Donna Ogle is coauthor of ASCD's Building Literacy in Social Studies: Strategies for Improving Comprehension and Critical Thinking. A professor at National-Louis University in Chicago, she talked with writer Eric Gill about encouraging students to become good readers and critical thinkers.
▸ Eric Gill: What inspired you and your collaborators to write the book?
▸ Donna Ogle: We are all involved in both social studies and literacy. Ron Klemp is a coordinator of secondary literacy intervention for the Los Angeles School District, and Bill McBride is a former social studies teacher and a reading specialist. We have been talking about the issues of getting students to be more active readers and encouraging teachers to use a variety of texts with their social studies instruction or in their reading instruction.
▸ EG: Would you briefly describe the book's core message?
▸ DO: Our message is that good social studies teachers are generally ones who want students to go deeply into content, and yet many times they become frustrated because it seems the students lack some of the tools, particularly the literacy tools, to make them effective in using text materials. We want to give teachers strategies that will help them engage their students more effectively and give them opportunities to think more critically and deeply about what they're reading.
▸ EG: The book is filled with strategies that can help students become better readers. What is a better reader?
▸ DO: Good readers can pick up materials that are approximately at their age and grade levels and read them independently and think about them. Good readers have a variety of strategies so that if they approach a primary source document, they know how to think about the time frame of the document, the context in which it was written, and the author's point of view and perspective and how to look at the structure of the article and see how it's set up. Then they read, thinking about the ideas the author presents in relationship to other ideas so that there is a critical stance, while looking for point of view and voice in the writing.
Good readers and thinkers need to be able to combine ideas and interpretations that come out of a variety of sources of materials so they can create their own interpretations and sense of meaning from what they are presented.
Good readers also go beyond what a teacher provides; they go online, connect with the newspaper and current events, and listen to what's on the radio and television, so that they're inquisitive learners on their way to becoming informed citizens.
▸ EG: Isn't it challenging to teach history and social studies while focusing on improving students' reading abilities?
▸ DO: If teachers can think about the role that good instruction and literacy plays in opening up students' ability to learn the social studies content, then it's not an “either-or” [situation]; it's not an “add-on.” The literacy strategies can help teachers give students more independence in using materials they have available. The more the literacy strategies are used, the more easily teachers can differentiate materials so that the kids who are coming in as English language learners can be reading less complicated texts or starting with more graphic information and more artifact-related pieces of information, and then move into discussions with classmates who are reading more sophisticated levels of [texts].
When teachers have orchestrated a variety of literacy strategies and learning strategies, they can deal more effectively with the diversity that's now in classrooms than if they try to stay with the traditional single-text model and teacher-dominated instructional format.
▸ EG: In the book you state, “Students are learning that history is open to interpretation.” Some people might contend that history should not be interpreted by students. How would you respond to such criticism?
▸ DO: I think there is always a healthy debate in our field between the need for building a basic foundation of knowledge and the importance of students' inquiry and interpretation. Students need to develop a good foundation of knowledge, and the way we can often do that most effectively is by giving them more opportunities to think, to develop interpretations, and to test those against other people's ideas.
▸ EG: The book addresses the subtext within historians' writing, including possible biases the writer has about the world. You state that students should “assume a more equal position with the author.” Why is that important?
▸ DO: Historians are constantly reexamining interpretations and data and coming to new interpretations of it and publishing that material, and it is this constant learning that goes on within the history profession or in the social studies field that's very exciting. Students need to see the text that they read and the information that comes from documents as open to interpretation.
▸ EG: Is there a risk that teachers might go too far toward encouraging young students to question scholars' motives, to the point where students begin to debate the value of the textbooks and logically the test questions that are based on those books?
▸ DO: Well, I think that's always a fine line that teachers must walk. Students like to question. I think basically that's a very positive stance they play, [but] you don't want it to just become a game and a way to allow them not to engage deeply. What I think is critical is that teachers encourage students and demand that their interpretations be grounded in data and in evidence and in other materials that they've read so that it's not just being skeptical, but also being thoughtful.
▸ EG: So it's also a matter of teaching the students how to be critical thinkers and to question their own biases?
▸ DO: I think one of the most important things for world citizens is that we learn to respect alternative points of view; not only that, but to seek out other people's ideas and experiences that lead us to having differences of interpretation. One of the strongest foundations for the future is that our students recognize that there are multiple perspectives on most issues and that we learn better when we seek out and try to find people's points of view and the reasons for them.
▸ EG: You write that classrooms should serve students as models of democracy. Would you elaborate on that?
▸ DO: One of the things that we have been very interested in is the importance of students experiencing a democratic environment in school, where they have an opportunity to address important issues in their own classroom life, where they can make decisions, work in groups, and take action on projects. Because the more they can learn to work cooperatively and actively in solving problems, the better prepared they are to be citizens. So as we talk about history and social studies and a democratic society with a democratic commitment in our country, the models and experiences of teachers creating those same contexts in school make the connections vital to students.
▸ EG: Is there anything else you would like to emphasize for our readers?
▸ DO: I think, in summary, our passion is that we not lose the connection between students becoming literate and being able to think deeply about issues that are of a critical nature for the future of our world—that when teachers are serious about their work and take time to provide structures and supports for students being able to access materials and to think deeply about the artifacts and the events around them, we can all benefit. It's terribly important that social studies not be lost in our curriculum, that we build the base of students' understanding the world so that they can read and think better and become better problem solvers for the future.