Look in most social studies textbooks, read analysis of historical events, and one usually finds a standard categorization of information. The categories often include the economic, social, political, religious, arts, and technological angles of what happened and why. And sometimes, one finds a discussion of how geography affected several of these categories. Social studies teachers make these aspects of studying society a mainstay of our teaching.
If you need to teach your students how to break the study of social studies into these categories, use the ESPRAT+G acronym. Much like using the 6+1 Traits of Writing to give our students a structure and language to talk about their writing, ESPRAT+G can do the same for understanding social studies.
I put a Web site together that I share with my students to help them better understand ESPRAT+G. Your students might find it helpful as well.
September 29, 2009 at 11:12 am
Currently, I am studying to be a social studies teacher and I love your ESPRAT+G acronym and useful website! I believe that teachers should teach students to break social studies down into categories in order to have a better understanding of the topic. Students are able to understand the ends and outs of a situation better and can piece the categories back togehter to get the whole picture.