Social Studies for the Elementary and Middle Grades: A Constructivist Approach, MyLabSchool Edition

Packed with activities, teaching strategies, and the latest on the constructivist approach, this text demonstrates how to use developmentally appropriate strategies to help students construct important social studies ideas and skills. Building on the success of the first edition, Social Studies for the Elementary and Middle Grades fosters students' development through powerful social studies learning. The text discusses flexible strategies for teaching today's diverse learners, the structure of the knowledge to be learned, how to help students reconstruct present ideas, and how to translate theory and recent research into lesson plans and units. Constructivist teaching using guided inquiry is the focus of every chapter. Each chapter begins with an exploratory activity that lets students bring up their prior knowledge on the chapter's topic and challenges them to recognize where it is insufficient. Then, the chapter moves into the more teacher-guided phase where students find explanations and explanatory activities. Lastly, each chapter involves students in an expansion phase where applications of the main ideas of the chapter are related to other contexts.

Social Studies for the Elementary and Middle Grades discusses flexible strategies for teaching today's diverse learner, the structure of the knowledge to be learned, how to help students reconstruct present ideas, and how to translate theory and recent research into lesson plans and units. All within a constructivist framework!

What's NEW in the second edition?

• “Building on Diversity” boxes identify important diversity issues and their impact within the social studies curriculum and discuss how to address those issues throughout instruction.
• The discussion on teaching meaningful social studies to all students has been expanded to consider culture and cultural diversity in more depth, to consider the needs of special education identified students in more depth, and to consider English Language Learners.
• “Making a Literature Connection” boxes instruct students on how to select and integrate children's literature into their social studies teaching program.
• NCSS icons appear throughout the book margin, prompting students to note content with specific relevance to the 10 major themes identified in the NCSS National Standards for Social Studies Teachers document.
• “Using Technology” boxes have been added to each chapter to highlight the use and application of an aspect of technology in social studies teaching. In addition, Recommended Websites have been added to the end of every chapter.
• Companion Website icons connect the text content with a rich array of related resources found on the companion website for the book (http://www.ablongman.com/sunal2e).
• “Expanding on this Chapter” sections appear at the end of each chapter to apply the main ideas of each chapter to related contexts, thereby promoting a deeper understanding of the subject matter.

About the Authors
Cynthia Szymanski Sunal is Professor of Social Studies Education at The University of Alabama in the Department of Elementary Education Programs. She taught social studies at the early childhood, elementary, and middle school levels in several states and overseas. Her research focuses on constructivist teaching and on facilitating students' use of evidence as they carry out social studies investigations. She has authored numerous journal articles, chapters, and books on social studies education.

Mary Elizabeth Haas is Professor of Social Studies in the Department of Educational Theory and Practice at West Virginia University. She taught social studies in grades 7, 8, and 9 in Indiana and social studies methods at universities in Arkansas and Mississippi. Her research concentrates on the teaching of social studies content, particularly geography, political science, and history. She has published extensively and collaborated with Dr. Sunal on four books in social studies education. She is currently serving as a senior editor for the NCSS journal Social Education.

“I like the way that the book is organized. It provides a foundation for pre-service and in-service teachers' pedagogical instruction in the form of unit and lesson plan ideas and practice. I also like the topics that are covered in the book. I feel that it provides a comprehensive source of information for the elementary or middle school teacher who uses it.”
—Mary Ann Maslak, St. John's University