Social Studies for the Twenty-first Century

Book excerpt: Social Studies for the Twenty-First Century, Third Edition weaves theory, curriculum, methods, and assessment into a comprehensive model to guide middle and secondary teachers in setting objectives; planning lessons, units, and courses; choosing classroom strategies; and constructing tests for some of the field's most popular and enduring programs. It offers practical, interesting, exciting ways to teach social studies and a multitude of instructional and professional resources for teachers. The text includes separate chapters on teaching each of the major areas of the social studies curriculum. Its reflective and integrative framework emphasizes building imagination, insight, and critical thinking into everyday classrooms; encourages problem-solving attitudes and behavior; and provokes analysis, reflection, and debate. New in the Third Edition: *summaries of recent research, particularly in history education, that have been published since the last edition; *increased attention to social studies standards, as well as those for civics, economics, and history; *an enriched view of teaching history and social studies with a wide array of sources ranging from material objects through primary sources on to art, music, and literature; *tightening of the text to make it shorter and more pointed, including a few provocative new ideas; *more and better-organized ideas for classroom group and individual activities and cooperative learning; *expanded appendices on instructional resources include the rapidly growing use of Web sites; *new visuals that are better integrated into the text and which teachers can use in their classrooms as lessons in visual literacy; and *continued efforts to inject a bit of humor and self-criticism into a field of education most students view as a sizeable trunk of dead and deadly facts. Social Studies for the Twenty-First Century, Third Edition is a primary text for secondary and middle social studies methods courses.