Hello, all!
I am truly excited about this new school year. This first post will be a general overview of what we will work on in my 7th and 8th grade Social Studies classes throughout the 2010-2011 school year at Paideia.
For the 8th graders and their families, you will notice that this year will be a bit different from last year, in that this year I am no longer teaching Language Arts-- just Social Studies. Though I have truly enjoyed teaching both Language Arts and Social Studies, I am very much looking forward to being able to focus on one subject area this year. (Ms. Bender and I have already started aligning our Language Arts and Social Studies curricula as much as possible!)
I will, however, still be integrating many "language arts skills" (reading, writing, speaking, and listening) into my teaching; for example, we will still be reading novels along with each of our units of historical study. I am still in the planning stages, but here are some novels we may be reading in Social Studies this year:
7th grade: The Surrender Tree (Cuban Independence), The Kitchen Boy (WWI/The Russian Revolution), Celeste's Harlem Renaissance (The Roaring Twenties), The Truth About Sparrows (The Dust Bowl), On Hitler's Mountain (WW2).
8th grade: Year of Impossible Goodbyes (End of WW2-Cold War), Animal Farm (The Cold War), Catch a Tiger by the Toe (McCarthyism), A Raisin in the Sun (U.S. Civil Rights Movement), The Things They Carried (The Vietnam War), Iqbal (Middle East Current Events)
The Core Knowledge Sequence for Social Studies in 7th and 8th grades spans (mostly) the 20th century. In 7th grade Social Studies, we will be concentrating on the time period in U.S. and World History from The Spanish-American War to The End of WW2; in 8th grade, we will pick up from The End of WW2 and work our way through The End of The Cold War; we will also concentrate on geography and current events issues throughout the year.
Here are some the key Social Studies skills we will be working on throughout the year:
Questioning
Identifying Historical Patterns
Problem Solving
Cause/Effect
Compare/Contrast
Perspective
Bias
Anticipating Consequences
Identifying Correlations
Evaluating Decisions and Developing Informed Opinions
Research
I hope you have had an enjoyable and rejuvenating Summer Break!
Please contact me with questions or concerns (lhood@paideiaacademy.org).
Thanks and take care,
Ms. Hood
