Page 338 - Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students 4th Edition

APPENDIX A
PLANNING TOOL
This textbook is intended to impart understanding and appreciation for the most salient elements of
a strong social studies curriculum. The authors have selected government as the example unit. Several
of the chapter topics will be illustrated by using government-related examples. The planning tool is intended to reveal the steps in developing a mean- ingful unit that leads toward memorable learning with an eye toward high student achievement. We intend for this planning tool to serve as a model
for how you would construct your own unit.
We deliberately set the tool apart from the text
in this appendix to provide a cohesive description of how a goals-oriented approach built around
big ideas drives meaningful practice. The thematic example is intended to illustrate how the various curricular elements described throughout the
text are woven together linking theory to daily practice.
CHAPTER 2: HOW CAN I BUILD A LEARNING COMMUNITY IN MY CLASSROOM? Strategies for Including All Children
Think about the students in your classroom in terms of their socioeconomic status, their cultural and lin- guistic backgrounds, and their parents’ employment status and legal status as citizens. You should make sure your unit is sensitive to the political and economic realities of the students’ lives (e.g., not everyone is a legal resident of the U.S., and may be familiar with a very different type of government, social norms, etc.; not everyone pays the same amount of taxes, and so forth). Consider public
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issues that may affect the community of the school. What role does (or could) the government play in one or more of these issues?
CHAPTER 3: HOW DO I SELECT POWERFUL GOALS AND POWERFUL CONTENT?
Sample Unit Goals: To help students to develop under- standing and appreciation for government as a cultural universal; to help students develop understanding that government, supported by citizens, is required to main- tain order and safety in communities and to provide goods and services for the common good.
Sample Lesson Goal: To help students understand and appreciate (1) the value of government services; and (2) how the funding of these services is supported (taxes).
The focus for this lesson (or series of lessons, depend- ing on the age level and the amount of depth you want to develop) is on functions and services provided by governments to local communities, individual states, and all citizens of the United States. Governments are needed to do things that people cannot do by themselves.
Main Ideas to Develop
• Government services are needed to do things that the people cannot do by themselves.
• All governments in the United States (e.g., com- munity, township, city, state, and federal) provide some services for people.
• To pay for the services, the governments collect money from the people. The money is referred to as taxes.
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