A reminder, dear friends and colleagues, that the Florida Council for the Social Studies Annual Conference is fast approaching (and you can register here!). So let’s take a look at some of the sessions on the docket for the conference! We’ll be doing this over the next few weeks, highlighting 3 to 5 interesting sessions that are likely to draw your interest.
Saturday, October 19
It’s a Bird, it’s a Plane, it’s Propaganda!
This looks fantastic! The approach taken here to this session is simply really cool.
Is Superman simply a tool for wartime propaganda or a reflection of national identity? This session will engage the participants through the use of original Superman comic books and cover art to answer this question. The participants will be provided with a brief background about Superman, where they will receive a copy of his “origin” from the 1940s comics. Using the propaganda analysis tool and a list of propaganda techniques, the participants will engage in an analysis of the cover art from the 1940s Superman comic books. These will then be compared to the cover art of the Wonder Woman comics, through analysis and evaluation. Additionally, the participants will read a comic about Superman that is titled, “How Superman would end the war” as well as the German response to the comic in order to determine if Superman is being used more for propaganda or if he is a reflection of national identity.
Be sure to check out this session. I know I will try to be there!
Historical Thinking With Cinderella
What an interesting approach to using primary sources with elementary kids!
Using different sources from the Library of Congress, we plan to show our participant how to compare the history of Cinderella using Dr. Sam Wineburg’s Historical Thinking Skills. The Cinderella story we know today seems to have started it’s journey as early as 1697 in Paris. The original story then travels throughout Europe and the world, turning into culturally influenced branches of the original Cinderella story.
This integrates Wineburg’s work with fairy tales! Another session that should attract a good crowd!
Accountable Talk in the Civics Classroom (Poster Session)
We will be featuring a number of poster sessions at the conference this year, and this one looks good, especially if you are as civics-obsessed as your humble bloghost!
Because of how polarized our political world is today, many teachers (ourselves included!) have shied away from engaging students in discussion-based activities, despite all of the research regarding the importance of student ownership in and discovery-based learning. In order to overcome this fear, we have implemented accountable talk during student-led conversations in order to keep the students engaged in the content, thinking critically about the material, and expressing their opinions- all while being respectful of their fellow classmates and differing opinions. In our presentation, we will give teachers a playbook for how to utilize accountable talk in their classrooms. We will discuss how to prepare the class to use accountable talk, we will provide examples of statement stems that will help teachers implement the accountable talk, and we will discuss potential challenges and solutions that we have discovered ourselves while using accountable talk in the classroom. We will also provide specific examples/lesson plans we have used in our classrooms that have centered around using accountable talk (appropriate for both for middle and early high school aged students.)
I look forward to checking this out!
Sunday October 20 (80 Minute Sessions)
Formative Assessments to the Rescue
Formative assessments are so very important in the social studies and oh there are so many! What are the best ones to use? How can we think about formative assessments that we can use in our different content areas?
Do you need a quick check for understanding from your students but you don’t want to grade another piece of paper? Come and join this interactive workshop on formative assessments and how you can use them in your social studies classroom. All social studies disciplines are welcome. Participants will be shown a variety of formative assessment strategies to help them in their social studies classroom. We want to get away from the paper-based quizzes and more toward “quick checks” that are engaging and more interactive for students but give valuable, immediate feedback for teachers. The presentation is adaptable for all social studies curriculums. Some strategies include SWAT, Agreement Lines, Value Line or Human Spectrum, Odd One Out, Inside/Outside Circles, ABC Graffiti, Grafitti Review, Shower Curtain Review, and many more. We would like to give some time in between strategies for teachers to think how they would use each strategy in their own classroom.
So these are just some of the cool sessions we will be having at the conference. Why don’t you go ahead and register for this now!
Florida Civics 