Joan Brodsky Schur

NCSS Bulletin 118, 143 pages, 2020

Good writing skills are a pathway to academic success and a lifelong asset for students.  The social studies disciplines offer excellent opportunities for the development of these skills because social studies subjects require students to present information clearly and accurately, to summarize different perspectives, and to construct persuasive arguments.

In this book, Joan Brodsky Schur draws on her extensive experience as a teacher of both social studies and English to show how social studies teachers can integrate excellent writing instruction into their courses.  In every chapter, she recommends several writing strategies, each of which is embedded in social studies content, to show how thinking skills, mastery of information, and writing reinforce one another. The chapters of the book present a structured progression in which students become proficient at writing on a small scale—for example, through short writes, or paragraphs about clearly defined topics—as the foundation for more ambitious projects such as essays and research papers.

This book offers invaluable suggestions that will help social studies teachers in grades 7 through 12 to teach the skills of communication and self-expression that will enable students to achieve their college and career goals and become effective citizens with a voice in American society.

Joan Brodsky Schur is a social studies consultant, author, and teacher who taught both social studies and English to students in New York City for three decades. She is the author or co-author of six books for teachers on topics related to United States and world history, including Eyewitness to the Past: Strategies for Teaching American History in Grades 5-10. 

NCSS Item number 205000

Price: $29.95 (list price); $19.95 (NCSS member price)
 

Look Inside