Writing Like a Historian: What Teacher Candidates Should Know and Be Able to Teach

Y

9

Literacy Education; Elementary Education; Content Area Reading; History; Preservice Teachers; Historiography; Knowledge Base for Teaching; Pedagogical Content Knowledge; Instructional Materials; Educational Strategies; Writing Assignments; Instructional Effectiveness; Historians; Teaching Methods

10.1080/00377996.2011.596861

0037-7996

Literacy skills taught in the elementary grades establish a good foundation but are not adequate for the demands of secondary content curriculum. In history, preservice teachers must be prepared with a solid content base along with the pedagogy for teaching that content. To better teach and enhance student writing, preservice teachers need to learn how to integrate discipline-specific literacy into their instruction, using instructional strategies that are explicitly taught with scaffold supports. The purpose of this article is to present instructional ideas and strategies designed to help students develop key cognitive skills in history and engage in deeper-level thinking as they learn to write like a historian. Each strategy is research-based and includes sample writing assignments. (Contains 1 note and 1 figure.)

As Provided

37

2012

EJ968550