Page 211 - Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students 4th Edition

Elementary Grades
While only limited research relevant to these methods has been done in elementary social studies, Thornton and Wenger (1990) reported observing lessons that exhibited many of the characteristics of thoughtfulness as described by Newmann and by Fraenkel and Stodolsky (1988).
For example, the quality of students’ task engagement was higher during more cogni- tively complex activities than during lower level activities. In addition, White (1993) described several case studies in which teachers set up contexts and arranged tasks to allow students to construct meaning interactively instead of relying on a low-level text- book/recitation approach.
Other chapters in the same collection of case studies (Brophy, 1993) provide examples of desirable forms of classroom discourse. Levstik (1993) presented the case of Ruby, whose approach to teaching history to at-risk first graders featured a great deal of inquiry and discussion. Sosniak and Stodolsky (1993) presented the case of Carol Olsen, a teacher who used a conversational approach to teach inner-city fourth graders about geography, history, and world cultures. In both of these cases, the students had limited prior knowledge and thus needed to be provided with bases of information from which to work, but the teachers nevertheless were able to emphasize social con- struction of knowledge rather than recitation as their primary discourse pattern.
When preparing your lesson plans, develop sets of questions that will stimulate your stu- dents to reflect on what they are learning and engage in thoughtful discussion of its meanings and implications. Reflective discourse is most successful once students have acquired a common content base through teacher explanation, interactive narrative, independent reading, watching a video, and so on. You also may have occasion to use drill activities to reinforce learning that needs to be memorized, as well as recitation activities to check and correct understanding of the initial knowledge base. However, most of your questions should be asked not just to monitor comprehension but to stim- ulate students to think about the content, connect it to their prior knowledge, and begin to explore its applications.
Thus, questioning ordinarily should not take the form of rapidly paced drills or attempts to elicit “right answers” to miscellaneous factual questions. Instead, ques- tions should be used as means for engaging students with the content they are learn- ing. They should stimulate students to process that content actively and “make it their own” by rephrasing it in their own words and considering its meanings and implications. Furthermore, the questions should focus on the most important ele- ments of the content and guide students’ thinking in ways that move them systemat- ically toward key understandings. The idea is to build an integrated network of knowledge structured around powerful ideas, not to stimulate rote memorizing of miscellaneous information.
For each subtopic to be developed, ask questions in sequences designed to help students construct connected understandings. Use different kinds of question sequences to accom- modate different instructional goals. To develop an unfamiliar topic, for example, you might begin with questions designed to stimulate interest in the topic or help students connect it to their prior experiences, then move to questions designed to elicit key ideas, then move to questions calling for reflection on or application of these ideas.
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CHAPTER 8 How Can I Use Discourse Powerfully? 183
Engaging Students in Reflective Discourse about Powerful Ideas