Elizabeth Cross April 21, 2012 EDEL 453 Dr. Kolar SSRR 3

1. Elizabeth Cross April 21, 2012 EDEL 453 Dr. Kolar SSRR 3

2. Melina Arriaza Elizabeth Cross Catherine Bethell Diana Zárate SSSR3: Enhancing Knowledge on Pink and Say Civil War: Group Work • Present a well told story that doesn’t conflict with historical record • This story gives the human voice and element. It is not sugar coated it presents history in a way that the reader can relate to the content. • Portray characters realistically • Pink is African American, and we know that Say is Caucasian • Provide accurate information through illustrations • Each page depicts what is being told through vivid illustrations. Polacco’s artwork is amazing she engages the reader to the text. Her artwork is really detailed, vivid and it gives accurate information. The emotions of character come to life through vivid facial expressions and colorful illustrations. • Present authentic Settings • The story was passed down from generation to generation and one day to Patricia Polacco. The main points were very vivid and correlate with the history that textbooks present about the civil war. • The book can be easily tied to National Standards pertaining to social studies, and language arts and can easily be presented K-12 education classes to further the students understanding of the civil war and provide different perspectives.

4. Enhancing Knowledge on Boy Soldiers in the Civil War: • Over 2 million Federal soldiers were 21 & under(46,000 were 25 & over. • 5% of Civil war soldiers were under the age of 18. • Shockingly some were as young as 10 years old ( 25 were under 10 years of age). • Clothes were not sized appropriately (either to big or too small). • The conditions of living were inhumane, soldiers were forced to sleep with no blankets on freezing nights and made to eat frozen pork. • Thumb screws, barbed iron collars, balls & chains, & shackles were used for torturing Union prisoners.

6. Using Inquires to teach social studies: • Using field trips to the local community to observe new & old businesses, schools, & housing structures. Doing this is a good way to also incorporate a history lesson. A possible field trip in Las Vegas would be the Old Mormon Fort and/or the Clark County History Museum. • Using reflections from field trips is a good idea. Another way reflections are useful is finding out what worked in a lesson and what didn’t and using that to adjust the lesson for next time. • The use of the internet allows students to go online and go on a virtual field trip to places that they could not go otherwise, students are also encouraged to visit web quest as well. Because social studies and history has been around since the beginning of time we use these types of field trips to put ourselves there without leaving the classroom. • Spatial Dynamics is another method I would use, by doing this it will allow us to build mini replicas & place figurines to see what it might have been like back in a certain time in history. Doing this could lead to reenactments of certain things that happened in time, e.g., Civil War • Developing inquiry skills through case study. Doing this students not only learn the history , they can also learn the legal aspect of case. Students can even find influential cases and reenact them.

7. Virtual Field Trip Old DesERET VILLAGE Hotel School House Local Alphabet Lumber Mill General Store House The Old Deseret Village is located in Salt Lake City, Utah, it a place where the original Mormon settlers decided to make their home. While most people do not live like this anymore there are certain places around the world and different cultures that do live like they were in the olden days where there were wagons and a general store. At the Old Deseret Village visitors are welcome to come an stay and live like the settlers did so many years ago. People are encouraged to live like them, dress like them and even take a job like them to see how they had to live. They had one school house for all the students and grade levels and one thing that I found most interesting was that they had their own alphabet. This is a place that I would encourage people to go to see how things pure and simple.

8. Reflection: From where I was in the beginning of the semester and it now being the end of the semester I have found that social studies was not was I thought that it was when I was first asked about social studies and what I remembered about it. When I started I thought that social studies was just something that we were taught about we lived during the different eras in life. It allowed us to play games such as Oregon Trail to show us how it was to live like the pioneers. I see now that social studies is so much more and is integrated into just about every subject and lesson that teachers teach, whether they know it or not. Social studies allows us to see many different aspects of the past and allows us to see it in books that one might think is just a story, but when read can turn into a lesson that incorporates social studies. I would have to say that some of the key elements of learning this semester would be, going on a virtual field trips to see how and life was life back in a certain era or learning about something that was a piece of history. Reading different stories & integrating them into lessons, it seemed that no matter what the book there was always a lesson in social studies and just had to be read into to find the lesson. Learning about homelessness, this I found to be my favorite because I love being able to help others and finding out that just because a person is homeless does not mean that they are smelly or do not have a job. A person could just be down on their luck and waiting for the right opportunity to come around. Finally service learning touched a soft spot. Being able to research the different opportunities around the city that is in need of help and finding out what they do for the people they serve and how they are able to continue to serve the people that they do.

9. Reflection: Discussions were helpful in the class, it allowed each of us to voice our opinion without being judged from someone else. It also let’s us see that there are many different views on different subjects. Just because one person thinks one way about one thing does not mean that the person sitting next to them shares the same opinion. Discussion should be in all classes to allow students to express themselves. Working in groups for the different projects that were done in class brought a chance for people to work together and express themselves not only with their voice but with their creativity when it came to putting the project together. Some times is takes more than one mind to come up with and achieve greatness. I believe that group work makes class more interesting not just because of the thoughts of others but allows us to be hands on. I believe that being hands on is going to make students think and remember more about a lesson because they got to do something other than just read and/or write something. I have enjoyed my time in this class and have learned valuable things that I will take with me in my career. While I may not becoming a teacher, these skills will allow me to teach other the skills that have learned and to build on those skills to help in the education field. The learning never stops and I will always be learning something new everyday.