Teaching students about the history and patterns of authoritarianism can help bolster our own collective awareness of the vulnerability of democracy.

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For a pre-kindergarten (preK) class, designing a 3-D map of a newly constructed playground offered authentic opportunities to participate, deliberate, and solve an authentic problem. Responding to the compelling question—“How do we build community spaces that are welcoming to, representative of, and sustaining for all community members?”—the class was able to reimagine the purpose of a neighborhood park with the help of scaffolded inquiry. Through active deliberation (e.g., voting what items to include in the park) and participation (e.g., surveying classmates and families about what they…

This article models how to teach civic dispositions using popular trade books that do not have an obvious connection to critical themes (e.g., power, privilege, identity). In doing so, the authors show how to create opportunities to teach civic dispositions within a school environment that may forbid some books as “too controversial” or that might accept lessons that gradually introduce students (and their parents) to a topic that may be controversial.  While focusing on the read aloud as an opportunity for civic learning, the authors describe how the pedagogical frameworks of critical…

In this article, the authors explain how to use the "evidence on the U" strategy support deep and complex thinking i elementary students, and give examples of scaffolding activities that gradually place much of the responsibility for learning on the students themselves over the course of a year. They also describe how this teaching strategy supports the goals of social studies education in the elementary grades and beyond.

Learning about world religions (as opposed to teaching religious beliefs) as part of social studies can provide a space for students and teachers to have conversations about religious diversity in a respectful, balanced manner. In this article, the authors discuss reading stories and discussing religious diversity as a vehicle to open conversations about religion and diversity, and use the book Lailah’s Lunchbox to provide an example of content and questions teachers can use in their classroom. 

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