Is it possible to get middle school students to talk respectfully to one another, especially if they don’t agree? Award-winning middle grades history teacher Jennifer Ingold considered this a challenge and set out to integrate debate into her Enduring Issues units. Here’s how!
How might you bring the 2020 presidential election into your fall classes? Learn how Emily DeRiso transformed her 4th grade social studies curriculum into a successful election immersion experience in 2016, setting clear boundaries in support of participatory democracy.
For social studies teachers, incorporating civics and current events is an important part of the job, says teacher and civics blogger Brian Rock. “Your task is, ultimately, to help grow and develop the next generation of citizens.” He suggests four helpful online resources.
I Will Screw This Up / Teaching Current Events
by Dina Strasser · Published 06/04/2019 · Last modified 09/03/2020
Finding the rationale to bring news discussions into class can be tricky. Veteran teacher and current events advocate Dina Strasser shares her strategy – double dipping. Here’s how to have “productively messy” conversations in 5-10 minutes without losing curriculum focus.
Future of History / Teaching Insights
by Sarah Cooper · Published 05/08/2019 · Last modified 11/21/2019
Returning from the 2018 NCSS conference, Sarah Cooper reignites her US history unit on reformers to deepen student understanding about historical, current and future activism. Learn more about the 10 Changemaker Questions she used to create a sense of action in her classes.
Current Events / Future of History
by Sarah Cooper · Published 09/23/2018 · Last modified 11/13/2019
Current events add immediacy to history class, but with crowded curricula and the challenges of the political climate, Sarah Cooper is fine-tuning the news discussions in her 8th grade classes. She shares several stories and explains what makes them right for fall 2018.
Sarah Cooper’s Creating Citizens is brimming with insight on how to connect current events to history, writes social studies teacher Joanne Bell. Cooper offers fresh ideas, higher order skills, and excellent implementation tips, all applicable to any period of history.
Sarah Cooper’s Creating Citizens will ignite a passion for discovery, challenge students to seek information from wide ranging sources, and help them apply their learning and form their own opinions about history, civics and current events, writes Linda Biondi.
With sensitivity and practicality, Sarah Cooper takes on the heightened challenge of teaching civics and governance to today’s adolescents. Fellow middle grades teacher Heather Wolpert-Gawron finds practical strategies and lessons that can be used across the curriculum.
Regardless of where educators land politically, it can sometimes feel like tiptoeing through a minefield to facilitate a balanced discussion of current events, writes teacher Sarah Cooper. Are there times when it’s appropriate for teachers to reveal their own views?
