Implementing Great Activating Strategies in Social Studies Lessons

Debbie Willingham
Oct 25, 2010

How do we "hook n' link" our students for greater involvement in Acquisition lessons?

Even though a key principle for Learning-Focused motto is "adapt, don't adopt," teachers and administrators implementing Learning-Focused Strategies sometimes limit themselves when choosing strategies to the examples in the book. When first learning to plan and teach Learning-Focused lessons, it is natural to start slowly and with just a few ideas, but in some subject areas and on some topics there is a wealth of alternative strategies to activate student thinking about the upcoming lesson.

It is quite important for both teachers and the administrators monitoring their implementation to keep their focus on the intent of the strategy an d it's result on learning. The purpose of an Activating Strategy is to link content to prior knowledge, introduce the topic of a new lesson, pique students' interest in the content, and/or teach essential vocabulary they will need to know on the topic. With that in mind, the possibilities of great Activating Strategies for social studies lessons are numerous.

While there are a number of excellent ideas in Connecting Exemplary Practices in Acquisition Lessons, many of the best ideas for Activating Strategies specific to social studies fall into four categories: artifacts; media; fine arts; and scenarios/situations.

Artifacts: arrowheads or spearheads; animal skins; pottery shards; authentic or replica weapons (get permission before bringing these to school!); spices, samples of food from various time periods or places; period clothing; period household utensils or other items; culture/country-specific souvenirs or daily items; primary source documents (or facsimiles)

Media: period music (from classical to pop depending on the time frame of the topic); topical music (songs relating to the lesson topic from School House Rocks tunes to Johnny Horton's Battle of New Orleans); video clips (from the multitude of documentaries and historically based movies); references in unexpected TV shows or movies (such as Barney reciting the Preamble in an Andy Griffith Show segment)

Fine Arts: paintings of historical figures or events (Queen Elizabeth, Washington crossing the Delaware), photographs (from the Civil War to present on every topic); quotes from famous (or infamous) people

Scenarios/Situations: newspaper/internet articles on current events that depict a topic or its implications (laws passed, rights used/denied in other countries, elections, economic developments and implications); what-if scenarios based on a topic; cartoons/comic strips based on real-life example situations

While these are just a few of the limitless ideas for activating students' thinking on social studies topics, they should serve as a springboard for thinking outside the box to get your students truly interested in what they will be learning in a social studies lesson. Never let them say social studies is boring - make it come to life with a wide variety of Activating Strategies!