Caleb Kigar

Professor Christensen
Social Studies Methods
15 November 2016
Ch. 5 Reading Response
Summary:
There are four approaches to incorporating multicultural perspectives
into the curriculum and they are: contributions, additive,
transformation, and social action. Each one of them adds on from the
previous one from where a teacher simply adds only the heroes and
holidays lessons; the additive approach is where the content is added
to include a different perspective; the transformation approach is when
a curriculum is revised with the intent of multiple perspectives; the
final approach is the social action approach where all the elements of
the transformation approach happen, but then students go out and
take action. Furthermore, the best way to give students multiple
perspectives is to have multiple opportunities for students to develop
like through speakers. Finally, one of the most important parts of this is
students need to learn about civil discourse since the students will be
shaped by their ability to listen and talk respectfully.
Future Teacher:
1. Performing Arts and Visual Arts (141). Ive learned that
incorporating these ideas and concepts into a lesson, students
will take more away from it than a regular lecture.
2. Incorporating personal experiences of students (130). The best
way to learn is through experiences, I believe, so what better
way to learn than using the students own life experiences to
learn?
3. Childrens Books (124). Reading literature to the students or
having them be read to is a great way for the students to
develop perspectives, listening abilities, and empathy.
Thoughtful Question:
When the section talked about using life experiences of the students,
what if the area around the school is typically lower class and has the
potential to be bad? Hearing some of the things the students have
gone through at such an early age, would that be something to avoid
in the class if the students shared their life experiences?
Former Assumptions:
I didnt realize that oral history was as prominent in elementary social
studies as it is. I remember doing historical figure presentations and

history presentations and I didnt know that I was actually using oral
history. It works well because it is more interesting and work well with
English learners.