Education Week Article Proclaims Benefits of Teaching Kids to Think Like Historians
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| Photo by Ramin Rahimian for Education Week |
In the article titled "History Lessons Blend Content Knowledge, Literacy" and published in Education Week, assistant editor Catherine Gewertz explains how implementation of the Common Core State Standards are prompting teachers to adopt new, innovative strategies for teaching history.
Here is an excerpt:
For years, bands of educators have been trying to free history
instruction from the mire of memorization and propel it instead with the
kinds of inquiry that drive historians themselves. Now, the common-core
standards may offer more impetus for districts and schools to adopt
that brand of instruction.
A study of one such approach suggests that it can yield a triple
academic benefit: It can deepen students’ content knowledge, help them
think like historians, and also build their reading comprehension.
The Reading Like a Historian program, a set of 75 free secondary school lessons in U.S. history, is
getting a new wave of attention as teachers adapt to the Common Core State Standards
in English/language arts. Those guidelines, adopted by all but four
states, demand that teachers of all subjects help students learn to
master challenging nonfiction and build strong arguments based on
evidence.
To read the entire article, click here.
