Professional Inquiry Project Overview

Ryan Barfuss PSIII R.I Baker Fall 2017

Inquiry Question:
How can I better incorporate literacy in the Social Studies Curriculum?

Rational:
The importance of literacy has become increasingly important, as I have continued
on my path of Education. Reflecting upon my experiences with social studies
through junior high, high school, and university I felt I was presented with many
different types of text but never really understood how to best approach them. It is
my goal with this PIP project, as you will see below, to develop literacy strategies in
the Social Studies Curriculum. While attempting various strategies it is my hope that
I can develop a repertoire of effective strategies that will boost the literacy of the
students in my classroom. This project will look at ways to approach historical texts
in the textbook, primary sources, and other heavy readings. Strategies to strengthen
social studies vocabulary will be used. It is my hope to dispel the stereotype that
Social Studies is boring, nobody likes to read these stories, they dont make sense
anyways and bring back the importance and fun that can be found in the text heavy
curriculum. When students understand what they are reading, the stories can come
alive.

Anticipated Impact:

*Personal Growth:
It is my goal to develop a repertoire of at least 3 literacy strategies that I can
incorporate into the Social Studies Curriculum. There are a number of strategies
that can be learned and I will try an assortment of them to determine which ones
that I personally can use in my teaching that will be most effective.

*Students:
I want students to come away from my Social Studies class feeling confident
in the strategies they have learned when it comes to different texts. When given a
text heavy story or historical journal I want students to be able to comprehend it
and not feel lost or bored

*School:
It is my hope that students will use these strategies that they learn and apply
them cross-curricular.
Resources:

*50 Literacy Strategies Step by Step Gail E. Tompkins

*Reading Nonfiction Kylene Beers & Robert E. Probst
*Mrs. Tanya Conrad- Social Studies 7 teacher at R.I. Baker
*Building Literacy in Social Studies: Strategies for Improving Comprehension and
Critical Thinking Donna Ogle, Ron Klemp and Bill McBride
*Newsela- https://newsela.com/
*Learn Alberta Reference Center
*Tween Tribune- https://www.tweentribune.com/

Procedure: Some of these procedures may change as I incorporate new strategies;

so far these are the ones I am going to focus on until I find a more effective way that
I can learn as a teacher.

*Picture Definitions
When discussing a difficult or new concept/word I will ask students what
comes to their mind when they hear that specific word. Then I will ask students to
draw that picture down to help them remember it.

*Reading Out Loud:

Reading out loud to the students a novel that is relevant to the units we are
covering in Social Studies 7. Breaking down any vocabulary words and helping them
comprehend.

*Creating a Word Wall:

Break down words from readings/lectures that we go through and put them
on a wall at the front of the class to refer to often to help them remember.

*KWL Charts
These will be used before reading something very text heavy to help them get
excited and comprehend.

*Anticipation Guides
Before students read through primary sources they will be given a guide that
leaves them wanting to no more about the source we will be reading. The guide will
have questions that will require them to anticipate or guess what they think is
happening next.

*Textbook Training and Effective Note Taking:

Teaching them how to use their textbook effectively by highlighting
important parts such as bold words, sub headings, index, etc. Teaching students
different note taking strategies such as the Cornell system.
Outcome:
To raise literacy in my Social Studies classroom and develop at least 3
strategies that I have learned how to effectively use for literacy.

Results
After attempting many different types of literacy strategies in my Social
Studies 7 class I have concluded that there is not one perfect strategy that will
solve all the literacy deficits in the classroom. After much trial and effort I have been
able to identify a few strategies that have been effective for multiple students, these
strategies are listed below. Not every strategy is going to work with a class and
these strategies do not all work for each teacher. These are the ones that I became
comfortable with and proved to be effective.

*Reading Out Loud

This has probably been my most used strategy because it has multiple
benefits and other strategies can stem from reading to the students. In my class we
are reading a novel that is based on experiences in the early stages of colonization
and more specifically the fur trade in Canada. The students were a bit apprehensive
in the beginning and I heard many complaints from them such as This is social
studies, not language arts! We already read enough, why do we have to listen to
another book, this is social!
While not every student loves to have a book read to them, the majority of
my students really enjoy it and it adds extra insight into the topics we cover in class.
It has made students more curious about the topics we cover in social studies and I
have students ask on numerous occasions where they can learn more about
experiences they learn about in the book. Simply reading to the students has
encouraged my students to want to read more and helps there comprehension skills
when we cover topics in the textbook that relate to the book we are reading. When I
have taught the students about aspects of the fur trade and voyageurs, they are
considerably more engaged and relate what we are learning to stories they heard
me read from the book.
To conclude, not only has reading to the students helped increase literacy
skills in my classroom it is also a great way to slow students down when they enter
the classroom and provides a time for students to be in their imaginations as they
listen to the story. It is a great classroom management tool as well as boosting
literacy.

*Textbook/Primary Source
About once or twice a month we have a short mini lesson on analyzing
information in the textbook as well as primary sources. At the beginning of the year
I spent an entire class period on how to read a textbook and primary sources and
then every mini lesson after this we have reviewed it. My eyes were opened very
quickly as I watched the majority of the class struggle to find basic answers to
question from the textbook. School textbooks are overloaded with information,
colors, shapes, and other boxes. It is no wonder students struggle to find
information at times. I wanted my students to be able to pull out important
information in a timely matter. I wanted to teach them the skills necessary to do so.
They completely understood the topic of the worksheet, but actually searching for
answers on their own was a huge struggle.
After spending time discussing aspects of the textbook such as bolded words,
headings, sub-headings, summaries, paragraph structure, etc. Students have shown
vast improvement in this area. Last week I had students doing a similar style
worksheet where they had to glean information from the textbook and they were
significantly faster from apply strategies and knowledge that they learned.

*Word Wall
I have recently begun this strategy in the classroom and have had the
students find difficult words in any of the lecture material or text that we cover.
Once they identify the word, we discuss it as a class and they design a small card
with the word on it. They put it on the word wall and we reflect upon these words at
the beginning of every class. This has encouraged students to ask questions at a
more frequent rate about words they do not understand. Allowing them to become
comfortable with coming forth with difficult words has boosted their vocabulary
and in turn the word wall is a very effective literacy boosting strategy when used
correctly.

*KWL Charts
This is one of the strategies I have tried a few different times when we the
students have come to a big event in history, or a large topic. This I thought would
prove to be quite effective, but my students werent exactly thrilled about writing
about what they wanted to learn about. I hoped that these would help organize
their thoughts about the topic and get them excited to learn. In the end it was
effective for some, but many student did not like them.

*Effective Notes/Summarizing
Having the students take effective notes and summarize what I am saying
during lecture time has been a learning curve for me. Thinking about how the
students comprehend what I am saying and how that translates to their notes has
helped me slow down. For example, when students read text heavy stories or
primary sources I try to chunk the information and have tried to teach them basic
skills in summarizing text. As they work to summarize it, I repeat the short
summary we agree upon as a class. This has helped the class really hone in on the
important points of the text and summarize it in a way that makes sense to them.
I have also provided students with different types of organizers and
templates that help organize their thoughts on the text we cover in class. This has
been quite effective. Organizers with prompt questions have proven to be most
effective. This has helped specifically the students that fall behind in notes because
they feel like they have to write everything down word for word because they have
a fear of missing information. It has also helped them when they take notes home to
study they do not feel so overwhelmed by all the text.
*Picture Definitions
This has been my latest strategy I have been using in my classroom. It has
proven to be quite effective in social studies. There are many words such as
economic competition that students often have difficulties understanding. Having
the students write down whatever picture comes to mind has helped reinforce their
understanding and helps them remember it significantly better. This is a strategy
moving forward in my teaching career that I will rely heavily upon in Social Studies.

*Slow Down
This strategy is simply just having me slow down during lectures and
reading. When I slow down and break down difficult vocabulary or concepts it
engages the students more because they have a better understanding of what is
going on. What I have learned is that it is quite easy to just assume students know all
of the words you are reading to them, but in fact they need you to explain further.