Language Arts and Social Studies— It's the Connections That Matter Most!

The two of us— Wendy, a language arts teacher, and Lori, a social studies teacher— teach together on the same eighth grade team. We often joke about the vacuum cleaner that exists in between the double front doors of our school. It sucks out all previous knowledge, which explains why our students can look at us and say, "We never learned that!"

Despite student protestations to the contrary, we know this is not true. What we did find, though, was a kind of disconnect for students between one class and the next. This became obvious in our initial collaboration, which revolved around assessing writing the students had done in Lori's social studies classes. Once an assignment was turned in, the two of us would examine a variety of samples, measuring their competency against a given rubric. We discovered that students were not transferring their knowledge and skills from language arts to their writing in social studies class. Conversations with other content-area teachers revealed that they concluded much the same as we had.

So the question became, how do we help these youngsters see that the skills they are learning are not unique to a single subject or class? How can we best support learning taught across content areas so that students truly learn and retain the content of what we are teaching? We began by identifying several skills critical to the reading in our content areas. We also discovered some common areas where students repeatedly demonstrated difficulty, including taking notes and supporting opinions with details. We then talked about ways we could work together to integrate these key skills into our course content.

In-and-Out Readings

One way we found to do this in language arts was to support social studies content with "in-and-out" readings; these take the form of brief content selections and short-answer response questions that serve to reinforce comprehension skills. An example of this type of reading is "The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano." This selection describes the "middle passage" of Olaudah and his sister once they were captured in West Africa and sold as slaves. "The Interesting Narrative" correlates with learning in social studies about the various groups that came to North America, willingly or not. Students read the selection and then discussed it. Our hope was to improve our students' comprehension as well as to enrich their understanding of perspective, another social studies goal. The assignment also provided students an opportunity to identify specific details that support the topic, a key skill central to learning in various and virtually all content areas. (In-and-out readings are not limited just to connecting with social studies— we particularly seek readings to support math and science content as well.)

Outlines

To begin, in our study of the American Revolution, we worked on how to take notes, specifically in outline form. Students were given a short section of text (in this case, on the beginnings of the Revolutionary War) followed by a demonstration on the overhead projector of how an outline is developed from this text. This was followed by another short section about the development of the war in the middle colonies using a prepared outline with missing parts, much like a cloze exercise, so students could read a section and clearly see how to develop an outline. Here is a part of the outline we used:

Early Years of the War
1. Americans are divided
2. Creating an Army
  1. Difficulties for Washington
    1. _______________________________
    2. men only enlisted for __________________________
  2. Washington's strategy— _____________________!!!

Next, students were given another section to read and were asked to outline it on their own. When attempting to read the text, they had difficulty identifying what was most important to remember. As a result, students tended to neglect, to distort, or to misrepresent key concepts. Also, students were often unable to logically group information into meaningful sections or parts.

Upon discovering this, we revisited the text outlined independently. We looked at headings and read sections of the text to identify key words to help guide students. We discussed the meaning and purpose of the section as well as the purpose of note taking. We then discussed essential information to be noted. Afterward, students said they had a much better understanding of how to construct an outline. Obviously, they needed a chance to attempt outlining on their own, perhaps to experience less success than either student or teacher might like. To complete this effort, students were asked to outline a section on the results of the war, which most students did very well.

Another benefit of integrating social studies and language arts is the ability to address overlapping objectives. What better way to practice the skill of outlining than by using real content learned in social studies and effectively extending it into outline form. As part of our integrated lesson plan regarding the ideals set forth in the Declaration of Independence, students are asked to summarize, in brief outline form, a current event article that illustrates those ideals currently upheld or not upheld in American society. Wendy utilizes this learned outline procedure when asking students to prewrite or to organize content to be included in an essay. Wendy and Lori mutually developed a rubric for a persuasive essay, which would provide a common assessment tool for use in both language arts and social studies. This lesson culminates with the composition of a "found poem." In this effort, students organize their learned or "found" information into simple outline format first, transferring it next into creative poetic form.

A.C.T.I.V.E. Note Taking

Note taking is an important skill that can also be reinforced in language arts instruction through the use of A.C.T.I.V.E. — a specific reading comprehension program that utilizes Post-it notes for note taking as the students navigate through text. Students ask questions, make real-life connections, track important factual information, infer meaning, when necessary, and visualize vivid mental pictures, which aids in both clarification and recall. E represents the eureka! or aha! moment of realization, indicating that the student "gets it!" To support this effort, we talk about key words within the text, also known as signal words, which should alert students to important ideas. When practiced consistently and continually, this note-taking strategy becomes more fluid and automatic— its usefulness across content reading is undeniable. Similarly, social studies classes practice the A.C.T.I.V.E. strategies within in-class discussions and writing.

Essays

Beyond in-and-out readings and note taking, we wanted to stretch both the students' and our own ability to make more significant connections. We designed a lesson together that asks students to examine the ideals found in the Declaration of Independence. It requires higher-level thinking, involves looking at more than the history currently taught in Ohio in the eighth grade social studies curriculum, and allows students to express their own opinions with support— a task often found challenging for most middle-level students. We mutually developed a rubric for a persuasive essay, which would provide a common assessment tool for use in both language arts and social studies.

The essay required students to ask whether America has lived up to the ideals set forth by our Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence. For this assignment, students had to provide specific historical evidence in support of that claim. Validating opinions with solid support is so very difficult for many students; and yet, as we all know, it is one of the most significant skills we can teach our students in acquiring knowledge responsibly within their classrooms and within their lives.

Perseverance— In Spelling, Usage, and Life

Without question, students need to learn how to learn— how to fail, how to pick themselves up, how to try without success and yet try again. These are some of the most important lessons we can teach our children. Perseverance in academics is a virtue that is often overlooked. To that end, Wendy offers a quiz covering selected "commonly confused words" three times yearly. These pesky but essential usages, including homonym distinctions and other easily confused sets of words, such as except and accept, represent knowledge believed to be essential prior to advancement to high school level academics. Though the first attempt at this quiz proves frustrating for some students, they learn that the student who sticks with a problem and practices tenacity in working through failures or misconceptions is the student made capable of achieving success in time. Additionally, Lori expects conformance to those same standards when writing in her class. She deducts points for misuse of homonyms and for misspelling of common words on work turned in for formal assessment or display. This leads us, in making formative assessments, to utilize selected shared rubrics that contain common grammar and usage.

Working with Colleagues— We All Benefit

Clearly, good teachers encourage critical evaluation of information based on given criteria— but developing the ability to derive critical conclusions requires time, practice, and purposeful teacher instruction. Following this, it is reasonable to expect that students assume more responsibility in taking the necessary steps to guide themselves through the learning process in any and all content areas. We have discovered that providing multiple opportunities to practice a skill remains in the students' best interest, overall. There are many of these essential skills that overlap within and among content areas. Wouldn't we all benefit if we piggybacked on one another's instructional efforts instead of trying to do it all on our own? Wouldn't our students learn more, and apply what they learned, if they knew we were all communicating? Ultimately, through collaboration, we send a strong message to our students about the inevitability of encountering similar connections throughout their education.

Lori Dhiraprasiddhi teaches eighth social studies at Hilliard Memorial Middle School. She graduated from Kenyon College with majors in religion and political science and from Ohio State University with a master's in education. She stresses the importance of understanding "perspective" in her classes and uses her past world travel experiences to achieve this.

Wendy Begun teaches eighth grade language arts at Hilliard Memorial Middle School. She has taken extensive graduate coursework at Ohio State University in the areas of developmental and remedial reading as well multicultural studies. She is a strong literacy advocate, with a focus on teaching English to students of other languages.

Authors' Note: We met over ten years ago when our daughters were in grade school together. We discovered we shared similar life experiences, different but strong religious beliefs, a deep regard and respect for family, and the same passion for teaching. Six years later, we had the opportunity to work in the same building, then on the same seventh grade team, and now on the same eighth grade team. We believe our strongest bond is the sincere desire for our students to become productive citizens in the world. While we want our students to be successful academically as eighth graders, we also have a drive to prepare them for the future. Our desire to work together stems from our common experiences, understandings, and beliefs.

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