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Synthesis Blog 4



Summarize the article
  • A group of Social Studies and ELA teachers collaborate and share their experiences of reading historical fiction and nonfiction. They found that reading both types of texts helped historical understanding and thinking in both ELA and Social Studies classrooms while also promoting historical empathy among students. Additionally, they found that teaching both historical fiction and nonfiction, students begin to understand historical fiction as an actual piece of literature. 
Make connections 
  • Some would argue that ELA and Social Studies go hand in hand because both usually rely heavily on reading and writing. I would, in some cases, agree with this. However, as a future math teacher, ELA is typically never related to my subject area. Reading the Math article a few weeks back really opened my eyes to the importance of integrating these two subject areas, and now reading the Social Studies piece, I can see this same importance here. I was interested to see how this would play out with ELA and Social Studies since these two subject areas are more often related. One thing that really stood out to me and that I think is important in any classroom, especially Social Studies, is making connections. Students, including myself, sometimes struggles with understanding the point of what they are doing, so relating what you are about to teach back to something your students already connect to can be very beneficial (especially in Social Studies when students don’t seem very interested)  
Critique the article 
  • Overall, I think there is a lot to be learned from this article. The only critique or question I am left with is what do we do when adding a piece of literature to an already confusing topic just makes the student become overwhelmed or uninterested? I 100% believe in writing/reading across the curriculum, however Social Studies isn’t always fun or easy for students. So, in some cases, especially for a struggling reader, I would argue that adding more literature wouldn’t always be of benefit for them. 
Explain why the article is important 

  • As cliche as it may sound, I really think this article is important because it helps bridge the gap between these to content areas. The article gives many examples and ways that we can implement this cross curricular learning in our classroom, and I think we all as future educators can draw on these examples to help integrate literacy into all of our non ELA classrooms. 




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