Social Studies

Social Studies is a content area about the world around us. There are many different things that go into the content area of social studies. According to the Iowa Core social studies includes behavioral sciences, economics, geography, history and political science. When choosing social studies texts for my classroom I would make sure that the texts would help enhance whatever it is that I am teaching. It would be helpful if the texts were from a different perspective than the textbook. This can help students to see the different views. I would want to choose books that are going to engage the students in my classroom. Once criterion that I would look for in the texts that I am choosing is appropriateness. I would make sure that they would fit the level for the students in my classroom. In my classroom, I would use these books along with the textbook. Having other resources in the classroom can be helpful because they may provide additional information that is not given in the textbook. This can be helpful to the students that want to learn more about a certain topic that they are learning about in class. It gives them the opportunity to further explore the content.

Off the Map: The Journals of Lewis and Clark

Clark, W., & Lewis, M. (1993). Off the map: The journals of Lewis and Clark. New              York, NY: Walker and Company.  

This book has a lexile level of 880L. It would be a seventh grade independent reading level and it could be used between fifth and seventh grade for interest reading or as a read aloud. The theme of this book is exploration. This book is a journal of Lewis and Clark. Students can actually read what they wrote and get a feel for what they went through. A neat thing about this book is that it is written in journal form so it has an easy layout and students can easily navigate the text. Students will have to have some background of the travels of Lewis and Clark to understand the text that they are reading. Some of the vocabulary that is used is more advanced, so not all students in the class may benefit from this text or they will need background in the vocabulary that is used.

Into the Unknown: How Great Explorers Found their Way by Land, Sea, and Air

Ross, S., & Biesty, S. (2011). Into the unknown: How great explorers found their              way by land, sea and air. Somervill, MA: Candlewick Press. 

This book has a lexile 1000L. It would be a seventh grade independent reading level and it could be used between fifth and seventh grade for interest or as a read aloud. The theme of this book is explorers. The book presents ideas about many different explorers and how they found their way. The book presents ideas on how the explorers just went out and found their way around and pieced together the picture of our world today. The book has many different text features. It has many foldouts and each page is presented in a new way. Some pages are presented in the form of a newspaper article and others are diagrams of a ship or airplane. Some pages are just paragraphs about a different explorer. Students would need extra help when it comes to the vocabulary of the text. It uses some advanced vocabulary and it uses some technical vocabulary about ships and airplanes. Other than vocabulary, students would need little support when reading this text.