Book Prospectus
Thinking Like a Citizen
A Children’s Trade Book Series
http://thinkinglikeacitizen.org
Kathy Swan
Associate Professor College of Education University of Kentucky Email: [email protected] Telephone: 859-684-0622S. G. Grant
Professor and Dean School of Education Binghamton University Email: [email protected] Telephone: 607-777-7329
Emma Thacker
Doctoral Student College of Education University of Kentucky Email: [email protected] Telephone: 859-420-9317Prospectus
Thinking Like A Citizen
A Children’s Trade Book Series
Introduction
Although many observers offer concerns about the place of social studies in school curriculum given the press for high-stakes testing, few question the goal of preparing students for civic life. That said, students generally rank social studies as one of their least favorite subjects. They do so, not because the ideas are boring, but because many of the approaches teachers use (e.g., worksheets, recitation, didactic teaching) and many of the resources they offer (e.g., textbooks, end-of-chapter questions, handouts) are. In addition, the current social studies curriculum, especially for the elementary grades, lacks imagination, rigor, and engagement. It also lacks a true social studies focus, which has two dimensions—a genuine social issue/question, and a means of thinking through that issue/question that is as empowering as it is instructive.
The trade book market around social studies topics has grown tremendously over the last 20 years. Before this outpouring, books dealing with historical people and events, world and national
geography, economic concepts, social behavior, and citizenship were hard to find and, frankly, not very engaging for young readers. The current trade book scene still features some uninspiring titles, but both the quantity and the quality of books dealing with social studies ideas has improved dramatically.
A survey of books, however, indicates the market has a big hole—there are no books that actually take a social studies approach. There are large numbers of trade books exploring history topics, a similarly large number dealing with citizenship issues, but far fewer that tackle economic,
geographic, or social constructs. These areas represent the core intellectual disciplines of the social studies. But powerful social studies thinking demands the capacity to respond to social problems using the strengths of each of these subject areas individually and in interaction. Think about it: What social problem can be understood and resolved through history or geography alone? Social problems such as health care are thorny, in part, because there are historical dimensions to the debate, because the issue is understood differently in different parts of the United States, because people disagree about the costs and benefits, and because health care is as much a political issue as it is a social one. The need for students to understand each of the respective subject matters of geography,
economics, history, psychology/sociology, and civics is apparent; equally apparent, however, is the need for students to be able to use these disciplines to think through a wide range of social issues. Although some observers might view this kind of cognitive application as beyond the ken of students (or even many adults), the research literature makes clear that children, even very young children, are quite capable of sophisticated social thinking (see, for example, VanSledright, 2002). Obviously children’s understandings of the relevant constructs of economics, history,
psychology/sociology, geography, and civics mature with age, instruction, and experience. But even the rudimentary understandings of kindergarteners is sufficient to get them started, especially when they are offered the kind of conceptual aids we employ in the Thinking like a Citizen series.
A Unique Approach to Social Studies Trade Books
The Thinking Like a Citizen trade book series provides opportunities to learn about the core elements of social studies, and to do so through social situations that make sense to elementary-aged children. Being a good citizen means far more than paying one’s taxes, voting, and knowing who one’s senator is. Becoming an engaged citizen demands the ability to think nimbly, to recognize that any problem can be understood from multiple perspectives, and to participate either collectively or individually in solving common problems.
Thinking through social problems is challenging, in part, because the contexts of the problems matter. As a result, we believe that a set of books that delve into a range of compelling issues will resonate with children and their teachers. In the series, the teacher and her students analyze these situations using a framework of disciplinary lenses designed to examine the issue from multiple points of view. These lenses/glasses represent history (the time lens), civics (the rules lens), economics (the stuff lens), geography (the space lens), and behavioral sciences (the people lens). Each of the lenses/glasses is developed through a set of open-ended questions that speak to key disciplinary ideas, but is expressed in kid-friendly terms.
The premise of the series rests on four assumptions: 1) even young children can deal with complex social issues if they are presented in a way that is relevant to their lives; 2) complex social issues are best studied through both disciplinary and interdisciplinary lenses and through social situations (such as a dispute over playing in a sandbox) that resonate with children; 3) implicit approaches can be effectively used for teaching and learning social studies constructs, especially if presented in a way that gives children a conceptual framework (i.e., each of the disciplines represented as a pair of glasses) that are fun and familiar; and 4) children’s trade books, even those that deal with non-fiction issues, can be open-ended and organized around questions that readers can answer for themselves. There are five books in the series and they are intentionally sequenced with each book
foreshadowing the next—however, each book can also be read as a stand-alone story. The series includes the following titles:
Book 1 Come, Come My Friends. The Story of the Spectacular Social Studies Spectacles The first book of the TLAC series, Come, Come My Friends: The Story of the Spectacular
Social Studies Spectacles, introduces the students to the stuff, space, time, rules and people lenses. The story begins with the discovery of a mysterious box of glasses with the inscription:
Come, come my friends, Wipe the dew from your spectacles, And see that the world is changing.
The teacher and her students soon find out that these are more than just a set of glasses and could be quite useful in settling a recent playground dispute.
Book 2 Whose Sandbox Is It, Anyway?
The second book in the series, Whose Sandbox Is It, Anyway? is rooted in a typical playground dispute around who gets to play in the sandbox and by what rules. Like all complex social problems,
however, the question of who owns a sandbox works as a lesson in civic life because it begins with a question that children care about, it allows for multiple interpretations, and it benefits from the insights represented in the various social studies disciplines as well as the capacity to look across those disciplines.
Book 3 I Hate Andy!
The third book in the series, I Hate Andy! begins with students arguing over the use of the word hate
and the potential consequences of doing so. Using the lenses, students investigate the word hate and examine why adults typically forbid the use of it. In doing so, students begin to explore the notion of civil discourse and the words that can either encourage or discourage productive conversations among their peers.
Book 4 It’s None Of Your Business!
The fourth book in the series, It's None of Your Business! shines a light on the often uncomfortable experience of handing back/receiving graded papers in a group setting. Students recognize the subtle differences in the "feedback" each are given (in this case, stickers or the lack thereof) and begin to compare papers. Using the lenses, students in this book consider issues of privacy in the midst of a common classroom experience and by the end of the discussion begin to wrestle with the question, "whose business is our business?"
Book 5 What Color Am I?
The fifth book in the series, What Color Am I?, delves into issues of race and ethnicity as students select colors for a self portrait using an array of multicultural crayons. Using the lenses, students in this book think about where they come from as well as issues around self-identification in our culturally complex society.
Additionally, we plan to develop instructional resources to accompany the series including a) an instructor’s guide that offers an overview of the social studies disciplines, provides a rationale for the lenses, and describes a variety of pedagogical approaches to the texts; b) an interactive website that allows students and teachers to brainstorm solutions to the issues presented in the series as well as to see the ways in which students in other classrooms tackled the issues; and c) a downloadable
prototype of the disciplinary glasses for students to embellish and then use as they work through their own questions and conversations.
The Market for the Thinking Like a Citizen Series
In our review of the current trade book literature within the social studies, we identified a number of series for social studies classrooms, but they either focus on a single subject discipline (e.g., history,
We found no book or series that took a true social studies approach. By that, we mean a text that challenges students to think through social issues using multiple disciplinary frameworks. Other series address topics within a single discipline. One of the most popular series in history include The Magic Tree House (Random House) in which the two main characters, Jack and Annie, travel back through time to visit different cultures and times throughout history. Sample titles include The Knight at Dawn (1993), Revolutionary War on Wednesday (2000) and Vacation under the Volcano
(2010). Other history series include a focus on people in the past, including If you…. published by Channel Four Learning and Childhood of Famous Americans published by Simon Spotlight. The most interesting historical series we found was Changes published by Hodder Wayland Children’s. The authors use photographs of the present and “flashback” to photographs of the past as a way of having students imagine toys and games, eating habits and housing a century before.
For teaching civics, there were series that looked at the components of government (First Guide to Government published by Heinemann-Raintree), American symbols (Welcome Books: American Symbols published by Scholastic) or dimensions of democracy (A True Book Series published by Scholastic). There were similar series in geography that examined continents (Turf Book series published by Scholastic), states (Discover America State by State published by Sleeping Bear Press) and regions (Rookie Read: About Geography published by Scholastic). In economics, the focus of most series for young children was personal finance rather than economic concepts or skills. For example, Money Matters (Picture Window/Capstone), My Money (Capstone) and Your Piggy Bank: A Guide to Spending and Saving for Kids (ABDO Group) deal with spending, saving and careers. Exploring Economics (Lightning Bolt Books) was the only series we found that put children in a real-world situation and had the readers engage in discussion using economic decision-making skills. For example, in What can you do with money? (2010), the author asks the reader, “Did you ever get money for your birthday?” and “How do you decide what to do with your money?” Other titles in the series include, Whose buying or selling? (2010) and Do I need it? Or do I want it? (2010).
One type of series, such as Social Studies Connects (Kane Press), looks at issues within a content discipline. For example, The Cupcake Thief (2007) chronicles the trial of Tyler, the suspect who stole a cupcake and the decision of the student court (civics). In Check it Out! (2006), students examine the veracity of Grandpa’s stories using historical evidence they find in the attic (history).
Other series focus on larger social issues, but offer no particular disciplinary lens. For example, CitizenKid (Kidscanpress) titles look at global citizenship and cover topics such as water
conservation, biodiversity, food security, microlending, citizenship, and global awareness. Sample titles include: If America Were a Village (2009), If the World Were a Village (2011), One Hen (2008) and
One Well (2007).Additionally, other series for early-grades look at common problems that children face growing up (see Let’s Talk about It series or A First look at….series by Barron publishing). These books raise issues (e.g., a first look at anger or bullying) but do not use a particular discipline to unpack the issue.
As these examples demonstrate, the current trade book market in social studies offers a range of titles. None of those series or individual books, however, uses the full range of social studies disciplines individually and together to help teachers and students make sense of social issues from multiple perspectives.
