Teaching Writing in the Social Studies by National Council for the Social Studies

y e d t e e e e a u s b t n t i stess inscr eate quo anno ompeoxamie t r c e r t o p c o n x y e n f e te cite e t e i t z r a i e a d r n l i a a t c p c t g r a r s e llustr otate ore elu e o inte fine i l m n e e z a p t n y d r l x f a e a e a e t i b i n view icate v s r e c e r t s e s c remmunate depioutlinassess inpropo strate u l s e co vestig rate nize l z s i y e l u t a a c t n i in illus scrut ile dis unic udy a t t m c p s i e e m t t m i o c evalua ine co raft c quire ate dep alu n e i d e v r m t Joan a c e a h x g i e e e c t t h Brodsky n r s n y c o i fi e a a r e v u a r Schur e a l t n i q s r e p o s e t x r p e e e r r s r e r s e p f o o e e r l l t r l y n i p inte p i f i p i x c a t te ar ex e Good writing skills are a pathway to academic success and a lifelong asset for students. The social studies disciplines offer excellent opportunities for the development of these skills because social studies subjects require students to present information clearly and accurately, to summarize different perspectives, and to construct persuasive arguments.

In this book, Joan Brodsky Schur draws on her extensive experience as a teacher of both social studies and English to show how social studies teachers can integrate excellent writing instruction into their courses. In every chapter, she recommends several writing strategies, each of which is embedded in social studies content, to show how thinking skills, mastery of information, and writing reinforce one another. The chapters of the book present a structured progression in which students become proficient at writing on a small scaleâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;for example, through short writes, or paragraphs about clearly defined topicsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; as the foundation for more ambitious projects such as essays and research papers. This book offers invaluable suggestions that will help social studies teachers in grades 7 through 12 to teach the skills of communication and self-expression that will enable students to achieve their college and career goals and become effective citizens with a voice in American society.

Joan Brodsky Schur is a social studies consultant, author, and teacher who taught both social studies and English to students in New York City for three decades. She is the author or co-author of six books for teachers on topics related to United States and world history, including Eyewitness to the Past: Strategies for Teaching American History in Grades 5-10.

National Council for the Social Studies 8555 Sixteenth Street • Suite 500 • Silver Spring, Maryland 20910

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Anton Schulzki President-Elect

Shannon Pugh Vice-President

Tina Heafner Past-President

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General William J. Palmer High School Colorado Springs, CO

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Alexander Cuenca Indiana University Bloomington, IN (2023)

Tracy Middleton Hidden Valley Middle School Escondido, CA (2021)

Rhonda Watton Templeton Middle School Sussex, WI (2023)

Tina Ellsworth Olathe Public Schools Olathe, KS (2023)

June Morris West Albany High School Albany, OR (2022)

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Joe Feinberg Georgia State University Atlanta, GA (2021)

Chanda Robinson Richland County School District One Columbia, SC (2021)

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NCSS Executive Director

NCSS Director of Publications

Design and Production

NCSS Editorial Staff on this Publication

Lawrence Paska Michael Simpson Gene Cowan | Cowan Creative Michael Simpson, Jennifer Bauduy, and Steven Lapham

Table of Contents Acknowledgments.......................................................................................................................ix Chapter 1

Empowering Students Through Writing................................................................................... 1 Social Studies and the Common Core...............................................................................................................................1 Writing to Learn......................................................................................................................................................................2 Learning to Write....................................................................................................................................................................3 How Teaching Writing in the Social Studies is Organized........................................................................................ 4 Writing and the College, Career and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards �� 6 Skills Addressed in the Book...............................................................................................................................................7 Eleven Tips That Go a Long Way...................................................................................................................................... 11 Chapter 2

Getting Started: The Purpose of Short Writes....................................................................... 17 Short Writes............................................................................................................................................................................18 Short Write 1: Using Evidence to Make a Prediction................................................................................................. 19 Exemplar: The Kalahari Desert as a Human Habitat (Disciplines: Geography, Anthropology) The set-up, 19; Scaffolding pre-writing: taking notes, 20; Writing sample analysis, 21; Modeling writing strategies, 21; Post writing, 22; Variations, 22; Focus on style, 23

Short Write 2: Who Takes the Blame?........................................................................................................................... 23 Exemplar: Which Country Bears the Blame for Starting World War I? (Discipline: World History) Scaffolding pre-writing: taking notes, 24; Writing sample analysis, 24; Combining short sentences into complex sentences, 25; Post writing, 26; Variations, 26; Focus on style, 27

Short Write 3: Is This Law Unfair?.................................................................................................................................. 28 Exemplar: The San Francisco Queue Ordinance of 1878 (Disciplines: U.S. History, Civics, Sociology) Set-up, 28; Scaffolding pre-writing: seeing both sides to the argument, 29; Sample writing analysis , 30; Model good writing: reorganization of the paragraph, 31; Post writing, 31; Focus on style, 32; Assignment on Aristotle’s Three Proofs, 33; Variations, 33

Teaching Writing in the Social Studies

iii

Chapter 3

Paragraphs: The Building Blocks of Writing...........................................................................35 Teaching Paragraph Cohesion.......................................................................................................................................... 36 Exemplar: The Han Dynasty (Disciplines: World History, Civics) Adding appropriate details, 37; Adding a conclusion, 38; Focus on style, 39

Paragraph Structure............................................................................................................................................................ 39 Exemplar: The Aztec Empire (Disciplines: History, Sociology) Vocabulary that strengthens the paragraph, 41; Checklist for revising a basic paragraph, 42; Student samples, 42; Variations, 43; Nine additional strategies for paragraph building, 43

Paragraphs that Compare and Contrast Data............................................................................................................. 45 Exemplar: A Comparison of Nigeria and Kenya (Disciplines: Economics, Geography) Evaluating students’ paragraphs, 48; Paragraph revision, 48; Assessment, 50; Variations, 50; Extensions, 51; Focus on style, 51; Writing a travel itinerary, 51

The Definition Paragraph.................................................................................................................................................. 52 Exemplar: Definition of the term “theocracy” and discussion of its applicability to the Massachusetts Bay Colony (Disciplines: U.S. Government, U.S. History) The assignment: student samples, 53; Evaluating student paragraphs, 54; Revision: students apply rubrics to one another’s work, 54; Variations, 55; Extensions, 55

Chapter 4

Mastering the Essay: The Key to Success in School...............................................................57 The Analytic Essay............................................................................................................................................................... 58 Exemplar: Union Advantages in the Civil War (Discipline: U.S. History) Deciphering the difference between facts and reasons, 58; Writing and revising paragraphs as a team, 61; From paragraphs to the essay: finding the lens, 63; Assignment, 64; Writing the analytic essay, 65; Student sample essay, 66

The Document-Based Essay.............................................................................................................................................. 68 Exemplar: Comparing the viewpoints of Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey, and W.E.B. Du Bois (Discipline: U.S. History) Strategy for four class periods, 68

The Argument Essay ..........................................................................................................................................................69 Exemplar: The Intentions of the Framers Regarding Slavery in the U.S. Constitution (Disciplines: U.S. Government, U.S. History) Choosing a debatable essay statement, 70; Assignment and strategies for understanding documents, 70; Summarizing texts, 71; Note-taking strategy: the Cornell system, 72; Breaking down the text, 73; GIST summaries, 74; Talking it out first to write better later, 75; Mapping arguments and counter arguments, 77; Giving feedback sooner, not later, 77; Student samples, 78; Writing checklist, 79; Assessing the essays, 80; Student samples, 81; Focus on style, 83; Variations, 84

Concluding Thoughts.......................................................................................................................................................... 85

Teaching Writing in the Social Studies

Chapter 5

Developing Versatile Writers: Writing in Role.......................................................................87 The Value of RAFT Assignments: Role-Audience-Format-Topic........................................................................... 88 Sample RAFT assignments across eras and disciplines, 89; Interactive RAFT assignments, 90; Rubric for a RAFT assignment, 90; RAFT assignment and analysis of student samples, 91

Brainstorming RAFT Assignments: The Battle of Waterloo, 1815 ....................................................................... 92 The battle of Waterloo in contemporaneous accounts, 94; The battle of Waterloo in later accounts, 96; Contrasting formats: rhetoric and voice in the obituary versus eulogy, 97; Analysis of rhetoric, 101

Writing Petitions: Communicating Conclusions and Taking Informed Action..............................................101 Exemplar: U.S. Women Petition Congress to Rescind the Gag Rule, 1836 (Disciplines: Civics, U.S. History) Focus on style, 102

Chapter 6

Secondary School and Beyond: Writing the Thesis-Based Research Paper ��107 Formulating Questions..................................................................................................................................................... 109 Choosing a Topic and Focus for the Thesis-based Research Paper.....................................................................113 The Reaction Paper.............................................................................................................................................................115 The Annotated Bibliography............................................................................................................................................118 Crafting a Thesis Statement........................................................................................................................................... 120 Differentiation..................................................................................................................................................................... 123 Supporting Questions....................................................................................................................................................... 123 Evaluating Sources and Media Literacy...................................................................................................................... 125 Sourcing, Citing Sources, and Avoiding Plagiarism............................................................................................... 127 Revising the Thesis-Based Paper.................................................................................................................................. 130 Reverse Outlining ............................................................................................................................................................. 130 Self and Peer Reviews....................................................................................................................................................... 133 Teacher Responses to Student Work ........................................................................................................................... 136 Conclusion............................................................................................................................................................................ 137

Conclusion................................................................................................................................. 141 About the Author......................................................................................................................143

Teaching Writing in the Social Studies

Charts Chapter 2

Getting Started: The Purpose of Short Writes

Chapter 3

Paragraphs: The Building Blocks of Writing

Chapter 4

Mastering the Essay: The Key to Success in School

Skills Addressed in this Chapter...................................................................................................................................................................................................57 Facts and Reasons Note-Taking Chart.....................................................................................................................................................................................59 Sample Note-Taking Chart: The Union Advantage, Facts and Reasons...........................................................................................................60 Note-Taking Strategy: The Cornell System............................................................................................................................................................................72 Guided Reading Organizer..............................................................................................................................................................................................................72 GIST: Generating Interactions Between Schema..............................................................................................................................................................74 Classroom Discussion.........................................................................................................................................................................................................................76 Pre-Writing Assignment: Mapping Arguments and Counter-Arguments.........................................................................................................77 Sample Checklist.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 80

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vii

Chapter 5

Developing Versatile Writers: Writing in Role

Chapter 6

Secondary School and Beyond: Writing the Thesis-Based Research Paper

Skills Addressed in this Chapter................................................................................................................................................................................................ 107 Student Chart: Question Focus on the Cold War............................................................................................................................................................. 112 Research Paper Thinking Assignment....................................................................................................................................................................................114 Reaction Paper: History of the Modern Middle East....................................................................................................................................................116 Research Paper Thinking Assignment.................................................................................................................................................................................... 117 Research Paper and Annotated Bibliography Grading Rubric..............................................................................................................................119 What Makes a Good Thesis Statement?................................................................................................................................................................................ 121 Supporting Questions: Flood of 1927...................................................................................................................................................................................... 124 Supporting Questions: Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Roles after World War II....................................................................................................................................... 124 Reverse Outline Form.........................................................................................................................................................................................................................132 Content Checklist..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................133 Peer Review Guidelines.................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 134

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Teaching Writing in the Social Studies

Acknowledgments THE WRITING OF THIS BOOK COMES AFTER A LONG CAREER of teaching both social studies and English. I have toggled between these two fields from the beginning. In high school, my most inspiring teachers taught social studies. I thought for certain that I would follow their path. But at New York University I majored in English and also earned a Master of Arts in Teaching English (7-12). If someone were to ask me which subject I liked to teach more, social studies or English, I would have to answer: both together. I found that the most effective and exciting way to teach was to teach both subjects to the same students. My career began as an eighth-grade teacher at the City and Country School, where I taught for seven years in the 1970s. Founded over a century ago, it is a social studies-based progressive school in New York City. Its library contains a wealth of primary source documents: multi-volume collections as well as titles written by explorers, archaeologists, and witnesses to history famed and obscure. I learned to teach using treasures such as these, long before the Internet made them accessible on the Web. I became a seasoned teacher during my two decades in the classroom at the nearby Village Community School (VCS), where I developed and taught courses in United States history, immigration, Islam in world history, and anthropology—all the while teaching English to the same students. Students at VCS might read the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and Walt Whitman’s poetry in my English class while we studied the Civil War. I chose other novels to illustrate social studies concepts: Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart for a study of status, and 1984 for an investigation of tyranny. Some students were sparked by imaginative and creative assignments, others were excited to think analytically, and most to do both. If I taught students to write an essay in English, I could draw on and extend those skills when I assigned a research paper. Thus, I learned more about each student as thinker and writer than I would have otherwise: about what moved and engaged them, about strengths I came to admire, and weaknesses I had to address. NCSS Past President Syd Golston and I were colleagues at VCS for two years. I thank her for her inspiration then as now, and for recommending me for this project. I also wish to thank my former students, as well as colleagues and administrators at both schools, for encouraging me to experiment and take risks. Drawing on just my own teaching experience and subsequent work as a curriculum developer would not have sufficed to write this bulletin. When I undertook this endeavor, I knew that I had to access the expertise of teachers at schools across the country. Some I met at professional development programs in New York City, others at national conferences, and several on funded trips abroad. Two are my colleagues at the City and Country School, where I currently serve as Social Studies Consultant. In Teaching Writing in the Social Studies, these experts share assignments and insights about the writing process gained over many years of self-reflective practice in their classrooms. Their voices add immeasurable wisdom to this bulletin.

Acknowledgments

I met Lisa Adeli in 2008 when we both served on the Middle East Outreach Council, a consortium of universities that provide training in recent scholarship to teachers under Title VI grants from the federal government. Dr. Adeli, who has contributed her expertise to this book, is Director of Educational Outreach for the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Arizona. In addition to her Ph.D. in History, she holds an M.A. in Teaching English as a Second Language. Previously, Dr. Adeli taught high school social studies and English at the Buena High School in Sierra Vista, Arizona; she continues to teach part time at Cholla High School in Tucson. In 2012, she received the NCSS Award for Global Understanding. Both Alexis Stevens and Wendy Sierra have also contributed their expertise to this book. In the spring of 2017, I joined an educational trip to Bosnia led by Dr. Adeli, on which I met fellow-tour member Alexis Stevens. She holds an M.A. in History and teaches World History II and U.S. Foreign Policy, among other courses, at the Bancroft School in Massachusetts. On a different trip, I met Wendy Sierra. In 2015, we were TEACH Fellows (Teachers Educating Across Culture in Harmony) in Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, where we visited schools. Sierra currently teaches ninth grade geography at Eastview High School in Georgetown, Texas. In 2009, she was recognized by the Veterans of Foreign Wars as High School Teacher of the Year. She serves on her school districtâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s World Geography curriculum writing team (2009-present) and co-wrote their curriculum-based assessments (2011-present). Closer to home, through programs for teachers at New York University and Columbia University, I met other outstanding teachers who contributed their expertise to this book. Among them are Rob Jacobs and Sandra Fahy. Jacobs taught high school history at the Horace Mann School in Riverdale, New York, and currently teaches at Trinity School in Manhattan. He holds an M.A, from the University of Chicago. His teaching has focused mainly on Global History, and he has a particular interest in teaching medieval and modern Islamic history. He is currently trying to adapt the narrative of all of his classes so that students understand that history does not just include diverse histories of peoples and social groups, but cannot be fully understood without them. Sandra Fahy teaches history and anthropology at The Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn, New York, where she specializes in global curricula and spearheads interdisciplinary courses, including Scientific and Historical Origins of Race and Gender. She holds an M.A. in French Cultural Studies, M.Phil. in Anthropology and French Cultural Studies, and an M.A. in Teaching of Social Studies. I continue to learn from and be inspired by all the remarkable teachers with whom I work at the City and Country School. They succeed in nurturing the innate curiosity of their students, and in providing them with the developmentally appropriate skills they need to answer their own questions, as well as the means to communicate to one another what they have learned. For this book, I draw directly on the work of Sarah Whittier and Ann Roberts. Over several school years, they shared with me their growing insights into how to best help seventh and eighth grade students make that leap into higher-level thinking, research, and writing. Like all the teachers with whom I work, they welcomed me into their classrooms and invited me to work with students. I also want to thank the Research Librarian, Jordis Rosberg, and the following teachers at City and Country from whom I learned so much about the teaching of writing and research to ten and eleven year olds: Molly Lippman, Megan Holland, Gee Roldan, Daniela Jimenez Gabb, and Jessica Vander Salm.

Teaching Writing in the Social Studies

Ann Roberts holds a Masters in English and is the co-author of Writing with a Point, published by Educators Publishing Service in 1998.* Before joining the faculty at the City and Country School more than twenty years ago, she taught English at the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. Sarah Whittier, a graduate of City and Country School, returned to her alma mater to teach after living and working in California. She has taught at the University of California, Santa Cruz, from which she earned her Ph.D. in Literature. She also taught at Pacific Collegiate School, a public high school in Santa Cruz. In addition to Sarah Whittier and Ann Roberts, I especially wish to thank Lisa Greenwald, Ph.D., who is a member of the social studies department at Stuyvesant High School in New York City. She is the author of Daughters of 1968: Redefining French Feminism and the Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Liberation Movement, published by the University of Nebraska Press in 2018. She has worked as a consultant and in-house historian for a variety of nonprofits and foundations in France, Chicago, and New York. I was put in contact with Dr. Greenwald thanks to the advice of the ever-helpful Jennifer Suri, Assistant Principal of Social Studies at Stuyvesant High School. Ann Roberts, Sarah Whittier, and Lisa Greenwald all devoted personal time to educating me about aspects of writing the research paper. They read sections of the manuscript and gave me astute feedback for which I am grateful. Jennifer Bauduy and Steven Lapham of NCSS also deserve my thanks for their helpful comments. I am most grateful to Michael Simpson, Director of Publications and Resources for the National Council for the Social Studies. When in need of guidance or guidelines, reliable information about controversial issues, and ideas for how to teach them, I turn to myriad works that he has expertly guided on their way to publication. For me, no NCSS Annual Conference would be complete without seeing the display of timely and always relevant NCSS books, bulletins, and journals in the NCSS publications booth. I felt both honored and daunted when he entrusted me with writing this book. With his support, I have enjoyed working on this project more than I can say. I hope that readers will find it a useful addition to the works that National Council for the Social Studies provides teachers in our field. Joan Brodsky Schur March 2020 * Writing with a Point is published under Ann Robertsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; former name, Ann Harper.

Acknowledgments

CHAPTER 1

Empowering Students Through Writing WHY SHOULD TEACHERS OF SOCIAL STUDIES CARE ABOUT THE TEACHING OF WRITING? According to a recent Pew Research Report, many do.1 The study found that of social studies instructors teaching Advanced Placement classes, ninety-three percent placed a high value on writing, particularly on formal writing assignments. Only AP English teachers assigned more written work. This makes the quality of our writing instruction pivotal in the academic success of our top students. What we may not realize is that when we improve the quality of our writing instruction for all of our students, we also become better teachers of our discipline. Although we can count on English teachers to teach many aspects of writing, we have a different set of disciplinary goals than they do. Whereas English teachers are primarily concerned with literary analysis, we ask questions about the social world. What are the sources we use to understand about the past, and how do we interpret them? How has society shaped the ways that individuals identify themselves? What are the effects of globalization, and when did it begin? From whose perspective should we investigate these questions? Inquiries such as these can be answered through a disciplinary understanding of geography, history, civics, and economics, and include sociology, psychology, and anthropology as well. Above all, we want our students to be empowered through writing to become effective advocates and citizens. They need to consider what changes they want to see effected in our society today, for whose benefit, on what ethical or legal basis, and through what means. The College, Career & Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards emphasizes students’ roles in participatory democracy: “They vote, serve on juries, follow the news and current events, and participate in voluntary groups and efforts.”2 Clear, accurate, and persuasive writing is a critical tool, enabling students to have a voice in American society.

Social Studies and the Common Core

Whether or not your state has adopted the Common Core State Standards, the standards have already influenced what we expect of students, how teachers are trained, and the materials educational publishers put on the market.3 If social studies teachers sometimes feel exempt from concerns about the Common Core, it is because these standards focus on literacy skills and math. In fact, the Common Core standards have also enabled us to place a greater emphasis on social studies content. This is because they advocate for more time spent on the reading of and writing about non-fiction texts (as opposed to personal writing and response to fiction). This was a shift sometimes decried by English teachers. Since social studies is most often taught through nonfiction texts, the new emphasis led to a potentially greater role for social studies in schools. The College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Writing insist that students learn to write three types of texts:4 ▶

Write arguments to support claims.

▶

Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas.

▶

Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events.

Empowering Students Through Writing

The writing of arguments supports critical tasks in social studies such as, “… using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.” The Common Core standards make the connection to social studies more explicit in Appendix A of the standards: “In history/social studies, students analyze evidence from multiple primary and secondary sources to advance a claim that is best supported by the evidence, and they argue for a historically or empirically situated interpretation.”5 This book, Teaching Writing in the Social Studies, pays special heed to strategies for teaching argument writing beginning with the paragraph, next in the argumentative essay, and finally in the thesis-based research paper. Informational/explanatory writing differs from argument writing in that explanations “answer questions about why or how. Their aim is to make the reader understand rather than to persuade….” Examples in Appendix A of the Common Core standards include writing answers to the social studies-based questions: “How does the legislative branch of government function?” and “How big is the United States?” Verifying, synthesizing, and organizing information are all important social studies skills. In this book, strategies for teaching students how to write in a variety of essay formats are covered in chapters on the essay proper, and on writing in role, for example as a newspaper reporter. Few social studies teachers think to assign writing in narrative form, which the Anchor Standards describe as requiring “effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.” On one level we could argue that every piece of writing should tell a story. A narrative connects events, and unfolds in a sequence that helps us to make sense of new information. Appendix A qualifies the narrative thus: “In history/social studies students write narrative accounts about individuals. They also construct event models of what happened, selecting from their sources only the most relevant information.” We can extrapolate from the above that it is within the purview of social studies teachers to ask students to write historical fiction for which students must gather information, organize chronology, and develop narrative skills. The chapter in this book on writing RAFTs (writing in a Role for an Audience in a Format about a Topic) provides many examples of writing assignments that build empathy, and help students to imagine the past, as well as to analyze events through different perspectives.

Writing to Learn

Social studies teachers can profit from knowing something about developments outside our bailiwick— from composition theory. This theoretical framework developed in the 1960s and 1970s as the college population soared, amplified by enrollments of baby boomers and newly-arrived immigrants. At the same time, university teachers found that many of their students were ill-prepared to write at the college level. Researchers thus began to study how collegiate and pre-collegiate students were being taught to write and how writing instruction could be improved.6

In the first half of the twentieth century, writing instruction was teacher-centered. English instructors taught students the rules of grammar and usage and then expected students to write by incorporating those rules. Teachers chose the topics students wrote about and were the only readers of what students wrote. When they graded, teachers took out their red pens in search of errors. Many students felt intimidated by this approach and consequently it limited their enthusiasm for writing. Researchers found that memorizing grammatical rules was not an effective way to learn to write, any more than memorizing a driving manual teaches you how to drive. To learn to drive, you need to get behind the wheel. To learn to write, students need to take out their pens or laptops and write on a regular basis. The other insight posited by composition studies is that students learn more content when asked to write: “Writing to Learn is based on the observation that students’ thought and understanding can grow and clarify through the process of writing.”7 While we tend to remember the advent of Writing Across the Curriculum as a means to share the burden of writing instruction with English teachers, it had its origins 2

Teaching Writing in the Social Studies

in insights about how learning and writing reinforce one another in every discipline. Therefore, if we want our students to retain what we teach them in social studies classes, they should write more often. Edgar Dale’s “cones of experience” remind us that students remember only 10 percent of what they read, but they remember 70 percent of what they say and write.8 Students who participate in discussion formulate their thoughts in language, and therefore often write better than non-participants. Conversely, when students are asked to write down their opinions before class discussion, reticent learners gain confidence and have more to say. It’s a win-win situation because, in most cases, the more students engage in discussion, the more fluently they write. The problem remained that teachers who taught one to two hundred students per day had no time to read more papers. One answer was the advent of journal writing or learning logs, a practice designed to promote writing on a daily basis, while obviating the teacher from the obligation to read every entry. The Colonial Williamsburg Department of Education Research says, “Daily writing is very important. Eventually, longer writing will happen with the teacher’s guidance. Students should be asked at the end of each and every period to summarize what they learned that day.”9 Learning logs offer students an opportunity to reflect on their learning—more so than the now popular “Exit Pass” that can be written as abbreviated bullet points. Topics for journal entries can be sparked by class discussion, assigned reading, or a video, with open-ended suggestions for written responses such as: “What is the most important thing you learned today? What confused you the most?” Learning logs also become tools through which students can self-monitor their learning, reflecting on what they found difficult and why. A practice begun in the 1970s still has its advocates today. According to the Pew Research Center report, 41 percent of AP and National Writing Project teachers assign writing logs or journals on a weekly basis.10 To learn deeply, as opposed to memorizing for the short term, scholars like James Britton studied how language and learning are interrelated. What Britton called “genuine learning” requires us to organize information and ideas in words.11 Analytic writing promotes depth and the retention of facts and ideas. His insights still inform current practice. The authors of Reading, Thinking, and Writing About History write: “Reading, thinking, and writing are aspects of the same activity, aimed at fostering content learning.”12 Some researchers have acknowledged that such intense focus can sacrifice some breadth of coverage.13 However, what is learned in depth is better retained for the long term.

Learning to Write

We like to imagine that once students master the content as well as the disciplinary tools we teach, they will become effective writers in the social studies. It seems simple: gather information, figure out what you think, write an outline—then write the paper. However, experts in composition studies such as Janet Emig and Donald Graves came to realize that students do not formulate their thoughts first, and then write them down; rather it is through the process of writing that they learn to formulate and clarify their thoughts. In “Teach Writing as a Process not a Product,” Donald M. Murray writes, “The student should have the opportunity to write all the drafts necessary for him to know what he has to say on this particular topic.”14 Thus to discover what we think, we need to write, revise our ideas, and rewrite. Writing and thinking need not remain lonely pursuits. Britton postulated that writing is an inherently social process since we write in order to communicate with other people. To know how effective we are, we need readers. Writing is thus an interactive and inherently collaborative process. Writing workshop— classroom time devoted to writing and sharing in small groups—thus became a mode of learning adopted by many English teachers. Research practitioners, such as middle school teacher Nancie Atwell, did not stop teaching the conventions of writing—but rather based mini-lessons upon work generated by students. She learned to integrate these mini-lessons into the ongoing process of writing. One-on-one conferencing with the teacher became the keystone of this approach, however short conferences might be.15 Empowering Students Through Writing

Conclusion TEACHING WRITING IN THE SOCIAL STUDIES has been designed to accomplish many things. It is easy to hope that I have provided teachers with strategies they can easily adapt to their classrooms. It is more challenging to believe that I have also helped readers to understand how learning, thinking, and writing are intimately interconnected. That this is the case was shown by scholars in the field of composition theory who explored how we learn to write and write to learn. This book began with their insights. My goal has been to show how these interactions function in the disciplines that comprise the social studies. Many writing assignments—short and long—must be built into the curriculum for this interactional relationship to bear fruit. The Inquiry Arc of the College, Career and Civic Life (C3) Framework necessitates the use of writing to pose questions that initiate and sustain inquiry (D1), apply disciplinary concepts through written analysis (D2), and summarize and evaluate sources (D3). All three of these are explored throughout this book, but the threads come together in the chapter on Writing the Thesis-Based Research Paper. If students pose their own questions, they need the skills to find answers. Being able to evaluate the validity of sources they find on the Internet is of paramount importance in our age of Doublespeak. It is in Dimension 4 of the C3 Framework, when students must communicate conclusions, that writing itself is most in order. “Construct an argument (e.g., detailed outline, poster, essay)” is the Summative Performance Task in the Inquiry Design Model, grades 7 through 12.1 Teachers may not be able to assign a full-blown essay every time, but of these examples the essay is the only format that fully engages students in the writing process. I hope to have shown that the essay is not the only genre in which students can fully develop and write an argument. An editorial, letter for a job application, eulogy, petition—all of these put forth arguments in their fashion. Throughout U.S. history, the writing of petitions has given voice to those with the least power in our democracy. The exercise of this First Amendment right is but one example of how writing empowers students to take informed action. Once teachers decide what the culminating writing assignment will be, they can scaffold tasks that make writing less onerous for the student—for example, by filling in graphic organizers of facts and reasons. We can teach how to organize a paragraph, use transitional phrases within it, and utilize disciplinary vocabulary. But ultimately there is no recipe for writing that can take the place of the student’s need to wrestle with words to express ideas. As Ann Roberts writes: “The emphasis on transitional phrases, though sound enough as a way of making students aware of the ways that they can signpost connections between sentences and ideas, can be superficial and misleading if it masks illogical thought (fallacies) or inadequately worked-through lines of reasoning.” I have tried to give examples of the ways in which writing is essentially a thinking process through which ideas take shape and gain sharper focus as the student revises. It is only then that writing becomes what Roberts calls, “sharp, tough, pared down, sinewy, and tight.”2 Teaching Writing in the Social Studies has emphasized that writing is a social process.3 By this I mean that writers write to communicate to a reader. Keeping that reader in our minds as we write is important if we want to express ourselves clearly, to be understood. There can be no further clarification other than those words on the page. Young writers need feedback from real readers to know if they have hit the mark. Conclusion

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It’s an overwhelming task for teachers to be the sole reader of what students write, if we are assigning as much writing as we should be. There is, however, an upside to this equation. When students participate in writing together, when they read each other’s work and give feedback, they become more astute readers as well as writers. Writing does not have to be a lonely endeavor, start to finish. Social engagement during some of the writing process emphasizes that writing has a purpose that is inherently social itself. Technology now facilitates multiple authors working together on the same text in real time at school or from home. I believe that school is the best place to teach both the social studies and the socialization of adolescents. But teaching writing in the social studies can move between home and school as 21st-century needs dictate and technology facilitates. We have also looked at the benefits of providing students with exemplar texts to emulate, whether written by a student, teacher, or well-known author. When studied, these texts provide inspiration and a pathway to follow. The more often students write, the better they can apply lessons learned from analyzing texts that are both clear and engaging, that enhance meaning through style. Where does this leave social studies teachers in their role as it pertains to writing? My answer is, as a coach. Why do I prefer the term “coach” to “teacher” in this context? The word “coach” brings to my mind an expert guiding and cheering from the sidelines. The student athlete or musician already knows to some extent how to play; the goal of the coach is to oversee steady improvement. The coach has confidence that—with lots of training—the player will gain greater proficiency. The coach may drill, prompt, train, advise, urge, but it’s the player who plays, just as it’s the writer who writes. Ultimately, it’s learning by doing. Like a coach, I like to think of teachers rooting for their students, individually and as a team. Notes 1. Kathy Swan, John Lee, and S.G. Grant, Inquiry Design Model: Building Inquiries in Social Studies (Silver Spring, MD: National Council for the Social Studies and C3Teachers, 2018). See the examples of IDM Blueprints on pages 159-162 of their book. 2. Ann Roberts, in her comments to me of March 21, 2019.

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3. For an introduction to the scholarly discourse on the social context of writing, which is beyond the scope of this book, see Bruce McComiskey, Teaching Composition as a Writing Process (Logan, UT: Utah State University, 2000), accessed online at https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent. cgi?article=1126&context=usupress_pubs. McComiskey also provides some interesting writing assignments.

Teaching Writing in the Social Studies

About the Author JOAN BRODSKY SCHUR is a social studies consultant, author, and teacher who taught both social studies and English to students in New York City for three decades. She is the author or co-author of six books for teachers on topics related to United States and world history, including Eyewitness to the Past: Strategies for Teaching American History in Grades 5-10. She has written lesson plans for the National Archives and PBS Online, and has been a longstanding contributor to Social Education, the official journal of National Council for the Social Studies. She holds a B.A. and M.A. in Teaching English from New York University. Her major fields of interest are U.S. history, immigration, anthropology, world history, modern European history, and literature related to those disciplines.

About the Author

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