My thoughts on Social Studies and the literacy connection!

    In all of the education classes I am taking this semester, I have begun to realize how much my education lacked as far as a challenging education that makes me want to learn more about a particular subject. I feel that if my teachers had given me more problem solving or more direct experiences, I might have like particular subjects better. I really don't remember any of my social studies learning coming from outside a text book. This is pretty sad considering I have already learned about all of the direct and vicarious experiences you can have in social studies from reading this chapter. I didn't even feel like there was a lot of discussion in my social studies classes either. I remember some group activities but in many of the groups only one person did most of the work. I wish I had more time to read for pleasure because reading is very important in social studies as it takes you to different places and students are able to explore a different language. I also would've never thought about a journal being used for social studies but like I read, it encourages metacognition (thinking reflectively).I really only thought journals were used during communication skills. I can see how this would be good after talking about complicated world issues like students often do in Social studies. I am upset that I never had the chance to do this especially because I am a person who likes to write their thoughts down.
      As a future social studies teacher, I would like to have a lot of discussion in my classroom. I would like to divide students into groups and then have them talk about an issue and then this way they are forming their own opinion instead of just giving me my answer back to me on a test. I believe after the group discussions individually students can write in a journal to further reflect on their thoughts and make sure they are their thoughts and not just someone elses in the group. It is important for me as a teacher to bring in literature books that supplement the textbook. An example of this is reading Number the Stars or excerpts from it when talking about World War II. I am upset that I didn't have a strong foundation in social studies, so I am going to see to it that my students have a stronger foundation building upon all of these activities.