Inquiry Learning and Social
Studies
College and Career Readiness
Conferences Summer 2015
1
Session Outcomes
• The core of the session to focus on the sharing of a lesson
that embodies the characteristics of inquiry as set forth in
the C3 framework and as reflected in the newly adopted
skills and processes Standard 6.0.
• Teachers should leave the session with a concrete lesson
that they could: use in their classroom, share with a
colleague, adapt to another content or grade level, share in
professional development, or sell on e-Bay!
• At the end of the lesson, participants should be able to
apply the checklist for an inquiry lesson to the sample
modeled and then utilize that checklist in their own
instruction or professional development.
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Temperature Check
How comfortable
are you in your
knowledge of the
C3 Inquiry Arc?
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C3: College, Career, and Civic Life Framework
for Social Studies State Standards
C3 is the result of a three year state-led collaborative effort, the College, Career,
and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards was developed to
serve two audiences: for states to upgrade their state social studies standards and
for practitioners — local school districts, schools, teachers and curriculum writers
— to strengthen their social studies programs. Its objectives are to: a) enhance
the rigor of the social studies disciplines; b) build critical thinking, problem
solving, and participatory skills to become engaged citizens; and c) align academic
programs to the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and
Literacy in History/Social Studies.
NCSS: http://www.socialstudies.org/c3/c3framework
• What struck you as important, interesting, or exciting as you read the
description above?
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ELA College and Career
Readiness Connection
Literacies derived from the Common Core State Standards
in English language Arts/Literacy form an essential thread
required by the actual demands of college, work, and civic
life.
Let’s look at a few of the
Speaking and Listening Standards.
Where do we see common language
and skills and process?
What about in our
standards for Reading
informational text?
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Temperature Check
How comfortable
and prepared do
you feel to create
an inquiry lesson
plan?
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Welcome to 5th Grade!
Let’s begin to connect the C3 Inquiry Arc
to an authentic classroom experience.
Journey to a 5th grade classroom!
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Welcome to 5th Grade!
It’s all about perspective? What do I mean? Take a
look at these:
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6DID4opb3
w
•
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF7u_hWb
Aw4
•
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7m7jf7iL0s
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7moFoxPrI
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Welcome to 5th Grade!
Now we’ll analyze two different sets of artwork
depicting the same events. Use your understanding of
perspective to create wondering questions about the
two pieces of art. (Note: Artful Thinking Poster)
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Artful Thinking Routine: Creative Questions
Directions: Use the question starters below to ask question
about the two pieces of artwork. The questions you ask should
help you to compare and contrast the two pieces.
Why…?
What are the reasons…?
What if….?
Why would…?
What might this tell me about…?
My Notes:
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Connecting Back to the Inquiry
Arc
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INQUIRY in the Social Studies
Classroom is NOT:
• Closed-ended but at the same time not
unstructured
• “Go look this up on the internet”
• The death of process at the altar of content
• The death of content at the altar of process
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So what IS INQUIRY in the Social
Studies Classroom?
• Open-ended and purposeful
• Requires evidence-based responses
• Promotes disciplinary literacy
• Engages critical thinking and problem solving skills
• Promotes active citizenship
In what ways did our engagement activity support the
characteristics of inquiry?
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THE INQUIRY ARC
Dimension 1 Developing Questions and Planning
Inquiries
Dimension 2 Applying Disciplinary Tools and Concepts
(Civics, Economics, Geography, and History)
Dimension 3 Evaluating Sources and Using Evidence
Dimension 4 Communicating Conclusions and Taking
Informed Action
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Dimension 1 - Compelling and Supporting
Questions
Inquiry lessons are centered around compelling
questions. Answers to compelling questions lead to
enduring understandings.
• Focus on real social problems, issues, and
curiosities about how the world works.
• Intellectually meaty yet “kid-friendly”
• Open-ended and multi-faceted
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Dimension 1 - Compelling and Supporting
Questions
• Compelling questions focus on real social problems, issues,
and curiosities about how the world works.
Examples
Non-Examples
• Was the American
Revolution revolutionary?
• What were the major battles of
the American Revolution?
• Was the Civil Rights
movement of the 1960’s a
success?
• Who were major figures in the
Civil Rights movement?
• Why do we need rules?
• What role does each branch of
government play in making
laws?
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Dimension 1 Inquiry - Compelling and
Supporting Questions Con’t
• Supporting questions scaffold the investigations into
the ideas and issues behind a compelling question.
– Open-ended and purposeful
– Requires evidenced-based responses
– Provides opportunities to explore questions through multiple
disciplines
– Engages critical thinking and problem solving skills
Take a look at the example supporting questions on the next slide.
Note how they supported the characteristics of inquiry.
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Dimension 1 - Supporting Questions
Your Turn!
Compelling Question: Was the American Revolution
revolutionary?
What Supporting Questions might we develop?:
• What regulations were imposed on the colonists
after the French and Indian War?
– From Parliaments point-of-view, why were the
regulations implemented?
– In what ways did the patriots, neutralists, and
loyalists react?
• What economic and political changes took place
after the Revolutionary War?
– How did they impact the American people?
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Dimension 2 : Applying Disciplinary Tools
•
Dimension 2 is not “step 2” in the inquiry arc. It must be
integrated into Dimensions 1, 3, and 4.
•
It provides students with the opportunity to create and
investigate compelling and supporting questions, as well as to
communicate findings and take civic action, through disciplinary
and multi-disciplinary lenses.
•
• Civics
• Geography
• Economics
• History
Disciplinary Literacy is the use of discipline-specific practices and
vocabulary to access, apply, and communicate content
knowledge.
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Dimension 2 : Take a look at this…
Just to get a taste for what it means to look through the different
disciplinary lenses, try this. Read the following passage from
Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan. What evidence is there of the
role economics, geography, and history played in this event?
Asparagus would be a long season, sometimes up to ten
weeks. But it had to be picked before the high
temperatures touched the valley in June. The strikers
knew that if they could slow down the workers, it would
affect the growers, so when the tender stalks were
ready, the strikers were ready too.
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Dimensions 1 and 2 - Compelling and
Supporting Questions Cont.
Back to
th
5
Grade!
Our Inquiry Compelling Question is:
What factors shaped European settler
perspectives of Native Americans?
Let’s unpack it! What does it mean?
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Perspectives of a New World
Supporting Questions
Directions:
 Unpack the compelling question below.
 What questions might we ask to help us reveal
answers to the compelling question?
 Use the space below to record your supporting
questions.
Compelling Questions: What factors shaped
European settlers perspectives of the Native
Americans?
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Source Document Analysis
Now that we have our compelling and supporting
questions, how do we answer them?
– We look at valid sources. Let’s take a look back at
John White and Theodore De Bry’s artwork to begin
to gather evidence.
Perspective
“European settlers think the natives are…” OR
“Europeans viewed the natives as…”
Conclusions about factors that shaped
perspective
“European settlers think this because…”
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Back to Inquiry and adulthood!
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Dimension 3 – Evaluating Sources and
Using Evidence
• Through Dimension 3 students learn and implement the skills
necessary to gather as well as evaluate sources.
• Students also go through the process of developing claims and
supporting those claims with evidence.
• Remember the integration of Dimension 2. How do these
practitioners of social studies gather evidence?
–
–
–
–
Historian
Political Scientist
Economist
Geographer
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Inquiring minds wonder….
Your turn! Work with your group to analyze and gather
evidence from one of the primary source documents.
• Use the See, Think, Wonder box to record your thoughts and
reactions to the text.
• Record your analysis of the text in connection to the
compelling question in the graphic organizer on the bottom of
the page.
What shaped the European settler perspectives on the native
Americans?
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Perspectives on a New World
Source 1 : Jacques Cartier’s Second Voyage to the St. Lawrence River and Interior of “Canada,” 1535-1536…”
See, Think, Wonder
See, Think, Wonder
…[These] people has no belief in God that amounts to
anything; for they believe in a god they call Cudouagny, and
maintain that he often [communicates] with them and tells
them what the weather will be like. They also say that when
he gets angry with them, he throws dust in their eyes…
After they had explained these things to us, we showed them
their error and informed them that their Cudouagny was a
wicked spirit who deceived [lied or tricked] them; and that
there is but one God [the God of Christianity], Who is in
Heaven, Who gives us everything we need and is the Creator
of all things and that in Him alone we should believe. Also
that one must receive baptism or perish in hell.
Perspective
“European settlers think the natives
are…” OR
Conclusions about factors that
shaped perspective
“European settlers think this because…”
“Europeans viewed the natives as…”
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Perspectives on a New World
Source 2: FIRST ENCOUNTERS of the HO-CHUNK NATION and the FRENCH
See, Think, Wonder
See, Think, Wonder
…the French landed their boats and came ashore and extended
their hands [offered to shake hands] to the Winnebago, and the
Indians put tobacco in their hands. The French, of course, wanted
to shake hands with the Indians. They did not know what tobacco
was, and therefore did not know what to do with it. Some of the
Winnebago poured tobacco on their heads, asking them for victory
in war. The French tried to speak to them, but they could not, of
course, make themselves understood.
After a while [the French] discovered that [the Indians] were
without tools, so they taught the Indians how to use an ax and chop
a tree down. The Indians, however, were afraid of it, because they
thought that the ax was holy. Then the French taught the Indians
how to use guns, but they held aloof [afraid to touch the guns] for a
long time through fear, thinking that all these things were holy.
Suddenly a Frenchman saw an old man smoking and poured water
on him. [The French] knew nothing about smoking or tobacco….
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Perspectives on a New World
Source 3: Reasons for the Plantation in New England, 1628.
See, Think, Wonder
Objection I — We have no warrant [reason or permission] to enter
upon that land, which has been so long possessed [occupied] by
others.
Answer 1:
That which lies common [unused and not owned]…is free to any
that possess and improve it… As for the natives in New England,
they enclose [own or farm] no land, neither have they[settled down
and started villages or towns], nor any tame cattle to improve the
land by, and so have no other but a natural right to those countries.
So if we leave them sufficient for their own use, we may lawfully
take the rest, there being more than enough for them and for us.
Answer 2:
We shall come in with the good [feelings] of the natives, who find
benefit already of our [living near them] and learn from us to
improve [their land]…
Answer 3:
God hath consumed the natives with a great plague in those parts,
so as there be few inhabitants left.
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Perspectives on a New World
Source 4: Francis Daniel Pastorius, Circumstantial Geographical Description of Pennsylvania,
1700, including later letters to Germany; in Narratives of Early Pennsylvania, West New Jersey
and Delaware, 1630-1707.
See, Think, Wonder
See, Think, Wonder
The natives, the so-called savages . . . they are, in general, strong,
agile, and supple people, with blackish bodies. They went about
naked at first and wore only a cloth about the loins [below their
waist]. Now they are beginning to wear shirts. They have, usually,
coal black hair, shave the head, smear the same with grease, and
allow a long lock to grow on the right side. They also besmear [cover]
the children with grease and let them creep about in the heat of the
sun, so that they become the color of a nut, although they were at
first white enough by Nature. They strive after a sincere honesty,
their promises, cheat and injure no one. They willingly give shelter to
others and are both useful and loyal to their guests. . . .
I once saw four of them take a meal together in hearty contentment,
and eat a pumpkin cooked in clear water, without butter and spice.
Their table and bench was the bare earth, their spoons were musselshells with which they dipped up the warm water, their plates were the
leaves of the nearest tree, which they do not need to wash with
painstaking after the meal, nor to keep with care of future use. I
thought to myself, these savages have never in their lives heard the
teaching of Jesus concerning temperance and contentment, yet they
far excel the Christians in carrying it out.
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Perspectives on a New World
Source 5: Rev. Francis Higginson’s, True Description: NEW ENGLAND’S PLANTATION or A
SHORT and TRUE DESCRIPTION of the COMMODITIES and DISCOMMODITIES of that
COUNTRY. LONDON, 1630
The Indians are not able to make use of the one fourth part of the land, neither have they any
settled places, as towns to dwell in, nor any ground as they challenge for their own possession, but
change their habitation from place to place.
For their statures, they are a tall and strong limbed people, their colors are tawny, they go naked,
save only they are in part covered with beasts skins on one of their shoulders, and wear something
before their privates. Their hair is generally black, and cut in front like our gentlewomen, and one lock
longer than the rest, much like to our gentlemen, which fashion I think came from hence into England.
For their weapons, they have bows and arrows, some of them headed with bone, and some with
brass. I have sent you some of them for an example. The men for the most part live idly, they do
nothing hut hunt and fish. Their wives set their corn and do all their other work. They have little
household stuff, as a kettle, and some other vessels like trays, spoons, dishes and baskets.
Their houses are very little and homely, being made with small poles pricked into the ground, and
so bent and fastened at the top, and on the sides they are matted with boughs, and covered on the roof
with sedge and old mats, and for their beds that they take their rest on, they have a mat.
…For their religion, they do worship two gods: a good god and an evil god. The good god they call
Tantum, and their evil god, whom they fear will do them hurt, they call Squantum.
For their dealing with us, we neither fear them nor trust them, for forty of our musketeers will
drive five hundred of them out of the field. We use them kindly: they will come into our houses
sometimes by half a dozen or half a score at a time when we are [eating], but will ask or take nothing
but what we give them.
We propose to learn their language as soon as we can, which will be a means to do them good.
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Looking Through Discipline Lenses
Human events, both our past and our present, are caused
by, and have an impact on, political, geographic, and
economic situations.
a. Go back through your graphic organizer looking
through the lens of each of those disciplines. Label
the evidence on your graphic organizer:
o G=geography
o E=economy
o PG=politics and government
b. How did economic, political, and/or geographic
factors help to shape the way European settlers’
perspectives of Native Americans?
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You’re the Expert!
Jigsaw Directions:
You will now become an expert on the source document
your group just analyzed. Each expert will join a new
group where you will share out the information you
gathered and discuss the conclusions you came to.
Gathering information from each of the source documents
will help you come to more valid conclusions.
Conclusions about factors that
Artifact #/Title Perspective
“Europeans think the natives shaped perspective
are…”
“Europeans think this because…”
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You’re the Expert! Cont..
You have analyzed many sources today. It is time for you to
determine for yourself what factors shaped the European settlers’
perspectives on Native Americans. Consider all of the sources and
conclusions shared by the other experts in your jigsaw group.
Write your final conclusions on the first box on Conclusions and
Action Plan Organizer.
Inquiry Conclusions and Action Plan Thinking Map
What factors shaped the European settlers’ perspectives
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Back to Inquiry and adulthood!
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Dimension 4 – Communicating Conclusions
and informed CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
• Inquiry culminates in civic engagement. Dimension 4 provides
students with the opportunity to communicate the conclusions
of the inquiry and determine the best course of civic and
collaborative action.
• Active and responsible citizens are able to:
 identify and analyze public problems
 deliberate with other people about how to define and
address issues
 take constructive action together
 reflect on their actions
 create and sustain groups
 and influence institutions both large and small
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Dimension 4
Back to
th
5
Grade!
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Moving Forward
….Now what?
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Where do we go from here???
• What essential social understanding might
students come to based on the conclusions
drawn in this lesson?
– How might we help them bridge to those
understandings?
– What civic action might they take?
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Possible Long Range Plan
•
At this point students will move through lessons on both the Jamestown and Plymouth settlement.
Students should study the interactions between the settlers and the Native Americans to conclude the
immediate impact of those interactions.
•
At the conclusion of the unit students will consider the impact of the perspective European setters had
on Native Americans. They will return to the Inquiry Conclusions and Action Plan sheet to complete the
second box.
•
Finally, students will be prompted to reflect on the implications of what they have learned have on our
society today. Students will work in productive groups to complete the third and final boxes on the
Inquiry Conclusions sheet.
•
Teachers will need to provide the following in order to provide students with an opportunities to engage
as active citizenship:
– Time to develop and execute action plan
– Access to resources appropriate for their action plan. Consider:
• contacts to community members, leaders, and/or public media
• additional sources to research a current event connected to the event or problem
• technology to create public relations materials
– Use the Overarching Themes Writing Rubric as a framework for creating differentiated culminating
activity rubrics.
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Instructional Shifts for Social Studies
1. Craft Questions That Matter!
2. Establish a collaborative context to support
student inquiry.
3. Integrate content and skills meaningfully.
4. Articulate disciplinary literacy practices and
outcomes.
5. Provide tangible opportunities for taking
informed civic action.
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Activity
Reflecting on the Shifts for Social Studies
1. Inquiry is at the center.
2. Disciplinary integrity
and interdisciplinary
connections matter.
3. Informed action and
4. The Inquiry Arc
application of
represents an
knowledge is clear and
instructional arc – a
present.
frame for teaching and
learning.
Adapted from achievethecore.org
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Temperature Check
How comfortable
and prepared do
you feel to create
an inquiry lesson
plan?
45