Rooting the Literacies of Citizenship: Ideas That Integrate Social Studies and Language Arts in the Cultivation of a New Global Mindset

The marriage between Social Studies and Language Arts is a natural one. Sadly, the compartmentalization of subject areas within elementary classrooms contributes to the lack of critical connection-building in young children. In many elementary settings, Social Studies is a casualty of daily schedules dictated by the pressures of standardized testing. The authors contend there is an urgent need to rethink current elementary teacher education programs to empower the next generation of teachers to create learning experiences that seamlessly integrate knowledge, thinking, and action in the Social Studies.