Curriculum
Content Area: Social Studies

Social Studies Goals
Teachers of language arts will. . .

• Help students understand their role as a conscientious
• Help students understand their physical and cultural environments
• Give students a basic working knowledge of tools to enable them to investigate their world
• Foster an appreciation for the struggles and sacrifices of past Americans for students to protect the freedoms of today’s democratic society
• Encourage understanding and tolerance of diverse cultures

What Parents Can Do to Help

• Model social involvement by participating in a community activity.
• Take trips to museums, historical societies, ethnic fairs, and historically or culturally significant sites in surrounding regions.
• Read newspaper or magazine articles with your children.  Discuss issues with them, encouraging children to consider an issue.
• Share family history, memories, and customs.  Help them realize that the family's experiences are part of the history, geography, and culture of the world.
• Volunteer  to share experiences with work, community groups, political efforts, and significant experiences with groups of students at school.

Source:  Best Practice, by Zemelman, Daniels, and Hyde, 1998

Best Instructional Practices to Which We Are Committed

• Treat content knowledge as a tool to solve problems, not simply as memorization. 
• Provide for exploration of open-ended questions and student choice to strengthen learning. 
• Promote thinking for a responsible lifelong citizen in democracy.
• Provide for consistent and cumulative learning from K-12th grades with each grade level building knowledge and skills already learned and receiving preparation for the levels to come.
• Expand curriculum to include more diverse cultural studies with an emphasis on those found in American society.
• Integrate social studies with other areas of the curriculum.
• Read, write, observe, debate and plan other activities that would promote cross-curricular integration. 
• Use a balance of written materials, audio-visual items, artifacts, and technology.
• Provide opportunities for in-depth investigation of topics.
• Teach students to evaluate the reliability of all sources.
• Evaluate learning through peer, self, and teacher assessment.

Team Members