Why Teach Social Studies in the Elementary Classroom?

5. Informational Text: Building Background Knowledge

What is informational text?

How do you currently engage students with informational text in your current practice?

NEXT:

View the video presented by the authors Tina L. Heafner and Dixie D. Massey. Experience the benefits of using a visual inventory and chunking/short texts to engage all students in the exploration of compelling questions. (Web seminar duration: 1:08). 

NOW: 

Read the following piece:

Teaching Informational Text to ELLs
This article by Dr. Diane Staehr Fenner discusses ways to support English Language Learners in reading informational texts.

Does this article change your definition of informational text? 

THEN:

Look at the following website:

History Detectives Special Investigations 
This website provides multiple "historical investigations"  that guide students to evaluate conflicting evidence through the historical skills of sourcing, contextualizing, corroboration, and close reading.

After exploring this website, what other ways are you engaging students with informational text?

Watch the following video and fill in the following chart:

Common Core in ELA/ Literacy: Shift 1: PK-5: Balancing Informational Text and Literature
In this 10 minute video, John B. King Jr., David Coleman, and Kate Gerson unpack Shift 1 and discuss the role of informational text in the elementary classroom.

• What is balancing informational text?
• What does it look like in a social studies classroom?
• What will this mean I have to change about my practice?
• What challenges will I face as I work towards giving students more opportunities to build knowledge in the disciplines of social studies?
  
  

Reflect:

Answer the following questions to reflect on this session:

1. How is the use of informational text relevant to your teaching?
   
   
2. How can the work you did in this module inform your teaching?
   
   
3. How might you incorporate informational text into your practice in different ways?
   
   
4. What do you need to incorporate informational text into your practice?
   

Resources:

Stanford: Reading Like a Historian
Materials and lesson plans