Discourse in Social Studies

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Show slide 8.

Give each participant a copy of the Laws and Practices Shaping the Lives of Women in 1848. Advise the participants they will role-play students using the S-I-T strategy. Identify the document as one they might use if teaching a U.S. history course. The document is a list of laws and social practices that shaped the lives of women in 1848, the year of the Seneca Falls Convention, which was the first public meeting devoted to women’s rights.

Show slide 9. Have participants read the document closely. Ask them to note an idea or fact that surprises them, an idea or fact that interests them, and an idea or fact that troubles them.

Once participants have had a chance to read the document individually, ask them to discuss their responses with their small groups. Give each three sticky notes and ask that each group work together to write a response for S-I-T, one response on each sticky.

Inform the participants that this activity is used in The Seneca Falls Convention and the Declaration of Sentiments lesson on K20’s LEARN website.

Explain/Extend

Show slide 9. Pass out the Discourse in Social Studies Note Catcher handout (see Attachments). Tell participants that based on their experience with the S-I-T strategy, consider the following question: How can the S-I-T strategy foster discourse in your classroom?

Ask participants to discuss this in their small groups. Request that they fill out the S-I-T Strategy section on the Note Catcher handout.

When groups are finished discussing the strategy, reassemble as a whole group. Have groups to share their thoughts with the whole group.

Summarize the discussion, highlighting that S-I-T can promote discourse because it provides students with a structure for content-centered discussions in which students share their thinking with their peers. They must make a claim and then support that claim with evidence and reasoning. This could be done both verbally and in writing.

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Show slide 10. Identify the next strategy, Honeycomb Harvest.

Show slide 11. Explain to participants that the terms for this activity are related to American government.

Provide sets of the Honeycomb Harvest cards to each participant or small group of participants. Give participants about 5-10 minutes to arrange the honeycombs to best represent their understanding of the relationship among these government concepts.

Consider giving an example to help participants get started. For example, you could say that the "separation of powers" and "checks and balances" honeycombs could touch because they both involve the three branches of government.

When the participants have completed the task, have each individual share their reasoning with their small group. If small groups complete their harvests together, ask that they rotate to another group to see another arrangements to compare and contrast.

Bring the group back together and discuss the variety in the arrangements. Emphasize that it is likely that students will also produce a variety of arrangements. As long as students can explain their reasoning, their arrangement should be considered correct.

Explain/Extend

Show slide 11. Based on their experience with the Honeycomb Harvest, have participants consider the following question: How can the Honeycomb Harvest strategy foster discourse in your classroom?

Have participants discuss this with their small groups. Have them fill out the Honeycomb Harvest strategy section on their Note Catcher handout.

After the groups have discussed their perceptions, bring the whole group back together and ask them to share their thoughts with the whole group.

Summarize the discussion highlighting that the Honeycomb Harvest enables students to explain their reasoning and negotiate their thinking with their peers to represent their understanding of the content.

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Show slide 12.

Introduce the final strategy called Say Something. Give each participant a copy of the Say Something handout and explain that this handout can be given to students any time there is going to be small group or whole group discussion.

Show slides 13 and 14. Consider how participants can use this strategy to examine historical documents. Have participants read the Langston Hughes poem called I, Too, am an American, a poem that might be read as part of a high school US history lesson or unit about the Harlem Renaissance. This poem is included on the Say Something handout and on slide 14.

Ask participants to read the poem and look over the Say Something handout. Give them five minutes with their small groups to practice using the Say Something sentence starters to engage in an academic conversation about the poem and its historical significance.

Explain/Extend

Show slide 15. Ask participants to consider, based on their experience with the Say Something strategy, the following question: How can the Say Something strategy help foster discourse in your classroom? Have participants discuss this with their small groups. As they discuss, they can also fill out the Say Something strategy section of their Note Catcher handout.

When groups are finished discussing this strategy, bring the whole group back together and ask for groups to share their thoughts with the whole group.

Summarize the discussion, noting the connections participants made between Say Something and promoting discourse in the classroom. Highlight that Say Something can support discourse because it helps students develop the skills necessary to participate in academic conversation where they must express and share their ideas as well as consider and listen to the ideas and opinions of others.