Page 136 - Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students 4th Edition

108 Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students
the texts seldom produced accurate reconstructions of the main storyline. To address these problems, McKeown and Beck (1990, 1994) revised textbook passages to make them more coherent and explicit. Students who read the revised versions recalled signifi- cantly more of their content, especially material concerning the sequential relationships of and explanations for the main events depicted. A second intervention involved provid- ing students with background knowledge to make them better prepared for the material they would be reading. This intervention also improved comprehension, although not as strongly as making the texts more coherent did.
McKeown and Beck also developed interventions to improve students’ engagement with the materials. One study involved rewriting texts to make them more interesting as well as more coherent. Another involved encouraging students to reflect on what they were reading by asking them to pause several times during the reading to talk about what came to mind. This think-aloud intervention was later extended to a small- group format. All of these interventions had positive effects, illustrating some of the things that textbook authors and teachers can do to improve the effectiveness of history instruction for elementary students.
We recognize that it is unrealistic to expect novice teachers to operate without texts, and that it is unnecessary to ask veteran teachers to do so (although some may prefer this option). However, it is important to view the textbook as just one among many resources to draw on in planning a history curriculum designed to accomplish social stud- ies goals. To overcome some of the limitations of textbooks, you will need to examine them in light of your major social education goals in order to identify what content to ignore or downplay and what content to emphasize. You may need to augment the useful content if major ideas or themes are not well developed in the texts, as well as to identify pointless questions and activities and develop other questions and activities that will support progress toward major goals. If the texts and their related activities and assign- ments are focused on disconnected names, dates, and miscellaneous facts instead of big ideas and their implications, students will perceive history as boring and pointless.
Most school history texts are written in a bland style that features passive constructions and avoidance of controversial content. Especially when written for children, these texts ought to feature lively narratives that capture the drama that is inherent in much of the content. Joy Hakim’s series A History of US is a step in the right direction (Hakim, 2002).
The content emphasized in traditional history texts also leaves much to be desired. Political and military events and leaders are generally of less interest to elementary stu- dents than information about everyday life in the past and the influence of inventions; advances in freedom, equality and social justice; and inspirational biographical material on the people most responsible for these advances. Finally, for students from immigrant families and minority groups, the heavily Eurocentric focus of traditional history does not offer them much to identify with and care about. They are likely to view such history as “someone else’s facts,” with little connection to their lives and concerns (Holt, 1990).
These problems suggest that although there are deficiencies in U.S. students’ knowl- edge of history, the remedy does not lie in teaching them more history, if this means teaching history the way it has been taught traditionally. A more promising remedy is to focus history teaching around major goals and big ideas, and teaching it for under- standing, appreciation, and life application. We recommend establishing a network of basic understandings to provide a context for all history learning. Big ideas to emphasize in such a network include the following:
History is the study of the past. It includes the very recent past as well as ancient times, and the everyday lives of ordinary people in addition to the exploits of the famous and powerful. We study history to learn about developments through time in the human condition generally and in life at different places in the world; to learn about the origins
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