This book provides teachers, librarians, and education methods professors with strategies, lesson plans, and activities that enable them to use literature as a springboard to social studies thematic instruction. With the amount of time and resources allocated to teaching social studies being significantly reduced, social studies lessons need to be incorporated into other subjects. Notable Books, Notable Lessons: Putting Social Studies Back in the K–8 Curriculum offers the tools to teach students social studies concepts that are increasingly relevant and essential in today's diverse, globalized world—lessons that are vital in order to prepare students to think critically and participate in our multicultural democracy. Providing information that elementary and middle school teachers and librarians, district-level curriculum directors and principals, staff developers, and social studies and literacy methods professors will find extremely useful, this book uses the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS)/Children's Book Council (CBC)'s current and past lists of Notable Books at the elementary and middle school levels to offer easy-to-follow lesson plans that integrate social studies instruction with reading and language arts. The lesson plans pose compelling questions to facilitate discussion and critical thinking and suggest engaging activities that are connected to the social studies concepts. The book also includes sample student handouts for the selected pieces of literature.

REA’s TExES Social Studies 7-12 (232) Test Prep with Online Practice Tests Gets You Certified and in the Classroom! Teacher candidates seeking certification to become social studies teachers in Texas public schools must take the TExES Social Studies 7-12 (232) test. Written by Dr. Dean Ferguson, a nationally recognized test-development expert based at Texas A&M University-Kingsville, our prep provides extensive coverage of the exam’s seven domains and 26 competencies. In addition to a thorough review, this test prep features a diagnostic test and 2 full-length practice tests (1 in the book and 1 online at the REA Study Center) that deal with every type of question, subject area, and skill tested on the exam. Our online tests offer timed testing conditions, automatic scoring, and diagnostic feedback on every question to help teacher candidates zero in on the topics that give them trouble now, so they can succeed on test day. REA’s test prep package includes: - Comprehensive review of all content categories tested on the TExES Social Studies 7-12 exam - Online diagnostic that pinpoints strengths and weaknesses to help focus study - 2 full-length practice tests based on actual exam questions - Practice test answers explained in detail - Proven study tips, strategies, and confidence-boosting advice - Online practice tests feature timed testing, automatic scoring, and topic-level feedback REA's TExES Social Studies 7-12 (232) is a must-have for anyone who wants to become a social studies teacher in Texas.

This text offers a teacher and student-friendly collection of lessons and activities that help educators use picture books to engage younger students in meaningful social studies activities and bring this critical subject back in elementary schools. In order for today's children to succeed as adults, they need a solid foundation of life skills inculcated at a young age. Social studies is key to building this critical knowledge, yet less attention is being paid to social studies in elementary schools as this subject becomes more essential. The authors of this text have a solution: use picture books as dual-purpose texts that fulfill more than just language arts needs, and take the time dedicated to those lessons to simultaneously teach social studies. Each chapter of this text is organized around one of the National Council for the Social Studies' Ten Thematic Strands, covering diverse and engaging topics ranging from community and individuality to science and technology. This book serves as a vital resource for classroom teachers, methods professors, staff developers, and curriculum writers who prioritize keeping social studies a part of the elementary school curriculum.

Teaching Social Studies: A Methods Book for Methods Teachers, features tasks designed to take preservice teachers deep into schools in general and into social studies education in particular. Organized around Joseph Schwab's commonplaces of education and recognizing the role of inquiry as a preferred pedagogy in social studies, the book offers a series of short chapters that highlight learners and learning, subject matter, teachers and teaching, and school context. The 42 chapters describe tasks that the authors assign to their methods students as either in?class or as outside?of?class assignments. The components of each chapter are: > Summary of the task > Description of the exercise (i.e., what students are to do, the necessary resources, the timeframe for completion, grading criteria) > Description of how students respond to the activity > Description of how the task fits into the overall course > List of readings and references > Appendix that supplements the task description

Presents the history of America from the earliest times of the Native Americans to the Clinton administration.

The Four Question Method (4QM) identifies the questions that drive the thinking that real people do when they take the human world seriously. The authors, Jonathan Bassett and Gary Shiffman, have figured out how to describe and teach what it takes to answer those questions well. This inquiry method gives educators a way to integrate content 'coverage' - through storytelling! - with practice in thinking skills that are central to history and its affiliated academic disciplines, together called social studies. The Four Question Method helps teachers to plan more effectively and students to learn more effectively. It provides guidance for writing research essays. And it transfers - the skills our students practice will work for them when they encounter and make their own history.