Stimulating Instruction in Social Studies

To promote content literacy, students have to be actively involved. This article focuses on strategies that stimulate student interest by involving them with the content during pre-reading, during-reading and post-reading activities. These processes provide students with optimal opportunities for comprehension. The authors recommend the use of a variety of materials to supplement the social studies text, recognizing, however, that the text, because of its breadth of knowledge will always play an important role. The three instructional activities delineated reinforce the idea that social studies learning is promoted through literacy, just as language acts learning is developed through the social studies. All of the strategies include a form of graphic organizer. They are examples of ways teachers can adapt instruction to promote student interest in social studies. Social studies doesn't have to be boring! (Contains 1 note and 3 figures.)