The Neighborhood is wishing many of our readers the best of luck in beginning the school year.
Being that my school year is a few weeks in coming, I still have time to pontificate at length (as opposed to pontificating at shorter length).
If you’re in a district like mine, especially one that has sipped deep in the Kool-Aid of balanced literacy and the Lucy Calkins’ Writers Workshop, you’ll be given (or asked to derive) a curriculum map detailing the skills and content to be taught over the course of the year. Social studies will need to be woven in somehow, as the hot topic of the day is making everything “interdisciplinary.” Otherwise, some districts have multiple maps for each subject.
Furthermore, the administrators will be nagging you from the first week about getting student work on your bulletin boards. Now, I have my own opinion on bulletin boards, but far be it from me to get my fellow teachers fired over my bullshit. If the boss makes you do one, do it (preferably in social studies, as that’ll make us very happy.)
One of the components of your board—and definitely your curriculum map—will undoubtedly be standards, the benchmarks and guidelines that define student learning in your school, district or state. Never mind that standards aren’t necessarily made with any rhyme or reason—it shows you’re following what the bosses want, makes the adminstrators happy, and shows the students that your methods and content were not derived in an insane asylum, but from a central state policymaking body (similar to an insane asylum).
If you’re in a panic that you can’t find your set of standards in the pile of pattern blocks and assessment binders, fear not. We here in the Neighborhood have compiled resources that have all kinds of social studies standards at your fingertips—even national ones you can use to impress (or insult) your colleagues.
National History Education Clearinghouse Standards Database – Like most of us, I have state standards that need to be addressed; standards that differ from each area of the country. Until we adopt a national standard for history and social studies, we’ll still need these. NHEC has compiled all state standards into a searchable database by grade and state.
New York City Social Studies Scope and Sequence – A couple of years ago, New York City took the state standards and created a sequential curriculum framework for city teachers in social studies. It isn’t perfect, as a very early post of mine shows. However, if you need to do long-term planning, this can definitely provide a template (even if you don’t teach in NYC)
National History Standards – National Center for History in the Schools at UCLA – Back in 1994, the NCHS, with our friend Gary Nash at the help, created among the first national standards for history. Divided into two main strands (K-4 and 5-12), these standards systematically cover the content and skills needed for both United States and world history. Emphasize on the Historical Thinking Standards, which stress higher-order thinking skills that students need in all subjects, not just social studies.
National Council for the Social Studies Curriculum Standards – I only included the introduction because NCSS makes you pay for the whole book (see if your principal or AP has a copy). These NCSS standards are based on ten thematic strands meant to flex with any state basket of content or skill requirements. I would use these more often to complement, not replace, your own state standards (I’d probably do the same with the NCHS standards mentioned before). I’ve also attached a copy of their Teacher Standards for your convenience.
Common Core State Standards Initiative – The Core Standards initiative is a state-led effort coordinated by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). Their goal is adopting common standards in reading and math for all 50 states. Many states have already aligned their own standards to the Core Standards. They tend to be more of the “interdisciplinary” type and not necessarily strictly about social studies.
NCSS Effort to Establish Common Core Standards in Social Studies – these aren’t standards, per se, but rather some information about the NCSS working with the Common Core people to create common standards in social studies for each state. Personally, I don’t think it’ll work, but kudos to them for trying.
Best of luck with these, and send me pictures of your best social studies bulletin boards. Who knows, they just might make it on the Neighborhood in the future!
Mr. D's Neighborhood 
How to Evaluate Online Sources, thanks to NCSS
It’s high time students stop mining Wikipedia for their research projects.
Without adequate library resources, the Internet is often a kid’s only avenue for research. Yet even teachers get frustrated trying to figure out what sites are useful and what are simply fronts for extremist groups (a certain website about Martin Luther King comes to mind).
In this quarter’s edition of Social Studies and the Young Learner, published by the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), Rindi Baildon shares how her fourth class at the American School in Singapore developed a rubric to evaluate sources. According to Baildon, it’s important for students to develop a healthy skill at determining useful websites, as it also develops their skills at critical thinking and analysis.
Using a series of exercises through an interdisciplinary research unit, Baildon gets the students to question accuracy, trustworthiness and usefulness in a multitude of sources. In that way, they can look at any online resource through a critical eye, which in results in more authentic, meaningful research.
The result of these exercises is a Research Resource Guide that summarizes how students should view online sources. They are a series of questions each student must ask when examining a website. They are scaffolded based on accuracy, readability (since a doctoral dissertation doesn’t due a fourth grader any good) and usefulness.
Below is the resource guide developed by Baildon’s class. Please let me know how you use it in your classroom. 😉
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Tagged as American School, Baildon, Commentary, Cultural Literacy, Curriculum, Education, Educational leadership, Martin Luther King, Media, National Council for Social Studies, NCSS, Opinion, Social studies, Teachers, Teaching, Wikipedia