomination.
The IEA Civic Education Study: National and International Perspectives
Carole L. Hahn and Judith Torney-Purta
This study of civic education across national boundaries is uncovering many commonalities, including a common core of content, a widely perceived gap between democratic goals and societal realities, and a concern everywhere about diversity and what direction to take in teaching about it.
The Turn of the Millennium
Robert Cohen and Diana Turk
As the new millennium dawns, Americans might do well to temper the current spirit of triumphalism with a hard look at our failure to correct serious inequities within or own society or to honestly examine the implications of our actions on the world stage.
The U.S. Census: Americas Reflecting Pool
Jennifer Truran Rothwell
Looking at the 21 decennial censuses taken from 1790 to the upcoming Census 2000 can help students understand the fundamental importance of the U. S. census and its relationship to trends and issues in our history.
Census 2000: Trends and Issues in Counting the People
Nancy P. Gallavan
The importance of obtaining a complete count of the populationand the barriers to doing soare emphasized in this article on Census 2000.
Census 2000 and Service Learning
Kathleen Kennedy Townsend
Students can learn much about our democracy and their own communities by volunteering to help with Census 2000.
The American Trial Jury: Current Issues and Controversies
John Paul Ryan
The trial jury, a venerable institution of democracy and citizen participation, is nevertheless not without its controversies. This article looks at problems and progress in the U. S. jury system. An accompanying article by Hannah Leitermann on "The Citizen's Jury" traces the history of the trial jury in English and American jurisprudence.
1999 Social Education Index
Multiple Choice to Multiple Rubrics: One Teachers Journey in Assessment
Michael M. Yell
As the authors teaching progressed, he realized that his assessment practices needed to change too.
Stop Misusing Tests to Evaluate Teachers
Monty Neill
The Executive Director of Fairtest points out the difference between holding teachers responsible and scapegoating them for test scores that are beyond their control.
The Changing Nature and Purpose of Assessment in the Social Studies Classroom
Janet Alleman and Jere Brophy
As educational reform forces a new look at social studies testing, here are some important guidelines for planning assessments.
A Teachers Reflections on Teaching and Assessing in a Standards-based Classroom
Jody Smothers Marcello
Imaginative class assignments can make assessment a better experience for both teachers and students.
Opening Assessment to our Students
Diane Hart
Teaching students to assess themselves well may be one of the best things a teacher can do.
Evaluating Students in a Course on Social Advocacy
Barbara L. Wysocki
The right evaluation strategies can ensure that service learning develops students intellectual understanding and personal growth.
Observation as an Assessment Tool
Pat Nickell and Angene Wilson
Observing an active classroom is a challenge, but these tips can help.
The Issue of Subjectivity in Authentic Social Studies Assessment
Pat Nickell
Although the risk of subjectivity is inherent in authentic assessment, there are sound ways of reducing it.
Can Statewide Assessments Help Reform the Social Studies Curriculum?
Bruce Brousseau
In a situation where "what gets tested is what gets taught," social studies educators in Michigan faced the challenge of developing high-quality assessments tied to state standards.
Breaking New Ground: The Comprehensive Social Studies Assessment Project
Fred Czarra
This major consortium effort involving 23 states seeks to develop assessments that reflect high-level thinking processes.
The Maryland Experience in Standards-Based Assessment
Marcie Taylor-Thoma
A state website can be an excellent means of disseminating information about tests and honing the assessment skills of teachers.
Authentic Assessment and Instruction
Patricia G. Avery
Authentic assessment only works properly when it is supported by authentic teaching.
Theme-Based Portfolio Assessment in Social Studies Teacher Education
Andrew J. Milson and Sarah M. Brantley
If students develop their own portfolios in teacher education programs, they are more likely to practice portfolio assessment when they become teachers.
Social Studies Assessment: The Role of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards
Ronald G. Helms
Here are some answers to questions often asked about the certification of social studies teachers by NBPTS.
A Quest for Knowledge
Mary Teague Mason, Cindy Linzell, Janis Laybourn and Shelley McElwee
Teachers who participate in the Internet-based Quests of Dan Buettner show how the right assessment practices help convert student enthusiasm into an understanding of other cultures.
U.S. Supreme Court Trends
Charles F. Williams and Hannah Leiterman
This regular column reviews key decisions of the last Supreme Court term, and previews the next one, with suggestions for stimulating class activities.
From Mountain Men to Miners
Robert L. Stevens and Jared A. Fogel
The move from family farm to coal camp wrought dramaticand sometimes disastrouschanges in the lives of people in Appalachia during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Elementary Teaching Ideas
"I thought the world was flat, like the map showed it": Building Geographic Understanding with Elementary Students
Gwendolyn Thompson
Building a model of the globe helps children to better understand many geographic concepts and can provide a reference point for continued learning throughout the year.
Reaching for the Sky: The Growth of Mountain Tourism in Switzerland
Jennifer Truran Rothwell
Once the bane of travellers, the mountain passes of Switzerland were opened to modern tourism through a series of engineering feats specifically aimed to carry tourists ever higher into the Alps.
Special Section
Mountains: A Global Resource
This special section examines the critical importance of mountains to the people who inhabit them and to the world at large. The curriculum presented here supports "The Mountain Agenda"an international initiative designed to raise public awareness about mountain ecosystemsand results from a collaboration between The Mountain Institute and National Council for the Social Studies.
Multiculturalism vs. Globalism
Nelly Ukpokodu
Although multiculturalism and globalism share significant purposes in the social studies curriculum, teaching either concept well requires drawing some important distinctions between them.
Looking at the Law
The Evolution of Human Rights in the Age of Biotechnology
John Paul Ryan and Benjamin Hron
The era of genetic engineering is upon us and there is no avoiding the legal issues it poses, many of which constitute uncharted ground for ethicists no less than biologists. This article offers an assessment of the implications of recent scientific advances, as well as related teaching activities (Hilary Glazer and Hannah Leiterman), a discussions of bioethics and the law (Elizabeth Yang) and an expression of concern about some potential pitfalls of biotechnology (Ami S. Jaeger).
Teaching with Documents
The 1820 Census of Manufactures
Lee Ann Potter and Wynell Schamel
The movement of young women from farm life to textile mill workers reflected the changing fortunes of New England farmers and merchants as the Napoleonic Wars pulled the young American nation into their wake.
Women Reformers in the Progressive Era
Judith McDonough
The liberal spirit of the Progressive Era beckoned womenboth college graduates and members of the working classto carve out their own places in the public world outside the home.
"Will the Circle Be Unbroken?": Using Oral Histories to Tell the Story of the Civil Rights Movement
Ellen Spears and Marcia Klenbort
An audio documentary series brings alive the civil rights movement in five Southern communities through the voices of more than 250 people who took part in the events that brought an end to legal segregation in U.S. society.
Teaching with Documents
The Arrest Records of Rosa Parks
Stacey Bredhoff, Wynell Schamel, and Lee Ann Potter
The 381-day Montgomery bus boycott that followed the arrest of Rosa Parks for refusing to relinquish her seat on a city bus to a white passenger was a crucial event in mobilizing national and worldwide support for the civil rights movement.
Critical Literature for the Social Studies: Challenges and Opportunities for the Elementary Classroom
Neil Houser
Getting the "feel" of a situation through reflecting on literature that addresses difficult social and cultural issues can help children to become more critical of self and society and to develop greater empathy for others.
The Great American Prairie: An Integrated Fifth Grade Unit
Terrence V. Stange and Susan L. Wyant
The pioneer experience on the American prairie offers a rich field for integrating the language arts with various disciplines within the social studies.
How Newspapers Framed the U. S. History Standards Debate
Patricia G. Avery and Theresa Johnson
The release of the National Standards for United States History sparked a controversy that went far beyond their merit as curriculum guidelines to questions about the nature of the American past; but the voices heard in this debate were limited, and scarcely included classroom teachers and their students.
The 1998 Carter G. Woodson Book Awards
These annual awards honor books with themes dealing with U.S. race relations and ethnic minorities in a manner suitable for elementary and secondary school students. This years Elementary Award Winner is Milton Meltzer for his biography of Langston Hughes. The Secondary Award Winner is Leon Walter Tillage for his memoir, Leons Story.
Get Your Students Involved in Civics
Stephen C. Sansone
Developing a political identity is not only an important goal of civics education, but may provide the impetus for students to learn what it really means to be an informed citizen.
Human Rights Series
Human Rights for Children: The Unfinished Agenda
William R. Fernekes
The idea that children need specific rights guarantees, first proposed by 19th century social reformers, was codified in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989.This article looks at the state of progress in three areas of childrens rights: access to education, children and violence, and child health.
Point of View
Education for Sale: Whats a (Democratic) Principle Worth?
Michael Hartoonian
The current movement toward the privatization of education allows us to know the price of schooling. But how much do we value the common good, and its corollary, the common school?
John Kays Civil War: A Multimedia Internet Project for Middle School Social Studies
Russell B. Olwell
The war diary and letters of one Civil War soldier take on new life as students use Hyperstudio to relate Kays experiences in words, maps, photographs, and music.
The Social Studies Classroom on the Eve of the Cyber Century
Jana Sackman Eaton
The Internet is providing resources once hardly imaginable for ordinary classrooms; but its not Utopia, and teachers have a vital role in helping students to think critically about information on the web.
American History Websites for Use in Secondary Schools
William Leeman
From the Salem Witch Trials to the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk to the Camp David Accords, the websites offered here have been carefully evaluated for their accuracy and usefulness in secondary social studies classrooms.
Help! Im Lost in Cyberspace!
Antoinette Kranning and Lee Ehman
A project called "Mystery from History" brings together fifth grade students and university pre-service teachers via e-mail exchanges throughout a semester.
Content-Rich Commercial Websites in the Social Studies
Aaron Willis
The growing number of fee-based Internet resources for the social studies includes websites devoted to history, current events, primary sources, and virtual fieldtrips.
Point of View
Threshing Out the Myths and Facts of Internet Safety: A Response to "Separating Wheat from Chaff"
Michael Berson, Irene R. Berson, and Elizabeth Ralston
Schools and teachers serve as a critical line of defense in the protection of children from maltreatment, and must consider how to safeguard students from offensive sexual materials and situations as they undertake assignments on the Internet.
Software Reviews
History Uninspired? A Critical Look at Tom Snyders American History Inspirer: The Civil War
Chad C. Fairey, Clifford T. Bennett, and John Lee
SVE Series on World and U.S. History
Clifford T. Bennett, J. Richelle Joe, and Ken Watson
Radarsat Satellite Images: A New Geography Tool for Upper Elementary Classrooms
Joseph M. Kirman
There is a world of classroom uses for the information gathered by earth resources satellites such as Landsat and Radarsat. Children in the upper elementary grades are capable of making use of various kinds of images produced by remote sensing.
Human Rights Series
We Must Integrate Human Rights into the Social Studies
Ed OBrien
Neither the goals nor the language of human rights have achieved a strong foothold in social studies education in the United Stateswhich may help to explain why we see human rights abuses as something that can happen anywhere else but here.
China Update: Economic Reforms and Political Realities
Jana Sackman Eaton
China today is experiencing an economic transformation and greater political frankness. The new opportunities do not extend to the vast majority of Chinas people, which may spell greater turmoil in the future.
Learning Across Cultures: From New York City to Rotorua
Claire Schnell and Joan Brodsky Schur
This cross-cultural exchange between students in the United States and New Zealand made use of every form of communication at handwith fax proving the most versatile.
Special Section: Preservation and Change
Sustainable Development in Costa Rica: An Approach to the Geography Curriculum
Douglas Heffington and Judith Mimbs
The tools of geography can help as people in developing nations seek to improve their livelihoods in ways that preserve the environment. But the process is challenging, as shown in this study of the Bribri, an indigenous people who live on a reserve in the Talamanca Mountains of southeastern Costa Rica.
The Monteverde CommunityA Whole Greater than Its Parts
Quint Newcomer
The feeling of community so essential to achieving sustainable development is very much evident in this mountain town. Its surrounding forest preserves, with their vast biodiversity, have become a magnet for nature tourists.
Ecostudents: The New Wave of Students Abroad
Sandra Woy-Hazelton
As universities and other organizations have begun offering programs of environmental study in nations throughout the world, the profile of the student abroad has changed to include the new ecostudents.
Exploring Development Issues Using the Internet
Richard A. Diem
The Internet offers a vast pool of resources on development issues worldwide. Here are some excellent websites for students to begin research on Central America and Mexico.
Environmental Degradation in a Dependent Region: the Rio Grande Valley of Mexico and Texas
Richard C. Jones
The development of the maquiladora corridor along the Texas-Mexico border in recent decades has been accompanied by an increase in pollution and resultant health problems in twin cities along the Rio Grande.
Plotting and Analyzing: Graphing Calculators for Social Inquiry
Joe Garofalo, Clifford Bennett and Cheryl Mason
More commonly used in math classes, graphing calculators have capabilities for data plotting and analysis that can enhance student understanding in many areas of the social studies.
Teaching Presidential Impeachment
Jean A. Luckowsi and James J. Lopach
An issues-centered approach to impeachment can help students to both appreciate the wisdom of our constitutional framework and understand why such strong differences over how to interpret the Constitution emerged in the recent debate over impeaching President Clinton.
Looking at the Law
Affirmative Action: Contentious Ideas and Controversial Practices
John Michael Eden and John Paul Ryan
Nine scholars meet in cyberspace to talk about affirmative action in terms of its original intent to counter past racism and "level the playing field" in American society, and the thinking behind recent court decisions and statewide voter intiatives that challenge its practice.
Human Rights Series
The Scourge of Genocide: Issues Facing Humanity Today and Tomorrow
Samuel Totten
Most responsible world leaders decry the act of genocide, but seem to do so only after the fact. Yet while the causes of genocide are complex and varying, the effects on victims are the same, and demand that we search for better remedies against this recurrent human tragedy.
Book Reviews
We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch
Samuel Totten
This book takes a critical look at the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and concludes that responsibility for itthough lying chiefly with its perpetratorsalso extends to the actions of other nations and the inaction of the international community as a whole. The book received the National Book Critics Circle Award for History in 1998.
Point of View
The Value of Teaching Values
Jeff Passe
Teaching values to school children is not a discrete activity, but involves choices made at every step in the process of education. Its ultimate goal should be to foster the open discussion that prepares students for their rights and responsibilities as citizens of a democracy.
Presidents Address
Toward a Humane World: Making a Difference with Social Studies
Tedd Levy"The one part of the education system most responsible for citizenship, and our future, is social studies education. The one person who can most make a difference is a caring adultyou, the teacher."
Saints or Sinners? The Case for an Honest Portrayal of Historical Figures
Susan I. KentThe presentation of our national past as a "spectacular, flag-waving saga" is incomplete, less than honest, and impossible to maintain in the face of modern media. Children are more likely to benefit from a realistic understanding of the people and events that have shaped our nation.
Jim Crow, Uncle Sam, and the Formation of the Tuskegee Flying Units
William Percy
The success of the all-black Tuskegee flying units of World War II defied the expectations of some and pointed the way for all to achieve genuine integration of the U.S. armed forces.
The Schoolwide Symposium: A Model for Learning
Walt Cottingham
The energizing effect of a week-long symposium on Vietnam in a small high school in North Carolina set the precedent for an annual school event eagerly anticipated by students, teachers, and the local community.
Teaching Multicultural Social Studies in an Era of Political Eclipse
Alan Singer
Student concerns about social justice often lead to placing multicultural issues at the center of the social studies curriculum. Teaching multicultural education through an inquiry-based approach makes for a natural combination of method and purpose.
Teaching with Documents
General Orders Pertaining to Removal of the Cherokees
Lee Ann Potter and Wynell SchamelBy order of Major General Winfield Scott, "every possible kindness" was to be extended to the Cherokees during their forced removal beyond the Mississippi in 1838. But what could "kindness" possibly mean given the circumstances?
Elementary Education
Elementary Students Learn about Native Americans: the Development of Knowledge and Empathy
Jere Brophy
Two recent studies suggest that, while most elementary students progress beyond the cartoon stereotypes of Native Americans that young children absorb from the media, their knowledge of and empathy for Native Americans dwindles when the curriculum shifts to the westward expansion of the United States in fifth grade.
Authentic Voices: Advice for Incorporating American Indians and Alaska Natives in the Elementary School Curriculum
Frances V. Rains and Karen Gayton SwisherThe narrow teaching about Native Americans typified by the elementary "Indian unit" is more hindrance than help in comprehending the diversity that exists among indigenous peoples, and the unique position of Indian tribes or nations within the federal government system.
Resources for Teaching about American Indians
Karen Harvey
There are many good resources for teaching about American Indians with accuracy and respect. This article offers a sampling of what is available in several media.
Native American Tribal Websites
Eric L. Miller
With the advent of the Internet, American Indian nations now have official tribal websites. This list will help readers to explore the diversity of Native American cultures.
Point of View
Native Americans as Mascots
Sharon Pray Muir
The lesson presented here uses role reversal to help students consider the issue of how it might feel to belong to a group that was portrayed as a sports mascot.
Human Rights Series
Human Rights and Foreign Policy: A Lesson Plan
Amnesty International Human Rights Service Corps
U.S. citizens can influence the actions of their government. This lesson plan examines how individuals may affect the making of foreign policy based on human rights concerns.
Guest Editors: Xue Lan Rong and M. Gail Hickey
Foreword: Focusing on the New Immigration
Xue Lan Rong and M. Gail Hickey
This special issue of Social Education focuses on schools as the primary gateway for absorbing newcomers into United States society, and explores new ideas for empowering immigrants that challenge the traditional model of assimilation.
The New Immigration: Challenges Facing Social Studies Professionals
Xue Lan Rong
For the United States, massive immigration is the current reality and a future prospect. Social studies professionals have a vital role to play in making the largest ethnic transformation in our history a success.
Voices from Little Asia: "Blue Dragon" Teens Reflect on Their Experiences as Asian Americans
Melinda F. Cowart, Ron W. Wilhelm, and Ronald E. Cowart
In a community program in Dallas, Asian American youths from several countries share their differing heritages as well as their common experiences in adjusting to mainstream American society.
Using Media Literacy to Explore Stereotypes of Mexican Immigrants
Lucila Vargas and Bruce dePyssler
The current media portrayal of Mexican immigrants and native-born Latinos differs little from the historical pattern of negative coverage. Media literacy tools can help students deconstruct the stereotypes and other false images prevalent in general-market media.
Teaching Ideas
Young Children Learn About Immigrants to the United States
Judith Y. Singer and Theodora Harbour-Ridley
Teaching about immigration is an inclusive effort that involves pre-schoolers and elementary students, teachers and parents, at the Morris L. Eisenstein Learning Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Common Threads: Teaching Immigration in Elementary Classrooms
Robin Haskell McBee, Kristine Bone, Gail Mossop, and Carrie Owens
Helping students to understand and take pride in our countrys multicultural heritage is the common goal in teaching about immigration in three classrooms.
The Role of the Immigrant in United States History: A Thematic Approach
Mary E. Connor
Immigration lends itself well to teaching history thematically. Using this approach, students can observe how the same issues have arisen time after time as the nation struggled to define its immigration policyand itself.
Bilingual Education: An Overview
Rosa Castro Feinberg and Consuelo Conde Morencia
Students with limited English proficiency constitute a special challenge in todays classrooms. This article reviews some of the approaches to bilingual education now being used to help these children succeed academically.
If You Can Make It There, You Can Make It Anywhere: Teaching Immigrant Students in New York City
Margaret Smith Crocco with Delia Barr Brooks and Kimberly Woo
The dramatic influx of immigrant children into the New York public school system provides a challengeand a unique laboratoryfor teacher education programs. This article looks at one such program for the social studies.
"Back Home, Nobody'd Do That": Immigrant Students and Cultural Models of Schooling
Gail Hickey
Students bring their own expectations of schooling into the classroom. Knowing more about the cultural backgrounds of immigrant students can help teachers to avoid cultural misunderstandings that detract from learning.
Immigration and Multiculturalism: Issues in Australian Society and Schools
Lindsay J. Parry
Australias recognition that it is a multicultural society is of recent date and remains the subject of controversy. Will the school curriculum be inclusive of the many peoples who have formed this nation or a means of reasserting the centrality of the Anglo-Celtic past?
Surfing the Web
Teaching about Immigration
Frederick Risinger
A number of good websites on immigration can help stimulate classroom discussion. This controversial topic can also be a good way to introduce students to website bias.
Human Rights Series
The Rights of Refugees
Jennifer Truran Rothwell"Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution," states Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But as the conditions of modern warfare continue to uproot millions of people, where can today's refugees find safe haven?
Looking at the Law
The Changing Face of Immigration Law
Christina DeConcini, Jeanine S. Piller, and Margaret Fisher
The United States is in the midst of a cold spel#148; with regard to immigration, as evidenced by several laws passed by Congress in 1996. What accounts for the fluctuations in American attitudes toward newcomers, and how are todays immigrants being affected by the new legislation?
Teaching with Documents
Declaration of Intention and Petition for Naturalization
Lee Ann Potter and Wynell Schamel
The legal requirements for becoming a United States citizen have changed little since the founding of the nation, although the paperwork has been streamlined. This article uses documents submitted by Greta Garbo and one Archibald Leach to explain the process of naturalization.
Annual Index: 1998
Guest Editor: Karen Barss
Re-Exploring Early America
Karen Barss
A television series that examines both the impact of slavery and the critical role of African Americans in challenging our nation to live up to its democratic ideals will air on PBS this month.
Facing Slavery and Ourselves
Llewellyn Smith
Delving into the ordeal of slavery may be painful, but it offers the best chance for healing racial wounds based on a true understanding of our shared past.
Slavery and the Origins of the Civil War
Eric Foner
The new historiography of the "peculiar institution" strikes at the heart of the traditional understanding of slavery.
Race in Pre-Civil War America
Noel Ignatiev
How was it possible to create a massive social force to defend the slave system when it benefitted so few economically? The experience of the Irish in mid-19th century America helps reveal how the concept of racial supremacy operated to "divide and conquer" groups with shared economic interests.
Black Women and Their Antebellum Quest for Political and Social Equality
Willi Coleman
Black women played an important part in the movement to abolish slavery, and some found their efforts to achieve racial freedom leading them into the issue of gender equality as well.
Teaching Ideas
Exploring Primary Sources: the Ideal of Liberty and the Reality of Slavery
Linda Mizell
This lesson plan leads students to consider the statement, "Resolved: American slavery is an oxymoron," in terms of the attitudes revealed in primary source documents from the period leading up to the American Revolution.
Students Speak Out
In a roundtable discussion, student advisors to the WGBH Africans in America project offer their own understandings based on historical study and their work with the series makers.
Classroom Focus
Charles Johnson
This original story of a slave rebellion by award-winning author Charles Johnson is accompanied by ideas for "Using Fiction to Support History Teaching" by classroom teacher Peggy Dyro.
African Americans, U.S. History, and the Internet
C. Frederick Risinger
These web sites are a great resource for looking further into the African American experience in U. S. history.
Creating Time to Develop Student Thinking
John Saye
Combining modern technology with the model for instructional spaces offered here can free the teacher to make real use of the Socratic method with students.
Putting a Lid on Campaign Spending: A Lesson Plan
Rita G. Koman
With campaign spending at an unprecedented high in U.S. elections, the author highlights the problems involved, and offers ideas for helping students to study this complicated issue.
Supreme Court Trends
L. Anita Richardson
A look backward and forward at some of the most important cases before the highest court in the land.
Human Rights Series
Bringing Human Rights Home: Human Rights Education for the 21st Century
Loretta Ross and Meghna Gupta
The authors propose that human rights must be to the 21st century what democracy was to the 20tha liberating force that demands freedom and justice for all.
Guest Editors H. Thomas Collins, Frederick R. Czarra, Andrew F. Smith
The Post-Cold War Era: Implications for Educators
Maurice A. East
The world after the Cold War is less dangerous for the United States, but no easier to navigate than before.
NATO Expansion
Karen Volker
NATO has been an unexpectedly successful deterrent force, so it's not surprising that many former Warsaw Pact countries want to join.
Schools Demining Schools: A Global Teach-In
United Nations Global Teach-In Project and the American Forum for Global Education
Minefields across the world exact a terrible toll on civilians. Schools can do something about itand some have already tried.
Teaching Ideas
Population and Development Issues
Sharon Cohen and Christopher Garran
As the world prepares for its six-billionth inhabitant in 1999, students need to know more about the relationship between population growth and economic development.
Point of View
Development Aid: No Time to Retreat from Global Leadership
Charles F. Dambach
Does the miserly contribution of the U.S. government to the alleviation of world poverty threaten its international leadership role?
Global Cultures: The First Steps Toward Understanding
Elsie Begler
Teaching about other cultures is less daunting with the world culture framework suggested here.
On the Internet
Global Education and the Internet
Fred Risinger
With Internet resources on the upsurge, exploring the world from the classroom has become a reality.
Teaching Ideas
How Big is Africa?
Deborah Smith Johnston with Barbara Brown
A better sense of geography breaks down barriers to comprehending the vast diversity of the African continent.
Global Connections: Where Am I? How Did I Get Here? Where Am I Going?
Chadwick F. Alger
We are all inextricably involved in global networks. What kind of world will todays students create by participating in them?
Making Global Connections in a Chicago Classroom
Charlotte C. Anderson with Steven Brumbaugh, Erin Drankwalter, Scott Hemmer, Michael Myers and Joann Podkul
The links between local and global challenges become apparent in many forms of community service.
Expressing a Global Perspective: Experiences in a Mexican Classroom
Clark Johnson
Seeing ourselves as others see us is a good start toward developing a global perspective.
Elementary Teaching Ideas
Hmong Paj Ntaub: Using Textile Arts to Teach Young Children about Cultures
Ava L. McCall
Textile arts can provide a good entry into another culture for elementary students.
Getting to the Source: State Department Resources on Foreign Policy
Dave Rabadan
The U.S. State Department offers excellent online resources for teachers.
Cold War: Talking with the Producers of the TV Documentary Series
Jeremy Isaacs and Martin Smith discuss the educational goals of their upcoming, 24-part CNN documentary on the Cold War.
Human Rights Series
The Birth of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Michael Cooper
The modern global emphasis on human rights grew out of the worlds collective horror at the human depredations of World War II.
Resources on Global Education
Frederick R. Czarra, H. Thomas Collins and Andrew F. Smith
These teacher-oriented organizations provide resources on the worlds regions and problems.
Guidelines for Global and International Studies Education
Frederick R. Czarra, Andrew F. Smith and H. Thomas Collins
Our guest editors offer guidelines for teaching about global challenges, cultures, and connections based on their survey of the field of international education.
Teaching Ideas
Workers Theatre as an Inquiry Process for Exploring Social Issues of the 1930s
George W. Chilcoat
The workers theatre movement of the 1930s attempted to unite actors and audience in devising solutions to societal problems. Re-enacting its dramatic forms is a great way to introduce students to the issues of the time.
From Hiroshima to Homer Simpson: Using Literature to Confront the Impact of Nuclear Energy
Dennis BanksThe problems associated with nuclear energy have given even its peacetime use a bad rap in today's society. This article suggests several fiction and non-fiction titles that may help expand students' knowledge of the hazardsand the potential of nuclear power.
The Epic of Sundiata: Using African Literature in the Classroom
Margaret Sullivan
The Epic of Sundiata, which chronicles the rise of the Empire of Mali in the grasslands of northwestern Africa in the 13th century, is a compelling drama that bears comparison to such other hero tales as The Iliad andits own contemporarythe Arthurian legend.
Writing Poetry in the Elementary Social Studies Classroom
George Maxim
Creative writing should be no less a part of the elementary social studies writing program than are expository forms. This article looks at the use of a poetic formthe cinquainto teach about Mexican vaqueras in a fourth grade unit on the American Southwest.
The 1997 Carter G. Woodson Book Awards
These annual awards honor books that deal with subjects relating to U.S. ethnic minorities and race relations in a manner suitable for readers at the elementary and secondary levels. This years highest awards go to Suhair Hamid Ghazi for Ramadan, a book for young readers about celebrating the holiest month in the Islamic calendar, and to Jim Haskins for The Harlem Renaissance, an excellent resource that brings Harlem in the 1920s and 1930s to life for high school students.
Elementary Teaching Ideas
Hot on the Campaign Trail! Teaching Social Studies through Drama
Mary Kathleen Barnes
The author introduces her third grade students to U.S. politics by using drama frames to actively involve them in the electoral process and the workings of the three branches of the federal government.
Elementary Teaching Ideas
Building the George Washington Bridge: A First Grade Experience
Elizabeth P. McMillan
What can a first grade teacher do with a sturdy 8-foot cardboard box? In this case, build the towers of the George Washington Bridge, and then let students take over the jobs of construction workers on the bridge and tugboat captains on the river.
Notable Childrens Trade Books in the Field of Social Studies 1998
Teaching Ideas
Perspectives on the American Landscape: The Conflict between Native and European American Ideas of Landownership
Fay Powe
Theres more to American landscape images than meets the eye; they are a window into conflicting ideas about the meaning and proper use of the land in different periods of American history.
Teaching with Documents
The Inquiry into the Education of Don Henry and His Subsequent Death in the Spanish Civil War
Charles E. Schamel and Wynell B. Schamel
Don Henrys path from the University of Kansas to a battleground in Spain became the subject of a politicized inquiry into the very nature of a university.
American Memory: Using Library of Congress Online Resources to Enhance History Teaching
Laurel R. Singleton and James R. Giese"Imagine having ready access in your classroom to millions of primary sources related to American history." This article presents some model lessons on how to use them.
EDSITEment: The Best of the Humanities on the Web for High School Students
Candace Katz
This article introduces websites that a group of humanities teachers chose as the top 20 now available on the Web. Most have social studies value.
Separating Wheat from Chaff: Why Dirty Pictures Are Not the Real Dilemma in Using the Internet to Teach Social Studies
C. Frederick RisingerStop worrying about those dumb--and even hateful--sites on the Internet. They can be grist for the mill in helping students to develop their critical thinking skills.
Waking the Sleeping Giant: A Learning Community in Social Studies Methods and Technology
Stephen A. Rose and Henry F. Winterfeldt
Helping preservice teachers understand the potential of technology generated a lot of excitement in this learning community.
Building a Useful Elementary Social Studies Website
Dawn F. Thomas, Martin M. Creel and John Day
Read how a website for elementary school field trips blossomed into a full-scale "electronic curriculum" in one large urban/suburban school system.
Meridian: Inventing an Online Journal
Cheryl L. Mason and Edwin R. Gerler
It's fast. It's accessible. Creative, too. An online journal may be just the thing for connecting you to the latest, greatest ideas for social studies classrooms.
Software Reviews: 3-D Atlas 97 and America Rock
Clifford T. Bennett and Kara DawsonOur reviewers look at two CD-ROMs. 3-D Atlas 97 is a reference CD-ROM for grades five and up. America Rock uses interactive games to teach history, geography, and civics to students in grades three through eight.
The Start Is as Important as the Finish: Establishing a Foundation for Study of the Holocaust
Samuel Totten
Discovering what kind of knowledge base students bring to study of the Holocaust can help overcome misperceptions and increase understanding of this complex and tragic event.
Team-Teaching AP History and English
David Traill, with the assistance of David Harvey
The challenges posed by moving to a 4x4 block schedule caused these teachers to join forces and create a combined syllabus for teaching AP history and English at both the junior and senior levels.
The Depression in the South: Seymour Foge#146;s Images of African Americans
Robert L. Stevens and Jared A. Fogel
As the nations economic life hit rock bottom, a young artist hit the road, drawing sketches that recorded the plight of southern African Americans and their dignity in the face of it.
Brick Walls and Breakthroughs: Talking about Diversity with White Teacher Education Students
Rahima Wade
Asking preservice teachers to reflect on commonly-expressed statements about teaching children of color was a first step in breaking down some brick walls to understanding and appreciating diversity.
Looking at the Law
Teaching About the Death Penalty
John Paul Ryan and John Michael Eden
Opening discussion of the death penalty may cause students to reconsider their deeply felt, but often unexamined, convictions on this vital legal and moral issue.
Teaching Ideas
Exploring Vietnam: A Multiple Intelligence Portfolio of Learning
Linda A. Hoover and Randall Taylor
The issues of the Vietnam War can become very real to students when Gardners theory of multiple intelligence is made the basis of class assignments.
Connecting Narrative and Historical Thinking: A Research-based Approach to Teaching History
Robert H. Mayer
History in the classroom is most compelling when the inquiry process builds upon strong grounding in the narrative of human events.
Is Group Decision Making in the Classroom Constructive or Destructive?
Rhonda King and John King
Its not enough to teach students how to articulate their views in class; to make good group decisions, they need to learn listening skills as well.
Teaching with Documents
The Spanish-American War and the Philippine Insurrection
Lee Ann Potter and Wynell B. SchamelWhy does the Philippines celebrate its independence on a different day from when the U.S. granted it on July 4, 1946? The answer lies in the different perspective from which Filipinos view what Teddy Roosevelt called the "splendid little war" of 1898.
Surfing the Net
Instructional Strategies for the World Wide Web
C. Frederick Risinger
Everybody knows theres a lot of great information on the Internet, but where are the sites with good ideas on how to use the World Wide Web in class? Fred Risinger has some answers.
Point of View
The Problematics of Character Education and Civic Virtue: A Critical Response to the NCSS Position Statement
Kevin A. Vinson
Stating our commitment to character education and civic virtue is but a first step in considering how social studies professionals should teach the meaning of citizenship.
Book Review
History on Trial: Culture Wars and the Teaching of the Past
Robert Cohen
The history standards wars are not yet over, as this book by closely involved scholars makes clear.
From Behaviorist to Constructivist Teaching
Geoffrey Scheurman
This introduction to constructivism examines four hypothetical teacher roles based on different views of knowledge and matching methods for teaching social studies.
Teaching Ideas
Revisiting Lexington Green
Geoffrey ScheurmanPosing the question, "What happened on Lexington Green?", this article presents and analyzes several different approaches for helping students to solve this conundrum in early American history.
Authentic Intellectual Work in Social Studies: Putting Performance before Pedagogy
Geoffrey Scheurman and Fred M. Newmann
Establishing criteria for authentic intellectual achievement helps students learn in constructivist classroomsand others too.
Teaching Ideas
The Time Before History: Thinking Like an Archaeologist
Michael M. YellThe use of active teaching strategies makes study of the "Iceman" a process of discovery for students in this seventh grade world studies class.
Assessment in a Social Constructivist Classroom
Janet Alleman and Jere Brophy
Three curriculum goalsunderstanding, appreciation, and life application-lie at the core of constructivist teaching and should guide methods of assessment.
Teaching Ideas
Actual and Virtual Reality: Making the Most of Field Trips
Jennifer Marie Bellan and Geoffrey Scheurman
Real and electronic field trips can serve as complementary components of powerful social studies instruction.
The Oregon Trail: Wyoming Students Construct a CD-ROM
Pol William Holt
Creating a CD-ROM for use in their states fourth grade classrooms gave one group of Wyoming high school students the chance to learn electronic production techniques and to perform the work of actual historians.
What Would You Do? Constructing Decision-Making Guidelines Through Historical Problems
Kevin OReilly
Critical thinking involves not only examining past situations, but learning to reflect on the very skills that increase our understanding of historical problems.
History Alive! Six Powerful Constructivist Strategies
Bert Bower and Jim Lobdell
The cognitive benefits of allowing students to construct knowledge of the past are illustrated in this presentation of six dynamic teaching strategies based on multiple intelligence theory.
Resources for Constructivist Teaching
Michael M. Yell and Geoffrey Scheurman
This annotated list includes books that illustrate active teaching strategies as well as more general works on the philosophical underpinnings of constructivism.
Classroom Management in a Social Studies Learning Community
Jere Brophy and Janet Alleman
The potential of active teaching strategies to increase student learning is enhanced or undercut by the management principles in use in a classroom.
Teaching with Documents
President Harry S. Trumans Diary
Stacey Bredhoff and Wynell SchamelThe voice of the "ordinary" man that speaks in Truman's diary belies the extraordinary nature of his presidency, which involved some of the most fateful decisions of the twentieth century.
The Human Face of Immigration: A Literary Approach
Dennis Banks
In the face of today's largely negative debate over immigration, reading stories about immigrants can help students understand that-while the faces and the ethnic backgrounds may change-people's reasons for wanting to come to America remain fairly constant.
Teaching United States History Thematically
Mary Connor
A thematic approach can generate excitement about recurrent issues in American history as students journey not once, but many times, from past to present in the course of a year's study.
Life Stories in Children's Books
Jeanne McLain Harms and Lucille J. Lettow
Using children's literature to present life stories can reinforce young children's understanding of life span and how goals formed in childhood may help determine an individual's future.
Now Is Your Time!: A Middle School History Unit
Elizabeth Yeager, Frans H. Doppen, and David Middleton
Four types of questions based on "historical thinking" and applied to a book by Walter Dean Myers form the core of a middle school course on African American history at the University of Florida's K-12 Developmental Research School.
Flashback: Comparing Two Approaches to Teaching World History
Joseph Khazzaka
A study compares the effects of two methods of teaching-by flashback or through a chronological approach-on student learning about the Persian Gulf region and student attitudes toward world history.
Citizenship Education and the World Wide Web
C. Frederick Risinger
From "Thomas"-with its up-to-date summaries of bills moving through Congress-to RealCom's links to political interest groups of every stripe, the World Wide Web has much to offer in citizenship education; the question for teachers and students is how best to make use of it.
The Dreary Life of the Cowboy:
Memoir and Myth in Cowboy Ballads
E. Martin Pedersen
Although his own ballads describe the cowboy as a workingman with long hours and hard chores, this realistic image gave way to the modern gun-toting prairie superman.
Using the Geographic Perspective to Enrich History
Sarah Bednarz
Geography is more than the backdrop for history; it can add a rich dimension to the study of the past.
Technology and Social Studies: An Introduction
Charles S. White
The power of modern communications technology to shape our lives is a reflection of what we have become: a visual society.
Past, Possibilities, and Potholes along the Information Superhighway
Joseph A. Braun, jr.
This description of the Internet focuses on why the computer network began, where it may be going, and how it can be used for historical research.
Citizenship, Diversity and Distance Learning:
Videoconferencing in Connecticut
Edward C. Sembor
Two Connecticut schools try out videoconferencing technology to increase understanding among students of different races. The results are encouraging.
Using Technology for Powerful Social Studies Learning
Stephen A. Rose and Phyllis M. Fernlund
These guidelines will help teachers to chart the right directions and make the most effective use of the new electronic technologies.
The Internet Ten
Clark Johnson and Jeck Rector
The performance expectations outlined by the NCSS Curriculum Standards can be a guide to teaching with the Internet. Here are some useful websites for standards-related instruction.
A Trip to Historic Philadelphia on the Web
Elizabeth K. Wilson
This virtual tour of Philadelphia may be only the beginning of your students' historical ventures in cyberspace.
"How Can I Study?"
United Nations Children's Fund
A New UNICEF report on child labor worldwide links both causes and cures to the state of education in developing nations.
Traditional Rule-Making and the Subversion of Citizenship Education
David Schimmel
School rules should be treated as part of the civic education of students and developed collaboratively.
Empowering Immigrant Students through Democratic Dialogues
Michael Pezone and Alan Singer
When dialogue replaces debate, students feel more comfortable expressing their opinions, and are more open to the viewpoints of others.
Getting a Grip on Geography
Kristin M. Roberts
A new teacher facing the challenge of a geography class engages students with a "hands-on" approach to puzzling out the world's continents.
Korean Education: Focusing on the Future
Richard Diem, Tedd Levy and Ronald VanSickle
The Republic of Korea has a vision for education; lifelong learning enabled by modern technology will constitute its new "Edutopia."
Transforming Education in Hungary
Cathy Kaufman
The struggle for new civic identities in an emerging democracy is inevitably reflected in attitudes towards the educational system.
Developing Democratic Citizens for Emerging Democracies in Africa
Nelly Ukpokodu
The attempt to institute democractic education in many African nations takes place against a backdrop of authoritarian models-both colonial and traditional.
Why Do Social Studies Teachers Use Textbooks? The Answer May Lie in Economic Theory
Mark C. Schug, Richard D. Western and Larry G. Enochs
Public choice theory suggests that teachers use textbooks when they judge their costs and
benefits to be more attractive than those of other teaching methods.
Point of View
Appeasing the Right, Missing the Point? Reading the New York State Social Studies Framework
S. G. Grant
The "reform" of the New York State social studies curriculum may be read as a casualty of the current history "wars" or-worse yet-as a missed opportunity.
Book Reviews
Guest Editors: Stephen J. Thornton and Linda S. Levstik
History Making and the Plains Indians
Jennifer Truran Rothwell
The power possessed by images makes it all the more important to understand their historical contexts.
First-Hand Study: Teaching History for Understanding
Stephen J. Thornton
The value of having students "do" history themselves gains support from both research and the classroom findings of teachers.
History-It Can Be Elementary: An Overview of Elementary Students' Understanding of History
Keith C. Barton
There is a better way to handle history in the elementary years than the abrupt transition from a "holiday" curriculum to an over-emphasis on political institutions.
How Children Explain the "Why" of History: The Chata Research Project on Teaching History
Rosalyn Ashby, Peter Lee, and Alaric Dickinson
The ability of young students to distinguish between historical causes and reasons cannot be taken for granted.
Mapping the Terrain of Historical Significance
Peter Seixas
How students view history is influenced by personal and social factors that lie beyond the purview of teacher or textbook.
Sociocultural Approaches to Young People's Historical Understanding
Terrie L. Epstein
History presented from only one perspective may obscure other agents of change and defeat the purposes of multicultural education.
Making Time for Women's History... When Your Survey Course is Already Filled to Overflowing
Margaret Smith Crocco
Viewing women's history in terms of five phases of curricular re-vision may help teachers better integrate the subject into U.S. and world history courses.
Can More Be Less? The Depth-Breadth Dilemma in Teaching American History
Bruce A. VanSledright
Classroom observation supports the view that less-when structured around powerful ideas-can be more in teaching history.
Arts Alive in the Development of Historical Thinking
Jeannette L. Groth and Maria Albert
The arts are academic... and their use in the classroom can greatly enrich how students experience history.
Little Windows to the Past
Amy Thompson Leigh and Tina Ossege Reynolds
Helping children connect with their own past provides a concrete foundation on which to build historical understanding.
"Any History Is Someone's History": Listening to Multiple Voices from the Past
Linda S. Levstik
How shall we determine what collective memory our democracy requires when there is no such thing as just the facts in history?
Teaching Ideas
A Journey on Three Rivers: The Nile, The Rhine, The Mississippi
Anita Allen
Rivers may help us define who we are better than manmade boundaries.
Real People, Common Themes:
Using Trade Books to Counter Stereotypes
Jo Sullivan
Good trade books are an engaging way to introduce diverse cultures in the classroom.
Past Meets Present: A Small Mexican Town as Classroom
Lee M. Penyak and Pamela Duray-Casares
An oral history project whets students appetites to learn more about the meeting place
between traditional and modern culture in Mexico.
Us and Them: Challenging the Divisions
Barbara B. Brown
Who are the Nacirema and why is their culture so magic-ridden?
Bringing Beijing Home... and Into the Classroom
Lyn Reese
The Fourth World Womens Conference held in Beijing in 1995 may prove the coming of age of the international womens movement.
Civil Society in Democracys Third Wave:
Implications for Civic Education
John J. Patrick
The voluntary associations that constitute civil society provide an important bulwark for democracy.
Recent Elections in Former Soviet Bloc Countries
The success of democracy in three former Soviet bloc nations hinges not least on past history.
The Russian Election of
Ben A. Smith
Representative Democracy in Latvia: The Elections of 1995 and
John J. Patrick
Post-Conflict Elections in Bosnia
Mary E. Soley
Building Civic Education in Bosnia
Three American teachers reflect on what they learned from their Bosnian colleagues in a workshop on educating for democracy.
Would I Return? In a Heartbeat!
Pat Feichter
Beauty in the Midst of Devastation
Gail Huschle
Making Connections Between Cultures
Mary Bristol
On Human Dignity: The Need for Human Rights Education
Felisa Tibbetts
Human rights education regards the individual first as a member of the human race.
Teaching About International Conflict and Peace
Mary E. Soley
Global education succeeds when it convinces students they can act to make the world a better place.
Population Education: Lessons for a Changing World
Pamela Wasserman
The environmental impacts of world population growth are the responsibility not only of the developing, but also of the consuming, nations.
The New Civics Education:
An Integrated Approach for Australian Schools
Murray Print
The new civics education in Australia goes beyond traditional bromides to tackle issues of human values and multiethnicity.
Instructional Technology: Internet
Global and International Education on the World Wide Web
C. Frederick Risinger
Notable Web sites for global education materials are selected.
Special Feature
Update on World Development
The massive debts of many developing nations are not being helped by diminishing foreign aid.
Teaching Ideas
What Makes a Great President?
Rochelle Balkam
Great leadership in a democracy depends not only upon leaders but those who are led.
Voting Isnt Enough
G. Dale Greenawald
Citizenship education must go beyond the hows and whys of voting to explore leadership, conflicts over power, and the issues at stake in elections.
Voting Is Essential
Rick Blasing
Helping students to formulate their own political opinions can stimulate interest in voting.
The 1965 Alabama Literacy Test
Kids Voting USA
The importance of the vote becomes clearer in a lesson on how African-American citizens were once deprived of suffrage.
Kids Voting USA: From Classroom to Dinner Table to the Polls
Syd Golston
Interest in elections is piqued when students of all ages cast ballots at real polling precincts.
Investigating Controversial Issues at Election Time:
Political Socialization Research
Carole L. Hahn
An open climate in social studies classrooms may be a good predictor of students future political participation.
The Political Trade-offs of Trade
William Bosshardt
The debates over free trade and economic sanctions involve political judgments and will not be resolved easily.
Social Barriers to Voting
Pauline Schneider
There are many causes, but only one result, of not voting: your ideas dont get represented.
The Keys to the White House:
Who Will be the Next American President?
Allan J. Lichtman
Challengers beware: no incumbent who meets the criteria for survival in this prediction scale has lost the popular vote for President.
A Hundred Years Ago:
Crusaders vs. Conservatives in a Furious Campaign
A Social Education Special Feature
The political landscape of the 1896 election is easily recognizable. There was a bitter debate on the economy, the campaign swallowed gobs of money, and charges of special interests filled the air.
Getting Into Issues: Good Government
William H. Woodwell, Jr.
Campaign finance reform is an issue whose time has comeand comeand come.
Social Issues and Voting Behavior
Scott Piroth
More votes are based on partisan identification than people realizeeven the voters themselves.
Instructional Technology
Internet: Teaching About the 1996 Elections with
the World Wide Web
C. Frederick Risinger
The best Web sites for election-oriented materials are selected.
Multimedia Products for U.S. History
Charles S. White
New products that support the U.S. history curriculum are examined.
Video Rewind
Round Rock Independent School District, Austin, Texas
A timely look at women in the U.S. space program is among the new videos reviewed.
Guest Editors John F. Sears and Fred Crouch
The New Deal: An Overview
Alan Brinkley
To pull the whole country out of the Great Depression, the Roosevelt Administration forged a new role for government.
An Informal Supper With FDR
Robert Hopkins
For one private, a pass home meant a visit to the White House, where his father lived and worked as Roosevelts advisor. Robert Hopkins recalls an evening with FDR on the brink of Pearl Harbor.
Labor Comes into Its Own
Edmund F. Wehrle
The New Deal offered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for labor organizations.
The Politics of Polio
Hugh Gallagher
How could FDRs paralysis remain such a well-kept secret during a Presidency that lasted more than twelve years? A complex set of deceptions made the President appear able-bodied.
Dear Mrs. Roosevelt: Cries For Help from Depression Youth
Robert Cohen
Numerous children and teenagers were convinced that Eleanor Roosevelt was on their side because of her involvement in youth and relief issues.
Public Works: The Legacy of the New Deal
Howard Rosen
Roosevelts public works programs put millions of the desperate unemployed to work, and built Americas modern infrastructure.
Roosevelts Army of Community Service Workers
Sherry Field
Home front classrooms during World War II were a model of community service efforts.
Eleanor Roosevelt and the Wartime Campaign Against Jim Crow
Allida M. Black
Undaunted by fear of controversy, the First Lady took bold stands for racial justice.
The Safford, Arizona, Murals of Seymour Fogel:
A Study in Artistic Controversy
Jared A. Fogel and Robert L. Stevens
The aim of Federal arts programs was to inspire Americans to a new vision of the future. But when Seymour Fogel included Native Americans in his mural for the Safford, Arizona post office, he was greeted by an outburst of prejudice.
Teaching Ideas
A North Dakota New Deal
Rachel Yarnell Thompson
Two veterans of New Deal jobs programs remember what it meant to have a friend in Washington.
Primary Source Teaching Segments: To Mrs. Roosevelt, who Looks for the Poor and To FDR: the CCC Is a Vain Effort to Placate Youth
Robert Cohen
Letters written to FDR and the First Lady are ideal classroom focal points.
Depicting Disability: The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial
C. Todd Stephenson
The issue of whether to depict FDRs disability in the Roosevelt Memorial can stimulate avid debates.
Instructional Technology: Internet
The New Deal Network
Thomas Thurston
The launch of a major Internet site on the New Deal is scheduled this October.
Resources for Teaching the Roosevelt Era
John F. Sears and Fred Crouch
There is an abundance of useful books, teacher kits, videos, and CD-ROMs on the Roosevelt era.
Conflict Between Law and Religion: A Peaceful Solution for the Teaching of December Holidays
Arthur Gross Schaefer and Michelle Britton Bass
Practical guidelines are presented for dealing with this sensitive issue.
Point of View
Rx for Social Studies
Ron Wheeler
Thanks to technology, teaching students to analyze data well is no longer just a dream.
With Reason and Rhetoric: Building the Case for the Literature-Social Studies Connection
Thomas M. McGowan, Lynnette Erickson, and Judith A. Neufeld
Diversity and Trade Books: Promoting Conceptual Learning in Social Studies
Cathy Y. Kim and Jesus Garcia
The Story of Ourselves: Fostering Multiple Historical Perspectives
Michael O. Tunnell and Richard Ammon
Promoting Civic Competence Using Children's Trade Books: Ideas for Pre K-4 Classrooms
Sandy Jean Hicks
Using Trade Books to Teach Middle Level Social Studies
Robert H. Lombard
Using Trade Books to Encourage Critical Thinking About Citizenship in High School Social Studies
Thomas W. Bean, R. Steven Kile, and John E. Readence
An Annotated Bibliography of Resources for Literature-Based Instruction
Meredith J. McGowan and James H. Powell
Freedom and Oppression: Opposing Ideas Lead to Integrated Knowledge: A Unit of Study for Intermediate Grades
Harriett B. Cholden and Barbara Giertz Hunt
To Touch, to Feel, to See: Artifact Inquiry in the Social Studies Classroom
Sherry L. Field, Linda D. Labbo, Ron W. Wilhelm, and Alan W. Garrett
Using Schema Theory to Teach American History
Mac Duis
Beyond Socialization and Multiculturalism: Rethinking the Task of Citizenship Education in a Pluralistic Society
Bruce Grelle and Devon Metzger
Promoting Tolerance in Preservice Teachers
Judith A. Swearingen
Teaching Public Values: Three Instructional Approaches
Robert L. Stevens and Michael G. Allen
What U.S. Political History Reveals for Social Studies Education
Randy K. Mills
The Role of Portfolio Evaluation in Social Studies Teacher Education: How Evaluation Practices Shape Learning Experiences
E. Wayne Ross
A Place to Call One's Own Choosing Books about Homelessness
Diane Hoffbauer and Maureen Prenn
Problems of Bias in History Textbooks
Michael H. Romanowski
The U.S. Civil War on the World Wide Web
C. Frederick Risinger
Bird Bottles, the Fourth Estate, and Mr. Jefferson's Music: Bringing Back History From Your Travels
James J. Carpenter
Teaching Extended Class Periods
Monroe Brett
Global Thematic Units Are Passports to Learning
Jo Ann Cangemi and Linda Aucoin
The NCSS Curriculum Standards: A Model for University Methods Courses and Conceptual Teaching
Gregory Wegner
Using Social Studies as the Catalyst for Curriculum Integration: The Experience of a Secondary School
Richard Diem
Multicultural Understanding through Literature
Shirley Koeller
Educational Challenges Facing Eastern Europe
Deborah M. De Simone
Islam: Stereotypes Still Prevail
Rick Blasing
Institutions Offering Resource Materials on Islam to Secondary Educators
Webbing the Social Studies: Using Internet and World Wide Web Resources in Social Studies Instruction
C. Frederick Risinger
If It's Controversial,Why Teach It?
Mary Soley
Creating Strategies and Conditions for Civil Discourse about Controversial Issues
John Allen Rossi
Instructional Materials for Teaching Controversial Issues
Exploring Issues with Students Despite the Barriers
Joseph J. Onosko
Controversial Issues:The Teacher's Crucial Role
Alan L. Lockwood
The Beginning of Life: A Topic Worthy of Discussion
Joseph O'Brien
Can Controversial Topics Be Taught in the Early Grades? The Answer Is Yes!
Robin Haskell McBee
We Are All A-Bomb Victims
Walter Enloe
The National History Standards:Time for Common Sense
David Warren Saxe
Moving Beyond Name Games: The Conservative Attack on the U.S. History Standards
Robert Cohen
Right for the Wrong Reasons: National History Standards
Michael Whelan
Social Studies and the Birth of NCSS: 1783-1921
Ben A. Smith, J. Jesse Palmer, and Stephen T. Correia
The Early Years: 1921-1937
Murry R. Nelson
A Time for Growth, A Time for War, A Time for Leadership: 1937-1947
Sherry L. Field and Lynn M. Burblaw
Maturation and Change: 1947-1968
Dale Greenwald
Struggling Toward Professionalization: 1968-1982
William G. Wraga
Recent Challenges and Achievements: 1982-1995
Margaret A. Laughlin
Point of View
Nightmares and Possibilities: A Perspective on Standard Setting
James Michener and the Historical Future of Social Studies
James P. Shaver
Interview with Dr. John Haefner
Teaching About the Holocaust:
Rationale, Content, Methodology, & Resources
Samuel Totten and Stephen Feinberg
Frequently Asked Questions About the Holocaust
Bibliographies and Reference Books on the Holocaust
The Uniqueness of the Holocaust
Background to the Holocaust
Milton Kleg
The Other Victims of the Nazis
Ina R. Friedman
Denial of the Holocaust
Scott Miller
Women in Nazi Germany:
Denial by Any Other Name
Alison Owings
Altruism and the Holocaust
Nechama Tec
Incorporating Literature into a Study of the Holocaust:
Some Advice, Some Cautions
Margaret A. Drew
Using Holocaust Short Stories and Poetry in the Social Studies
Carol Danks
Teaching Schindler's List
Phyllis Goldstein
Steven Spielberg:
"My Primary Purpose in Making Schindler's List Was For Education."
Educational Focus and Resources of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
Dawn Marie Warfle
Hitler's Death Camps
Paul Wieser
A Selection of Notable Publications on the Holocaust
Stephen Feinberg
Women, Suffrage, and the Public Sphere
Margaret Smith Crocco
Suffrage and Social Change
The Organizing Strategies of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony
Andrea S. Libresco
Women's Suffrage and the Question of Color
Neale McGoldrick
Educators as Activists: Five Women from Chicago
Petra Munro
The Nineteenth Amendment: Reform or Revolution?
Margaret Smith Crocco andDella Barr Brooks
Alice Paul and the ERA
Learning from the Suffragists: The League of Women Voters Educates Citizens for Action
Becky Cain
Seventy-Five Years Later...
Gender-Based Harassment in Schools
Kathryn Scott
Women's Suffrage: A Sampler of ERIC Resources
C. Frederick Risinger
The Amistad Incident: A Classroom Reenactment
Tedd Levy
TV Violence: Myth and Reality
Mary A. Hepburn
A Preview of Coming Attractions
Joy Ann Morin
Social Studies and the Internet Revolution
Elizabeth K. Wilson and George E. Marsh II
Two CD-ROM Products for Social Studies Classrooms
Charles White
Reclaiming the Spirit of theSocial Studies
H. Robert Brady and James L. Barth
Some Resources on the End of World War II
The following teaching package and books were recently received by Social Education. Reviews are by Social Education staff.
Slavery and Insurrectionsin the Colonial Province of New York
Marc Newman
"Less" Can Be "More" in the Promotion of Thinking
Dwayne G. Olsen
Teaching Critical Thinking: A Metacognitive Approach
William W. Wilen and John Arul Phillips
Making Critical Thinking Possible: Options for Teachers
Ian Wright
Students as Social Science Researchers: Gender Issuesin the Classroom
Joan Brodsky Schur
History is in the Eye of the Beholder
Arthur Brakel
The Historian as Detective: An Introduction to Historical Methodology
Michael J. Arrato Gavrish
Six-Hat Social Studies
Ron H. Pahl
Exchanging Opinions Through Letters and Editorials:A Social Studies Activity
Michael D. Evans
TV or Not TV? That Is the Question
A Study of the Effects of Channel One
Drew Tiene and Evonne Whitmore
Carmen Sandiego: Crime Can Pay When It Comes To Learning
Terry Carroll, Cheryl Knight,
and Ed Hutchinson
Education and Its Consequences: Value Conflicts in an Immigrant Community
Christian Ghasarian
South Africa's Transformationas Seen at School
D. L. Brook, Sherry L. Field, and Linda D. Labbo
The Peaceful Revolution:Some Teaching Resources
Diane L. Brook, Linda D. Labbo, and Sherry L. Field
"Grandma Book":Writing to Discover Your Past
John Marshall Carter
History Standards and Culture Wars
Gary B. Nash and Ross E. Dunn
Activating Student Voices: The Paideia Seminar in the Social Studies Classroom
James Holden and Kelly Bunte
Teaching about Local History Using Customized Photographs
Joseph M. Kirman
Social Math in the History Classroom
Bernard C. Hollister
Bringing the American Civil War to the Classroom: Suggestions and Sources
Wayne Mahood
Motivational Strategies of Middle School Social Studies Teachers
Edward W. Hootstein
Ten Tips for Improving Teacher-Student Relationships
Lee Morganett
Women's History of the 1920s: A Look at Anzia Yezierska and Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Margaret Smith Crocco
Education in Mainland China
Deanna T. Bartels and Felicia C. Eppley
The Riddle of Amelia Earhart: Biographical Study and Hypothesis Testing
Timothy H. Little
The United Nations and the New Global Challenges
Boutros Boutros-Ghali
For the Common Good:The U.S. Role in the United Nations
Edward C. Luck and Nick Birnback
Keeping the Peace: The Argument for a United Nations Volunteer Military Force
Brian Urquhart
Peacekeepers: Accounts from the Front
A Global Look at Law and Order: The "World Court" at the UN's Fiftieth
Howard N. Meyer
Voices at the United Nations: The Role of Non-Governmental Organizations
Rosalind W. Harris
The United Nations From the Field: The Work of Volunteers
Joanne Dufour and Billie Day
Human Rights and Values Education: Using the International Standards
Betty A. Reardon
One Common Heart
Daniel P. Moynihan
Celebrating the United Nations: Global Education at Morristown-Beard School
Rose Franke Koch and Alan H. Cooper
A Classroom Module on Peace-Building
Mary Eileen Sorenson
Experiencing a Model United Nations
Susan Travis
When Our StudentsAre Teachers
Joanne Dufour
Education About the United Nations in the People's Republic of China
Wu Jianqiang
Teaching about the United Nations through the Hunger Issue in an English as a
Foreign Language Class
Atsushi Iino
A Central American Perspective on Teaching about the United Nations
Eleonora Ordonez
Educating Young Children on the United Nations
Judy Casburn
The United Nations and the National Curriculum of England and Wales
David Barrs
The United Nations: Its Role and Place in African Education
Francois N. Muyumba
The United Nations University
Resource Materials about the United Nations
Patricia Szczerba
Databases, CD-ROMs, & Cassettes
Patricia Szczerba
The Pain of Change
John J. Cogan
Islam: Sunnis and Shiites
Muhammad Hanif
Cultivating Civilization: The Age of the English Coffee House
Timothy Bakken
Five Paradigms of Ethnic Relations
Rod Janzen
Multicultural Education vs Anti-Racist Education: The Debate in Canada
John W. Kehoe
After Nairobi: New Horizons for Social Studies
The African Experience
James L. Barth
The Guidelines for Geographic Education: A Ten-Year Retrospective
James F. Petersen, Salvatore J. Natoli, and Richard G. Boehm
An Elaboration of the Fundamental Themes in Geography
Richard G. Boehm and James F. Petersen
The Middle East as a Circumterral Region
Richard W. Fox and Saul B. Cohen
Cross-Disciplinary Teaching in High School Economics
Joseph G. Eisenhauer and Mark P. Zaporowski
Influencing High School Students Attitudes Toward and Interactions with Peers with Disabilities
Robert M. Donaldson, Edwin Helmstetter, Jodi Donaldson, and Robert West
Classroom Teachers Idea Notebook
Reflecting on American History Through Poetry
Pat Carney-Dalton
Wanted Poster Geography: A High Interest Teaching Springboard
Rodney F. Allen and Laurie E.S. Molina
Notable Childrens Trade Books in the Field of Social Studies for 1994
Sometimes a Shining Moment: High School Students Representations
of History Through the Arts
Terrie L. Epstein
Globalization of United States History: Six Strategies
Helena Benitez
The AP United States History Exam: Have Free Response Essays Changed
in the Last Thirty Years?
Michael S. Henry
An Interdisciplinary Approach to Teaching Christopher Columbus
Joseph D. Enedy, P. Tony Graham, and Paul C. Cline
Elementary Education
Criteria for Selecting Picture Books with Historical Settings
Jeanne McLain Harms and Lucille J. Lettow
Making Every Picture Count: Ethnicity in Primary Grade Textbook Photographs
Karen L. Denton and Sharon Pray Muir
Stories from Our Past: Making History Come Alive for Children
Linda Leonard Lamme
Classroom Teachers Idea Notebook
Real-Life Scenarios for Teaching the Bill of Rights
Donald Wasson
The Impact of Industrialization on American Society: Alternative Assessments
Alan Singer
Quick Start Ideas for Teaching Current Events with Newspapers
Lynn Rhoades
Chinese Women Soldiers: A History of 5,000 Years
Xiaolin Li
Joan of Arc and Womens Medieval Military Tradition: A Lesson Plan
Marjorie Bingham
A Trilogy of Medieval Women Warriors
Sandra K. Wales
Roles of Women in the American Revolution and the Civil War
Linda Grant De Pauw
Women in Battle in the Civil War
Richard Hall
American Women in World War I
Carl J. Schneider and Dorothy Schneider
The Womans Land Army, 1918
Margaret Laughlin
Convincing American Women to Join in the Efforts to Win World War I: A Lesson Plan
Cynthia S. Sunal and Mary E. Haas
"What Did You Do in the War, Grandma?" An Oral History
of Rhode Island Women During World War II
Linda P. Wood
Propaganda to Mobilize Women for World War II
Susan Mathis
A Grandmothers Role in Wartime Communications
David R. Procter and Emily Webb
General Vaught Talks About American Women Veterans
Sukhwindar Singh
An Annotated List of Resources on Women and Wartime
Mary E. Haas
The Smell of Celluloid in the Classroom: Five Great Movies That Teach
Julie Johnson and Colby Vargas
Classroom Teachers Idea Notebook
Integrating History and Geography
Al M. Rocca
National Standards: A Common Purpose
H. Michael Hartoonian
A Response to the NCSS Guidelines on Multicultural Education
Judith Rényi and Dennis R. Lubeck
Solving the Economic Mysteries of American History
Using Economic Reasoning to Improve the Teaching of U.S. History
Mark C. Schug and Richard D. Western
How to Use an Economic Mystery in Your History Course
Donald R. Wentworth and Mark C. Schug
American Indians as Economic Decisionmakers
Jean Caldwell and David Gash
Teaching American Popular Culture:
History and Economic Reasoning Are Only the Beginning
Beth Kraig
Public Choice Theory and the Role of Government in the Past
Mark C. Schug and Jennifer Fontanini
A Global Economy Perspective on U.S. History
Donald R. Wentworth
Banks and Money in U.S. History
Jean Caldwell and Robert L. Highsmith
Teaching Economic History Is No Mystery If You Know Where to Look for Help
James E. Clark
Childrens Voices from El Salvador: War and Peace
Cynthia Szymanski Sunal, Maria Luisa Meza, and Classroom D Fourth Graders
The Challenge of Social Studies for Limited English Proficient Students
Deborah J. Short
Using Formal and Informal Writing in Middle School Social Studies
Kim ODay
America Revised Revisited: Adolescents Attitudes Towards a United States History Textbook
Terrie L. Epstein
Videodiscs on the Cold War and the Presidency
Peggy Pride
Multicultural Education and the Idols of the Mind: Why Multicultural EducationIs under Attack
Jeffrey T. Fouts
Afrocentrism: Reminders from a Sympathetic Curmudgeon
Ross Beatty
Social Challenges to America
Donald C. Orlich
Sharing Responsibility: Making Room for Student Voices
J. Lea Smith and Holly A. Johnson
Bridging Time and Space: Picture Books with Historical Settings
Jeanne McLain Harms and Lucille J. Lettow
Citizen Action in Historical Perspective: A Simulation on the Labor Movement in the Mid-1800s
Rahima C. Wade
Using Classroom Debates as a Learning Tool
Michael D. Evans
The Magic of Elsah Creek
Cynthia Bidlack and Robert Williams
Social Studies and School-Based Community Service Programs:
Teaching the Role of Cooperation and Legitimate Power
David R. Procter and Mary E. Haas
Teaching the History of Science
Russell H. Hvolbeck
Teaching as Transformation: The Need to Redesign Courses on Vietnam
Marilyn Levine
Potpourri of Instructional Technology Resources
Charles S. White
Hungary: A Nation in Transition
Jack Susskind
Could This Be the End of History?
Lawrence W. McBride
Multiculturalism and Afrocentricity: How They Influence Teaching U.S. History
Alan Singer
Is Curriculum Integration a Boon or a Threat to Social Studies?
Janet Alleman and Jere Brophy
Southeastern Indians, Precontact to the Present: An Essay and Selected Bibliography
for Teachers
Jacqueline A. Matte
Social Studies: A Field at Risk
James L. Barth, James M. Spencer, and Ronald Shepherd
Key Elements of a Global Perspective
Roland Case
Classroom Management for Responsible Citizenship: Practical Strategies for Teachers
Dorene D. Ross and Elizabeth Bondy
Bringing Latin America to the Classroom
Linda Hahn Miller
Social Justice and the Moral Imagination
Robert Craig
Recruiting American Colonists among Eighteenth-Century Europeans:
A Social Studies Exercise for Middle School Students
Michael D. Evans
Point of View
The NCSS Columbian Quincentenary Statement: A Reply
Lee F. Anderson
SPECIAL SECTION: A United Germany in a Uniting Europe, Part
Europes New Center
Manfred Stassen and Dagmar Kraemer
Why Study Germany and Europe Now?
Mike McKinnon
A Geopolitical Overview of Europe
William H. Berentsen
The Economic Development of Postwar Germany
Desmond Dinan
Immigration in Europe: How Much "Other" Is Too Much?
Gerhard Schmid
The ECU as the "Mark" of Unity: Europe between Monetary
Integration and Monetary Union
Jeremiah Riemer
A United Germany in a Uniting Europe
Donna Stassen
Global Lessons from Siberia
Jan L. Tucker
Multiculturalism and Cultural Relativism after the Commemoration
Lawrence B. Breitborde
A Response to the NCSS Quincentenary Statement
The Gulf War on Computer: A Review of "Iraq Stack"
Dick Rattan
Recently Reviewed Video Products
Coaching Athletics and the Social Studies Classroom: A Replication Study
Alan Van Deraa and Mark C. Schug
A Second Look Is Always a Good Idea: Comments on the Van Deraa and Schug
Replication Study
Jeffrey T. Fouts
History: Signpost or Lamppost?
John C. Wilson
Designing Our Futures by Choice
Lynden J. Leppard
A Simple Economics Project that Students Enjoy
Adrienne K. Plavin
Using Satire to Study Current Events
Joseph M. Kirman
Industrial Growth Showing Concern for the Environment
William Hartman
Social Studies: There Is a History, There Is a Body, But Is It Worth Saving?
James L. Barth
On the NCSS Curriculum Guidelines for Multicultural Education
Milton Kleg
A Guide for Redefining Social Studies
Michael Hartoonian
The Desperate Dilemma of Bing Masters and His Three-Ring Combination Class: A
Case Study
Karla M. Hartzog
Primary Elementary Social Studies Instruction: A Status Report
Judith M. Finkelstein, Lynn E. Nielsen, and Thomas Switzer
Textbook Development and Selection in Japan and the United States
Masaru Tani and Masami Hasuko, Donald Lankiewicz, Stan Christodlous, and Salvatore J. Natoli
Community Service Agencies and Social Studies: A New Partnership
Douglas Roebuck and Arthur Hochman
Teaching for Democratic Action in a Deliberative Democracy
Lynden J. Leppard
Classrooms: The Confluence of Essential Social Streams
Lynden J. Leppard
The Social Studies and Scholastic Journalism: Partners in Citizenship Education
Thomas E. Eveslage
Retrieving and Reinforcing U.S. Government Using Graphic Organizers
William W. Goetz
Manifest Destiny: Understanding through Simulation
Michael D. Evans
Government in Action:A Simulation
Kraig Gustafson
The Field Trip As a Positive Experience for the Learning Disabled
Charles C. Cox III
U.S.-Japanese Relations
Bob McCannon
A Social Studies Computer Lab
Lawrence Stevens
The Great Solar System Rescue: A Highly Usable Videodisc Program
Mary E. Haas
Children's U.S. History Textbooks: 1787
Jimmie H. Hooper and Ben A. Smith
A Missing Piece of Heart: Children's Perceptions of the Persian Gulf War of
Trudy Knowles
Discovering a Democratic Tradition and Educating for Public Politics
Lynden J. Leppard
Elementary Social Studies Should Be Driven by Major Social Education Goals
Jere E. Brophy and Janet Alleman
Responding to the Gulf War: A Case Study of Instructional Decision Making
Merry M. Merryfield
"Dr. Ann-Sansei, Please Go Slowly!"
Ann G. Klein
Teaching the First Amendment to 7th and 8th Graders
Clifford L. Staten
A Study of Immigrant Experience
Marion R. Dedrick
349Roller Coaster Round-Trip to Freedom: Never Say Never
Josef A. Mestenhauser
351Unlearning the Lie: Integrating the United States History Curriculum
Terrie L. Epstein
353Three Instructional Approaches to Carmen Sandiego Software Series
Maureen Robinson and Annette T. Schonborn
355The First Printed World Map, 1472 a.d.
Gerald A. Danzer
358And Now, a Message for Today's Students from Ben Franklin
Tedd Levy
360Local Government in PolandPart I: The Reform
Wlodzimiercz Kocon
David M. Berman
371Global Interdependence: Learning from Personal Effects
Darrell A. Norris
373How Social Studies Educators See the Essentiality of Their Discipline for Social
Mobilization of Youth in Nigeria
Samuel F. Ogundare
380The First Amendment and the Rehnquist Court: Protecting Majority Values or Limiting
Individual Liberty?
David Schimmel
384The Lessons of Teaching Tiananmen: The Dream Deferred
Henry Kiernan
388Tiananmen Square and China-One Year Later
Deborah Doyle
392Cooperative Learning and Achievement in Social Studies: Jigsaw II
Robert M. Mattingly and Ronald L. VanSickle
396"They Are Not Like Us!": Teaching about Immigrants in Rural Schools
Bob Benoit
398A Competitive Field Experiencefor Junior High and Middle Schools
Michael D. Evans
294Learning from and in Norwegian High Schools
Murry Nelson
295Alarming Report on Much Abused Planet Earth
William Hartman
296An Update on UNESCO
Joanne Dufour
A Memorial: Dana Kurfman (1925-1990)
Michael S. Henry
298The Commission Report and Critical Thinking: A Defense
Kevin O'Reilly
301World Maps, Worldviews, and World History
Gerald A. Danzer
304The Earliest World Map, Babylonia, c. 500 b.c.
Gerald A. Danzer
307The Milkman Doesn't Come to My Door: Teaching about Family Service Providers
Marjorie W. Lee
313Cooperative Learning and Elementary Social Studies
Edith Guyton
316Assessing Spatial Development: Implications for Map Skill Instruction
Sharon Pray Muir and Helen Neely Cheek
320Students' Geopolitical Perspectives
Patricia G. Avery and Jan Armstrong Gamradt, with JoAnn Trygestad and Susan Sedro
326Cooperative Learning:A Practical Application Strategy
Stephen A. Platte
329Springboards to Geographic Inquiry: State Seals and National Coats of Arms
Mokgweetsi Eric Masisi, Rodney F. Allen