I’ve been sharing book recommendations in my previous posts and today I’m continuing with my last post of recommendations, which is for 3 books about teaching academic content subjects. Two of the books are specifically for teaching Social Studies but the third is for teaching academic content subjects in general. I’ll also offer some information about a TPT resource that might interest you.
Teaching Academic Content Subjects
Teaching academic content subjects to Multilingual Learners is not easy and teaching Social Studies is, in my opinion, the hardest subject to teach because it is more abstract than Math, Science, or even Language Arts. Primary sources are often used and that makes the content all the more difficult for Multilingual Learners of English. Plus, there’s often a lot of writing involved and that’s also difficult for many English Learners.
But teaching Social Studies was what I most enjoyed when I was in the classroom. That’s because I could always find a way to make a connection between the civilization or country I was teaching about and the students I was teaching, who were all ESL students. I used realia from countries I’d visited to make the subject more engaging and I stocked my classroom with posters, magazines and books about the places and time periods students were studying.
However, if teaching Social Studies is not your favorite thing, or you don’t have a lot of artifacts from other countries to use, or you just don’t really feel comfortable or knowledgeable about the best ways to teach this subject, I have 3 book recommendations that may help.
(This post contains affiliate links. That means that I make a small commission if you purchase one or both of the books but it’s at no additional cost to you. Thank you for your support!)
Book Recommendations for Teaching Social Studies
Essentials of Middle and Secondary Social Studies, 3rd edition
(By William B. Russell III, Stewart Waters, and Thomas N. Turner; 325 pages, copyright 2019;ISBN 978-1032107899 for 3rd edition. I have the 2019 2nd edition and my review is based on that edition; the 3rd edition is an updated version of the book.)
This book has 12 chapters: The first 2 are general and offer background information, Chapters 3 and 4 discuss planning and assessing lessons; Chapter 5 is about developing and teaching reading and writing skills in Social Studies classes; and Chapter 6 gives a cursory overview of teaching Multilingual Learners and students with special needs.
Then, Chapters 7, 8, 9, and 10 delve into specific aspects of instruction: Problem solving; cooperative learning; using drama, storytelling, simulations, field trips and service learning; incorporating issues and inquiry learning and developing decision-making skills; values, character development and citizenship. Chapter 11 deals with using technology. Chapter 12 offers actual lesson plans for economics, geography, psychology, sociology, world history, U.S. government, and U.S. history. There are 2 lesson plans per topic.
Each chapter open with a short introduction, questions about your knowledge of the chapter topic, and a “focus activity” that asks you to reflect about the topic. The chapters contain a balanced mix of theory that grounds the practical activities which follow. And there are lots of activities, as well as tables and charts. Boxed “FYI” tips offer helpful nuggets of info.
The technology chapter is general and slightly outdated. For example, it refers to Twitter, not X, and it doesn’t mention AI at all. But it does have sections on visual literacy, social media, and copyright.
Why I recommend this book: It is very detailed, so educators who are new to teaching Social Studies will definitely benefit from its info, such as ESL teachers who have to teach content or new teachers with not much experience. Lots of examples and ideas are included so the book is also very practical. Although it’s not a general book about teaching academic content subjects, if you are teaching Social Studies, this will be very useful.
Social Studies Comes Alive: Engaging, Effective Strategies for the Social Studies Classroom (Grades 6 -10)
Although this book says it’s aimed at middle as well as high school teachers, I think it’s more appropriate for teachers of older students. It has 13 chapters plus an introduction and appendix that is a general rubric you can use with all the chapters. It covers topics such as folklore, graphic storytelling, criminal history, culinary history, local history, religions throughout history, and coining the past and present. Since these are not the common topics taught in a middle Social Studies class, to me, this book seems best suited for use as ideas for supplemental or extension activities, or for an elective class focusing on how to analyze history.
Each chapter follows the same format: An introduction, i.e. background information about the target topic; how to teach the topic in the classroom or guiding questions for teaching it; what students should produce to show their learning; tips for evaluating students’ work; and a short list of books for further reading, with brief descriptions of each book. Some chapters also include a timeline indicating how many days are needed to teach the topic and/or links to useful websites. Some chapters include a boxed list of sample products students can create, which is helpful.
Every chapter also includes a page you can photocopy and distribute to students which has instructions for creating and analyzing the product they create that shows what they learned. This handout is basically the same for every chapter, just the topic changes from chapter to chapter. Students may get bored but the repetitiveness allows them to develop their analytical skills and show their progress in doing that.
What’s missing in each chapter is the actual procedure for doing the activity. The author gives general info about why students should do it and what to do as well as how to assess it. But the specific steps for implementing the activity are not provided so you still have to design the lesson yourself.
Why I recommend it: The text is written in a conversational tone and the handouts will save teachers preparation time. The evaluation rubric is applicable to all the activities and is easy to use. The activities are cross-curricular in nature but it’s specifically about teaching Social Studies, not teaching academic content subjects in general. Despite the lack of explicit instructions for doing the activities, the ideas themselves are interesting and the author’s approach to analyzing students’ work is useful.
Book Recommendation for Teaching Any Academic Content Subject
Ready-to-Use Differentiation Strategies, Grades 6 – 8
(By Laurie E. Westphal; 157 pages, copyright 2011, ISBN 978-1-59363-838-2)
This book is aimed at middle school teachers who are teaching academic content subjects. Some of the strategies can also be used in upper elementary – definitely in 5th grade – and may also be appropriate for high school.
The book is divided into 3 sections, each with several parts. The first section, titled What is Differentiation?, discussed why differentiation is important. A helpful list of criteria that an activity needs to include in order to considered differentiated is provided. The format of the rest of the book is explained in this part.
The second section of the book describes no-prep strategies and the third section describes low-prep strategies. The format for both these sections is the same: after the title of the strategy, the learning styles addressed, where to incorporate the strategy in a typical lesson plan (e.g. as a pre-assessment or during the lesson), a blurb defining the strategy, how to implement the strategy, when to implement it, what materials are needed, how to make any required materials, and suggestions for modifying the strategy if necessary. Some strategies also include handouts you can photocopy and give to students.
The 13 no-prep strategies range from the familiar, such as the 3-2-1 activity and the 3 Facts and a Fib activity, to other ideas such as Let’s Trade, where students write questions about the content in small groups and then answer other groups’ questions. The 14 low-prep strategies also include familiar activities such as Categorization Cards (a sorting activity) and Creative Concentration (matching pairs of cards) to perhaps less well-known ones like Toy Share, where students are given toys and have to make connections between their toy and the topic they are studying.
The strategies are more about how to get students to show their content knowledge rather than how to differentiate the content that is taught. The strategies are meant to be used before, during, and after the content is taught, not to help you figure out how to make the content itself more comprehensible to students of varying proficiency levels, abilities, and skill levels. But if you are teaching academic content subjects, these strategies will help students.
Why I recommend it: This book includes numerous ways that allow students to demonstrate their understanding of a content subject. The strategies don’t require a high level of English language proficiency or reading/writing ability – students use the strategies at their own levels. The book is easy to follow and for activities that require materials, they’re included as photocopiable pages.
(This book may not be available on Amazon. If you can’t find it there, you can purchase it directly from the publisher at this link, which is not an affiliate link.)
Resource for Teaching Social Studies
My newest resource helps students develop their writing and critical thinking skills when they’re learning about Mesopotamia. It’s a set of writing journal prompts and bell ringers. Each prompt is differentiated – one prompt is for native English speakers and Multilingual Learners at high intermediate and advanced levels of language proficiency and the other prompt is for students with lower levels of English language proficiency. There are 50 prompts altogether.
Each prompt has an image on it and captions are included for reference. All the prompts are available in print and digital formats.
If you’d like to read the other blog posts in my series of book recommendations, you can find the post about family engagement HERE, the post about implementing rigor in the classroom HERE, and my list of book and TV recommendations for teachers on vacation HERE.
