We Are Teachers of Thinking!

Thinking is invisible.  Thank goodness, right?  Sometimes, the thoughts that are inside my head belong there, tucked deep where no one can see them.  This does create a problem, though. When considering our students, we can't see their thinking.  Even worse, we can't know by looking at them if they have the tools to think about what they are learning. Unfortunately, many don't. 

Attention: I want you to stop reading for just a moment and ask yourself this question: What do you do to help your students to be thinkers?

If you have a large list, kudos.  Please, tell us in the comments below what you do.  If your list is small, then the good news is, you have the power to change that.  You have the power to change your students' lives and help them to be thinkers!        

Education has a thinking problem.  It's not all our fault.  As educators, we understand the pressure to teach standards.  We have to prepare students for the end-of-the-year state assessments, right?  We all know, if our students don't perform well, we will be judged by our administrators and colleagues as "that teacher" who just can't cut it.  As a result, sometimes our classrooms become places that are teacher-centered and focus on work completion by students.  In the process, we forgot that we aren't just teaching standards.  We are doing something so much more important.  We are teaching thinking.  

I spend a lot of time contemplating thinking.  Does Colton understand the connections between WWI and WWII?  Can Aidan analyze both sides of the Confederate monument controversy objectively?  Is Lily reflecting on the paradox that there are all these rules for poetry that you don't even have to follow if you don't want to!? Ultimately, the question I ponder every day is how do I help my student be better thinkers?  And it has made all the difference.

I heard a teacher once complain that "these kids today can't think."  She went on to talk about how Playstations, Xboxes, cell phones, and iPads were the bane of education.  She blamed them for her students' lack of ability to think.  I was itching to ask her what she had done in her classroom to help her students be thinkers.  Had she asked questions to help them make connections to other learning? Had she included engaging discussions and writing activities that would make students' thinking visible? Had she thought about how she could get her students to be better thinkers?

We need to flip our priority.  Instead of teaching the standards to help our students think, we need to teach our students to think so they can master the standards.  This change in priority will affect every facet of our classrooms from the activities we plan, to the discussions that occur, to the products our students produce.

Teaching thinking has to be intentional.  It has to be something we mean to do.  Today's post is the first in a four-part series about intentionally teaching thinking.  The remaining posts will include:

• Essential Questions Drive Thinking
• Discussion Models To Promote Thinking
• Visible Thinking Through Writing

I hope you join me on this journey as we think about thinking.

This is the first installment of a four-part series on teaching thinking in the classroom.

The Dynamic Duo: Writing and Social Studies

Duos are familiar to us.  Batman and Robin. Burger and Fries.  Bonnie and Clyde.  Peanut Butter and Jelly.  

Certain things just go together.  This is not just true of foods and people.  It's also true of the subjects we teach.  

Writing and social studies are like Mac and Cheese; it makes sense to pair them and when you do, you get something good!  Writing improves thinking and facilitates learning.  What teacher wouldn't want that?  When students write they explore, clarify, justify, reason, explain, and internalize.  

After five years of integrating writing and social studies, I can attest to its success.  The wonderful part is the options are endless for integrating writing and social studies effectively.  

Here are my top five favorites.

1. Short Response Writing

My work routine, or protocol, is to have students respond to reading by writing.  Writing is the only way I can truly know if they understand.  A multiple choice activity will not conclusively tell me if they comprehend the material I want them to understand.  Week one of each school year, I explicitly teach A.C.E. to students.  From that week on, they are always required to respond to discussion questions in A.C.E. format.  The helper is provided to them for support, but the majority of students no longer require it after a few months.  It becomes how they are conditioned to write.

2. Essay Writing

In grades 3-12, students are expected to master writing explanatory, opinion/argumentative, and narrative essays.  The prompt that directs their writing typically will ask for a response to two texts.  This is the perfect situation to integrate social studies and get the most bang for your buck!  Whether we are studying the courageous feats of Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth, the heartbreaking events of the Holocaust, or the inspiring speeches of George W. Bush and Ronald Regan, my ELA writing activities always tie to what we are currently learning.  

I once had a teacher tell me she wanted to develop writing assignments that integrated with her social studies, but she couldn't find any texts.  I told her, they were all around.  They are in the magazines in your your school library, the books your students are reading, and the primary sources that are included in your state standards.  Here are some of the texts I use when creating writing tasks for my students:

• informational texts I've gathered from Scholastic magazines, like Scope, Storyworks, or Action   
• fictional excerpts from books that are popular with my students, like Grandmere's Story in Wonder or excerpts from Refugee and I Survived the Nazi Invasion  
• primary sources of the famous speeches of Sojourner Truth, Chief Joseph, and Martin Luther King Jr.  

3. Historical Poems

When my students came to me, they hated poetry.  They considered it something only smart people read, not students in a fifth grade classroom.  After introducing them to poets like Kwame Alexander, Jaqueline Woodson, and Nikki Grimes, they think otherwise.  Now, not only are they reading poetry, but they are creating it.  

Recently, a poetry assignment required my students to write a poem about a historical figure.  After they wrote their poems, they published them on Padlet.  This activity has become a class favorite.

4. Biopoems

Since my students have grown to love poetry, I had to search for

other poetry assignments to keep it fresh.  Biopoems are perfect.  They allow students to reflect on the material they've learned in social stuides and put it in poetic form.  I use the format in this picture.  The pattern enables the student to synthesize what they've learned about a person, place, thing, concept, or event.  This lets me know if they understand what it is I want them to know.

5. RAFTing Activities

To spice up your normal writing routine, try this strategy.  RAFT is an acronym that stands for role, audience, form, and topic.  RAFT allow teachers to create writing prompts that situates a student in the writing task.  They must look at an event in a nontraditional way.  They have to apply what they've learned about that person and then "become" them.  Not only does this show if they understand important details about their person's part in history, it's fun!

Those are some of my favorite ways to integrate writing and social studies.  I am always on the lookout for other awesome ideas.  What are some ways you integrate in your classroom?