Toward Disciplinary Literacy: Dilemmas and Challenges in Designing History Curriculum to Support Middle School Students

Y

23

Institute of Education Sciences (ED)

R305F100026

Middle School Students; Curriculum Design; History Instruction; Units of Study; Literacy Education; Historians; Pedagogical Content Knowledge; Group Discussion; Controversial Issues (Course Content); Classroom Communication; Social Studies; Interdisciplinary Approach; Learner Engagement; Teaching Methods; Reading Skills; Concept Formation

10.17763/0017-8055.85.4.587

0017-8055

In this article, Leslie Duhaylongsod, Catherine E. Snow, Robert L. Selman, and M. Suzanne Donovan describe the principles behind the design of curricular units that offer disciplinary literacy support in the subject of history for middle school students who represent a wide range of reading levels, and for their teachers, whose own subject matter expertise in history varies. The authors elucidate the theory of change from which the design principles derive and reveal dilemmas they faced in enacting disciplinary literacy when adhering to these principles. They use transcripts from classrooms implementing the curriculum to show instances of students demonstrating key skills approximating those used by historians, despite some compromises with authentic historical scholarship in the curriculum itself. By offering high-interest materials, opportunities to connect history to student experiences, and active classroom discussions and debates over historical controversies, the Social Studies Generation (SoGen) history curriculum, a part of the multidisciplinary Word Generation program, is an attempt to reconcile the tension between maintaining high student engagement with history and inducting students into the complex work of real historians. [This paper was published in "Harvard Educational Review" (EJ1100354).]

As Provided

45

Yes

2017

ED574651