Writing in Social Studies.

Writing needs to be given adequate emphasis in the area of social studies. Teachers should attempt to be creative and to assign different kinds of writing in their classes. This paper discusses possible activities for students in a unit on the Middle East to illustrate diverse purposes in writing. An initial assignment could be to ask students to outline material in a text. Pupils also might be asked to write summaries of content reading. Students might be assigned to write scripts for historical events or even to create illustrations of certain events. It can also be educational to have students build scale models of historical sites, such as the walled city of Jericho. Asking students to write creatively, including poems and fictitious diary entries, concerning an historical event should be considered. For historical controversies, students might summarize pros and cons, as in the case of the 1947 Security Council resolution to divide Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish state. Involving students with creating maps or working in committees to write logs for various factions represented in historical disputes also are methods that prove effective. In short, social studies teachers should guide each student to achieve optionally in writing. (HB)