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100 Experiential Learning Activities for Social Studies, Literature, and the Arts, Grades 5-12

By: Eugene F. Provenzo, Jr., Dan W. Butin, Anthony Angelini

Encourage critical thinking while teaching meaning through learning experiences!

This activity-packed book focuses on using active learning to facilitate student engagement with content and provides ready-to-use units that promote critical thinking, deep understanding, and the transfer of knowledge to real-life situations. Through easy-to-use matrices, the authors link lessons investigating history, economics, literature, and the arts to McREL, NCTE, and NCSS standards. The 100 activities address significant social issues and help students:

Explore primary sources
Construct careful arguments to integrate new learning with prior knowledge
Question deeply held assumptions to arrive at authentic understandings
Approach new ideas with confidence

Full description

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Product Details

Grade Level: 5-12
ISBN: 9781412940009
Published By: Corwin
Year: 2008
Page Count: 176
Publication date: February 13, 2008

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Description

"This unique contribution is both a wonderful source of teaching ideas and a reminder that authentic learning involves engaging experiences that encourage inquiry."
—Dan Thompson, Assistant Professor of Education
Penn State University

"Educators are always looking for interesting activities that challenge students to think beyond the ordinary. The authors have done a great job of compiling a variety of activities for different subject areas."
—India Meissel, Social Studies and English Teacher
Lakeland High School, Suffolk, VA

Encourage critical thinking while teaching meaning through learning experiences!

Learning in secondary school classrooms involves much more than students reciting the "right" answers on high-stakes tests. This activity-packed book encourages educators to move beyond traditional models of teaching and learning and provides them with the tools for getting started.

100 Experiential Learning Activities for Social Studies, Literature, and the Arts, Grades 5–12 focuses on using active learning to engage students in critical thinking and reflection about complex content knowledge in the humanities and the arts. Through easy-to-use matrices, the authors link lessons investigating history, economics, literature, music, and visual arts to McREL, NCTE, and NCSS standards. The 100 activities address significant social issues, including social justice, culture, language, and diversity. Teachers can emphasize comprehension, encourage creative thinking, and promote transfer across disciplines to help students:

Explore primary sources to uncover practical and relevant information
Construct careful arguments to integrate new learning with prior knowledge
Question deeply held assumptions to arrive at authentic understandings
Approach new ideas with confidence

Take your students through meaningful learning experiences and make knowledge come alive!

Key features

100 standards-based units promote critical thinking, deep understanding, and transfer of knowledge to real-life situations
The authors emphasize critical issues such as social justice, culture, language, diversity, the arts, economics, and science and technology
Each learning strategy is set up in a convenient 2-page format and includes extension activities, a listing of resources, and suggestions for pacing and time management
All units align with curriculum standards established by the National Council for the Social Studies and the National Council of Teachers of English as well as McREL's content knowledge standards
A matrix linking each unit to the relevant curriculum standards encourages ease of navigation and lesson selection

Author(s)

Eugene F. Provenzo, Jr.

Gene Provenzo is one of the nation’s leading scholars in the foundations of education. He holds the rank of full professor at the University of Miami. He has won numerous awards throughout his career in both teaching and research and sits on many editorial boards. He has authored over ten books and has contributed chapters to many more. He has authored scores of articles in a wide range of areas in education. His recent projects include Teaching, Learning, and Schooling (Allyn & Bacon, 2002), a critically-oriented introduction to the foundations of education textbook, and the forthcoming Readings in Educational Thought (SAGE, 2005).

Dan W. Butin

Dan W. Butin is the founding dean of the school of education at Merrimack College. He is the editor and author of over fifty books, articles, and book chapters, including the books Teaching Social Foundations of Education and Service-Learning and Social Justice Education. Dr. Butin’s research focuses on issues of educator preparation and policy and community engagement. Dr. Butin has been the assistant dean of the school of education at Cambridge College and a faculty member at Gettysburg College. Prior to working in higher education, Dr. Butin taught middle school, in an adult GED program, and was the chief financial officer of Teacher For America. More about Dr. Butin’s teaching and scholarship can be found at http://danbutin.org/.

Anthony Angelini

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

Introduction

Matrices

NCSS

McRel

1. Creating a Language

2. Point-of-View Pictures

3. Rosie the Riveter

4. Columbus and the Discovery of the New World

5. How Is History Portrayed? Columbus and the Discovery of the New World

6. Spanglish

7. Slave Narratives

8. The Paradox of Theseus's Ship

9. Creating an Personal Historical Timeline

10. Poems Inspired by Art

11. Art Inspired by Poetry

12. The Paradox of Infinity

13. Point of View and Cultural Perspectives

14. Final Flight of Yamamoto: Should We Have Struck Back?

15. Double Consciousness: Examining Oneself and the Concept of Privilege

16. The Fable of the Blind Men and the Elephant

17. Creating a System of Writing

18. Magic and Technology

19. The Birthday Paradox

20. Mobius Strip and Different Perspectives

21. Thinking Out of the Paradigm: The Columbus Egg Problem

22. Arthur C. Clarke's First Law

23. Is Technology Neutral?

24. Writing a Letter to the Editor

25. Science Fiction and Literature as the Future

26. Creating a Political Broadside

27. Exploring the Great Depression

28. Family Photographs

29. Women's Rights

30. Today in History

31. Photographs of the Farm Security Administration

32. Primary and Secondary Sources

33. Thinking Outside the Box

34. Riddles

35. Exploring Community Festivals

36. Rebuses and Concrete Writing

37. Mnemonics

38. Designing a Memorial

39. Stepping Into a Painting

40. Japanese Internment During World War II

41. ASCII Code

42. Protest Songs

43. Inaugural Presidential Address

44. Portals to the World

45. Stories From Childhood

46. Round-Robin Stories

47. Writing Grab Bag

48. Using Census Data

49. Explore a Favorite Artist

50. What Makes a Good Life?

51. Creating an Ethical Will

52. Written in Stone

53. Photographic Timeline

54. 1900

55. Ninety-Five Theories

56. Analyzing the New England Primer (1692)

57. Slavery in the Constitution?

58. How Crowded Was the Middle Passage?

59. The List of Creepy Coincidences

60. Sacrifices

61. The Classroom Missile Crisis

62. Listening to Sources?

63. Personal Timelines: A Puzzle?

64. Movies as a Window Into History

65. Writing Their Own Script

66. Write Obituaries

67. Take a Trip to Mars

68. CIA Fact Book

69. Talking to an Expert

70. Famous Last Words

71. Columbus and Culture

72. Collage

73. Making Models

74. The World Without Human Life

75. Creating the Scene for a Story

76. How Long Is a Thousand Years?

77. Creating a Dadaist Poem

78. War Stories

79. Editorial Cartoons as Social Commentary

80. True or False

81. Creating Codes

82. What Is the Law?

83. When Is the Law the Law?

84. Symbols in Our Culture

85. Symbols on Our Money

86. What's on the Stamp?

87. Place Names

88. Art Museums of the World

89. America's Attic

90. Written in Stone

91. Photographic Community Timeline

92. The Sounds of Silence

93. What's in a Name?

94. More What's in a Name?

95. Crazy Inventions

96. Idioms

97. Famous Inventions and Their Impact on the World

98. What Is in Good Taste?

99. Creating a Self-Portrait

100. Found Art

References

Reviews

"Educators are always looking for interesting activities that challenge students to think beyond the ordinary. The authors have done a great job of compiling a variety of activities for different subject areas."

India Meissel, Social Studies and English Teacher
Lakeland High School, Suffolk, VA

"The attention to critical thinking and problem solving sets this collection of activities apart from others."

David C. Virtue, Assistant Professor of Instruction and Teacher Education
University of South Carolina

"This unique contribution is both a wonderful source of teaching ideas and a reminder that authentic learning involves engaging experiences that encourage inquiry."

Dan Thompson, Assistant Professor of Education
Penn State University

Other Titles in: Teaching Methods & Learning Styles | Learning Styles | Emotional Intelligence

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