Social Studies: Explaining and modeling content – TeachingWorks Resource Library

Home / Curriculum Resources / Social Studies / Explaining and modeling content / Overview / Downloads

Units
Individual Activities

Modeling Reading and Writing Strategies
Using Primary Sources to Teach Counter Narratives

In this learning cycle, novice teachers learn what it means to model specific reading and writing strategies that help students understand historical sources. The materials used within this resource emphasize the importance of modeling as a tool for learning to ensure equity in the classroom.

This five class-session unit, designed for an elementary social studies methods course, focuses on supporting novice teachers to use primary source analysis to counter dominant narratives about Indigenous history.

Select a quadrant below to view related activities:

Adapted from:
McDonald, Kazemi, and Kavanagh, 2013; Lampert et al., 2013;
Teacher Education by Design

Introduce

Novice teachers familiarize themselves with reading and writing strategies used to model historical texts by viewing and decomposing examples of a teacher and teacher educator.

Prepare

Novices prepare to model reading and writing strategies by analyzing and constructing scripts of this practice. Novices are also guided on how to prepare for teaching a lesson of their own through rehearsals.

Enact

After preparing for their lesson, novices will teach a small group of children using a historical source while modeling a reading strategy.

Analyze

Novices will reflect on the lesson they've taught in several ways, including with another colleague, through video analysis, and written-reflection.

Activity 1A

Learning historical reading strategies via inquiry

Activity 1A

Novices participate in an investigation of the Montgomery Bus Boycott to understand what it means to corroborate, contextualize, and use sourcing to answer the central question: Why did the boycott of Montgomery's buses succeed?

View Resource

Activity 1B

Learning about argument writing strategies in history-social science via inquiry

Activity 1B

Novices continue to investigate the importance of the Montgomery Bus Boycott using various writing strategies such as planning, weighing the evidence, co-writing, and reflection in order to answer the central question: "Why did the boycott of Montgomery's buses succeed?"

View Resource

Activity 2

View videos of teacher modeling

Activity 2

During this activity, novices view a video of a teacher educator modeling a writing strategy and make note of how the practice is decomposed using the Modeling Decomposition Tool.

View Resources

Activity 3

View video of teacher educator modeling

Activity 3

Novices will view a video of a teacher educator modeling how to analyze a source with attention to sourcing and contextualizing using a tool to support these reading strategies. Novices will use the Modeling Decomposition Tool and debrief afterwards.

View Resources

Activity 4

What is modeling, what is it not?

Activity 4

This activity is used to help novices practice identifying what modeling is and what is not. In particular, novices highlight in a transcript how a teacher models contextualization.

View Resources

Tools

Teaching Explaining and Modeling Content in Social Studies

Tool A

Modeling decomposition tool

Tool A

This tool will help novices notice the areas of work involved in modeling while watching videos of this practice. This tool is useful in Activities 2 and 3.

View Resource

Tool B

Prompts for modeling a strategy in social studies

Tool B

This tool highlights useful phrases and moves that can be used at different points while modeling.

View Resource

Activity 5

Seeing students’ capacity for learning

Activity 5

In this activity, novices will read the transcript of a teacher candidate and student as they discuss historical images. Using the transcript, novices will identify strengths of the student's reasoning and note helpful practices to model in future lessons.

View Resource

Activity 6

Analyzing a modeling script

Activity 6

In this activity, novices will practice modeling a reading strategy by marking up two documents and highlighting how they will use each document for students' learning.

View Resources

Activity 7

Co-constructing a modeling script

Activity 7

In this activity, novices will receive a primary source from the Salem Witch trials and co-construct a script to use as they model how to use sourcing.

View Resource

Activity 8

Guidelines for rehearsing modeling

Activity 8

This in-class activity is geared toward helping novices prepare for their field assignment through rehearsals. Novices will rehearse their intended lesson that includes modeling and receive feedback from colleagues and a teacher educator.

View Resources

Tools

Teaching Explaining and Modeling Content in Social Studies

Tool B

Prompts for modeling a strategy in social studies

Tool B

This tool highlights useful phrases and moves that can be used at different points while modeling.

View Resource

Tool C

Guidelines for teacher educators supporting small group rehearsals

Tool C

This set of rehearsal guidelines can be used to support teacher educators leading rehearsals of modeling in social studies.

View Resource

Tool D

Rehearsal guidelines and feedback form for novices

Tool D

This set of rehearsal guidelines can be used to support novices' participation in rehearsals of modeling in social studies.

View Resource

Activity 9

Field assignment part A

Activity 9

This activity serves as a field assignment where novices teach a lesson to a small group of children. The lesson should include a central question, two historical documents, and model a reading strategy.

View Resource

Activity 10

Small group video analysis of field assignment

Activity 10

This activity is designed to help novices reflect with a colleague on their most recent effort (field assignment) to teach a lesson, while modeling a reading strategy.

View Resource

Activity 11

Reflection for novices and coaches

Activity 11

This activity allows novices to reflect on their efforts to model using specific questions. This activity is especially helpful for coaching novices and guiding their reflection.

View Resource

Activity 12

Field assignment part B

Activity 12

Once novices complete the field work component of this assignment (that is, video recording their modeling), they should watch their video and analyze their strengths, weaknesses, and next steps in modeling a social studies reading strategy.

View Resource

Unit overview

Using primary sources to teach counter narratives

Unit overview

This set of resources includes an overview of the unit, suggested background reading for the teacher educator, and the unit's culminating assessment.

View Resources

Day 1

Unpacking dominant and counter narratives

Day 1

Novice teachers discuss James Baldwin’s “A Talk to Teachers.” They engage in an inquiry about why Native Hawaiians are protesting at Mauna Kea, and unpack what dominant and counter narratives are. Then, they examine sources about the Homestead Act and consider implications for their own identities.

View Resources

Day 2

Using children's literature in social studies

Day 2

Novice teachers discuss Ebony Thomas’ article, “Stories Still Matter” and examine the role of children’s literature in a social studies inquiry. They review criteria for anti-bias literature and practice applying the criteria to a selection of children’s books.

View Resources

Day 3

Engaging in an upper elementary inquiry

Day 3

Novice teachers unpack a dominant narrative of Native Americans as extinct. The teacher educator models an inquiry (including a read aloud and primary source analysis) about the contemporary Indigenous activist Josephine Mandamin and the Water Walkers.

View Resources

Day 4

Modeling primary source analysis

Day 4

The teacher educator models the practice of modeling primary source analysis, and novice teachers take notes using an observation tool. Then, novice teachers practice responding to scenarios of problematic comments that might come up in the lesson the teacher educator modeled on the previous day.

View Resources

Day 5

Rehearsals

Day 5

All novice teachers engage in small group peer run-throughs of modeling primary source analysis. Then a few novice teachers rehearse their peer run-throughs before the whole class, while the teacher educator coaches them.

View Resources

Activity

Assessment: Modeling historical reading strategies in social studies

Activity

This assessment appraises novice teachers’ ability to model historical reading strategies. Novice teachers will film themselves demonstrating how to analyze a primary source photograph, making their thinking and the historical work they are doing visible and explicit to students.

View Resources