I am truly enjoying Tarry Linduist's book. It offers wonderful advice, examples and explanations as to how to teach specific Social Studies topics and teaching in general. I'm learning a great deal of useful, interesting lesson plan ideas and how to think as a teacher.
In Chapter Four, I agree wholeheartedly with the NCSS's belief that for meaningful social studies, "Classroom interaction focuses on sustained examination of a few important topics rather than superficial coverage of many." Only through an integrated curriculum is this possible and it's essential for creating an atmosphere of learning and continued interest for students.
I agree with Tarry's emphasis that we must teach children how to revise their written work. Often students, even graduate students, are reluctant to write. And once we do begin the process, most people don't appreciate the importance of revision. We are often content to just have written something in the first place. It takes continual practice revising written assignments before student's appreciate that frequently the revised piece is much better than the original. My undergraduate degree is in journalism and it took me quite some time to understand the importance of revising work.
Regarding fiction, thanks to Miss Muffett I will never forget the six elements of fiction. I love this teaching strategy!
I appreciate that Tarry tries to demystify testing for her students. She gives them a model for test preparation, test taking, and test evaluation. This creates a positive learning environment for them, not one of fear and anxiety when test time arrives.
In Chapter five, I adore Tarry's letter assignments teaching her students how to view multiple perspectives. It is wonderful to have them write three letters from three different perspectives like in the Harriet Tubman lesson: one letter writing about Harriet to a friend, the second letter writing as Harriet to some other character and the third letter writing to Harriet from today, as themselves. The sample letters are amazing. They are informative, creative and show clearly students' knowledge, sensitivity and appreciation of the subject matter. Letter writing is a superb writing format. I feel it is less daunting for a student to write a letter than to write in an essay format.
Learning to understand multiple perspectives is crucial in life. It teaches us to respect and to listen to one another and to understand that our way of thinking is not the only way.
2 comments:
Michelle,
I agree that writing a letter is definetly less daunting to students than writing an essay. However, I think its great that Lindguist varies her instruction/ requirements so much, I often felt as a student that so teachers would always want you to do the same thing again and again, like always write 5-paragraph essays, Lindgusit lets her kids experience lots of different writing formats which I think is so important.
I related very closly to the point aobut how examination of a smaller number of topics is more beneficial than tyring to cover too many topics all at once. Though i feel like sometimes with the high demands for increased time in math and ELA for test preparation makes taking your time in areas such as social studies or science nearly impossible. That will be a struggle for me im sure in the future.
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