Holocaust Memorials in Action: Students Take the Lead Analyzing One Family’s Unpublished Letters and Photos
Brian Levinson
A classroom visitor’s family Holocaust story became the catalyst for a student-driven project that combined primary-source analysis, international collaboration, and memorial-making to deepen historical understanding.
364
Can ChatGPT Make Quality Social Studies Lesson Plans? The Answer Surprised Us
Taylor M. Kessner and Sarah J. Kaka
A study comparing AI- and teacher-created lesson plans shows where generative tools like ChatGPT can support inquiry-based social studies instruction and where they fall short.
376
Photovoice as Pedagogy for Civic Engagement and Social Justice
Kimi Waite, Pamela Williams, and Qiong Annie Wu
This flexible framework using photography and storytelling empowers student-led inquiry to promote civic engagement and social justice awareness, leading to community action.
DEPARTMENTS
369
Teaching the C3 Framework How Do I Make Inquiry My Own? Embracing the Instructional Artistry of the IDM Blueprint
Kathy Swan, John Lee, Emma Thacker, and Laura Darolia
Six teachers across the country personalize an inquiry on trash and pollution, demonstrating how the Inquiry Design Model empowers educators to adapt, innovate, and bring inquiry to life.
322 NCSS Notebook
382
Member Spotlight
382
Advertiser Index
NCSS OFFICERS
Tina M. Ellsworth, Ph.D. (President) University of Central Missouri, Warrensburg, MO
Joe Schmidt (President-Elect) Bill of Rights Institute, Augusta, ME
David Kendrick (Vice President) Loganville High School, Loganville, GA
Jennifer Morgan (Past President) West Salem Middle School, West Salem, WI
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
CherylAnne Amendola Montclair Kimberley Academy Montclair, NJ (2027)
Alex Cuenca Indiana University, Bloomington, IN (2026)
Carly Donick Cabrillo Middle School, Ventura, CA (2026)
Terrell Fleming Prince Edward County Public Schools Farmville, VA (2027)
Kimberly Huffman Wayne County Schools, Smithville, OH (2027)
Stephen Masyada Lou Frey Institute and the Florida Joint Center for Citizenship Orlando, FL (2027)
Heather Nice Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg, VA (2026)
Stephanie Nichols Narragansett Elementary School, Gorham, ME (2028)
Renita Parks Memphis, TN (2028)
Marc Turner Spring Hill High School, Columbia, SC (2026)
Gabriel Valdez Fort Worth Independent, School District, Fort Worth, TX (2028)
Anne Walker Edison High School, Alexandria, VA (2025)
EX-OFFICIO
Casey Cullen
Ex-Officio | House of Delegates Steering Committee Chair (2025–2026)
ONLINE: Visit us at www.socialstudies.org/publications and www.ingentaconnect. com/content/ncss.
READERS: The editors welcome suggestions, letters to the editor, and manuscripts to our peer-reviewed journal. Guidelines at www.socialstudies.org/publications; submit at www.editorialmanager.com/ncssjournals; questions to publications@ ncss.org. Contributors express their own views, reflecting divergent opinions. Send manuscripts for departments to the department editors.
DELIVERY AND CHANGE OF ADDRESS: View and update your record, www.social studies.org/membership; send new address to membership@ncss.org; or call 800-296-7840 ext. 111. Callers outside the U.S. and Canada use 301-588-1800 ext. 111.
PERMISSION to reproduce articles for academic use, contact Copyright Clearance Center, Academic Permissions Service, 222 Rosewood Dr., Danvers, MA, 01923; 978-750-8400 (phone), 978-750-4470 (fax).
ADVERTISING: Maribell Abeja-DeVitto, Account Manager, MAbejaDeVitto@smith bucklin.com; 312-673-5483 Visit www.socialstudies.org/advertising for rates and specifications.
INDEXED by Institute of Education Sciences, eric.ed.gov and by ProQuest, www. proquest.com.
POSTMASTER: Periodicals postage paid at Silver Spring, MD, and additional mailing offices. Send address changes to Social Education, NCSS, 8403 Colesville Rd., #1100, Silver Spring, MD 20910, USA.
NCSS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Kelly McFarland Stratman
DEPUTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Joy Lindsey
NCSS DIRECTORS
Ashanté Horton Director of Events
Timothy Daly Director of Operations
Laura Godfrey Interim Director of Publications and Resources
EDITORIAL STAFF
Jennifer Bauduy Editor
Laura Godfrey Interim Director of Publications and Resources
Rich Palmer Art Manager
SOCIAL EDUCATION DEPARTMENT EDITORS
Andrea S. Libresco, Jeannette Balantic Elementary Education
Stacie Brensilver Berman, John M. Palella, and Diana B. Turk Inclusive Social Studies
Michael J. Berson, Meghan McGlinn Manfra Instructional Technology
Tiffany Willey Middleton Lessons on the Law
Lee Ann Potter Sources and Strategies,
Kathy Swan, John Lee, S.G. Grant Teaching the C3 Framework
Become an NCSS member!
Use your smartphone’s camera to scan this QR code or go to www. socialstudies.org/membership.
MEMBERSHIP in the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) is open to any person or institution interested in the social studies. All members receive the NCSS journal of their choice (Social Education or Social Studies and the Young Learner), as well as the e-newsletter, The Social Studies Professional (two issues per month), access to the online NCSS publication archives, the online Middle Level Learning supplement, and discounts on NCSS conference registration, books, and professional development programs. Regular membership rates for individuals are $90 per year. Rates for students and retired persons are $53 per year. For rates and benefits of institutional membership, and further information on all levels of membership, go to www.socialstudies.org/membership.
SUBSCRIPTIONS to Social Education are available to non-member institutions. A print-only subscription is $114 per year. Online subscriptions for Social Education are available through the IngentaConnect platform. Visit www.socialstudies.org/ publications/subscriptions and www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ncss. The online subscription is worldwide, IP supported, and SERU friendly for $199 per year. The online-plus-print subscription is $252 in the United States (add $11 for Canada and $45 international to cover mailings).
SINGLE COPIES of Social Education are $6.00 (member price), $7.95 (non-members) plus shipping and handling. Contact 1-800-683-0812. Single articles are available (pdf: $14.95 for non-members) at www.ingentaconnect.com/content.ncss. NCSS members can access articles through the online archives.
P.O. BOX: To become a member or subscribe (as an institution) by mail, send a check to NCSS, P.O. Box 79078, Baltimore, MD 21279-0078.
RETURN ADDRESS: Social Education, NCSS, 8403 Colesville Rd., #1100, Silver Spring, MD 20910, USA.
Connection is a powerful thing. We are connected to other individuals, to institutions, and to places. Our network of connections creates the community in which we live and operate. It is what builds shared values and culture. As educators, we make connections every day, and we encourage our students (and all of those around us) to make those connections as well.
In looking at the articles in this issue of Social Education, I am seeing connections everywhere— with personal experiences, with the conversations that I am having with NCSS members, and with this moment in our nation’s history.
Walter Parker’s The Oath of Allegiance and the Meaning of Citizenship is powerful. In my previous job, I had the good fortune to witness several naturalization ceremonies and to offer these new Americans an opportunity to engage in their first civic act: registering to vote. Meeting those individuals, hearing their journeys to citizenship (which were often very arduous and long), and welcoming them into our community was a privilege. Parker’s reflection helps all of us ask critical and timely questions about citizenship, loyalty, and national belonging.
In The Common Law, A Football Story, Dwight M. Kealy draws connection in an unlikely place. He shares how incorporating sports-based analogies into classroom instruction can help explain the U.S. legal system and deepen students’ understanding of precedent and constitutional law.
In The 1864 “Little People’s Petition”: Inspiring Student Investigations Related to Abolition, Individual Rights, and Executive Power, Alli Hartley-Kong reminds us of the power of connecting with our larger community. A petition by a teacher and her students to President Lincoln in a nineteenth-century Massachusetts town provides entry for classroom inquiry into abolition, suffrage, and the constitutional limits of executive power— all topics that remain relevant today.
Michael L. Boucher Jr. et al. introduce us to life mapping. In Mapping Meaning: Using Life Maps to Foster Geographic Thinking and Identity, they
NCSS Notebook
explore how charting personal histories through memory, identity, and movement can support identity development, nurture critical consciousness, and promote spatial awareness.
Taylor M. Kessner and Sarah J. Kaka dive into a topic that is on everyone’s mind: artificial intelligence. In their article Can ChatGPT Make Quality Social Studies Lesson Plans? The Answer Surprised Us, they explore how compatible this new and rapidly changing technology is with inquiry-based social studies.
And, these are just a sampling of what you will find in this issue of Social Education. As you read the articles, what connections will you make? What connections will you foster by sharing them with others? Feel free to share your feedback at socialed@ncss.org.
As educators, we are masters of connecting the constellation of disciplines that make up social studies. We see the links and know the importance of applying the different lenses of geography, history, law, sociology, economics, civics, and so much more. For us, connection is not optional—it is a requirement.
Kelly McFarland Stratman is the Executive Director of NCSS
Point
of View
The Oath of Allegiance and the Meaning of Citizenship
Walter Parker
Loyalty—fidelity, allegiance—is such a personal thing. I wonder what goes through the minds of new citizens when they swear to abandon loyalty to their countries of origin and give it over to the USA. At a mass naturalization ceremony last July at the Seattle Center in Washington State, more than 500 immigrants from 79 nations swore to do just that.
Naturalization, recall, is the final step in the long US citizenship process. My wife and I were among the spectators on the lawn between the Fisher Pavilion and the International Fountain at the Seattle Center. We didn’t know any of the newcomers but, given the times, we wanted to be part of an enthusiastic crowd.
The citizens-to-be seated before us on the plaza were warmly welcomed by Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell and US Senator Maria Cantwell. Chief US District Judge David Estudillo then administered the Oath of Allegiance. The immigrants stood and recited the text, their right hands raised. Here’s what they promised. Take a minute to read it and be astonished. Notice the “ands” and “ors” in the first clause, and then the next six “thats”:
I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and
entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of
the United States when required by law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces when required by law; or that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion: So Help Me God.
These 135 words weigh a ton. “Absolutely and entirely” leave no wiggle room. Nor does “without any mental reservation.” And then there’s the promise to defend the Constitution and laws “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
I discussed the oath with my University of Washington students many times. Their goal was to be certified as middle and high school social studies teachers, and the ideas in this oath—citizenship, allegiance, obligation—were central to the history and government courses they would teach. The terms might be familiar, but their meanings are slippery.
A mass naturalization ceremony, July 4, 2025, at the Seattle Center in Washington State.
Politically, they are hot potatoes, too.
Most of these future teachers were, like me, birthright citizens, so they hadn’t had occasion to consider the promises new citizens are required to make. To relinquish allegiance to a former ruler or government is no small thing itself, and to accept the duties listed next can give you pause.
How did that shift feel to the newcomers gathered at the Seattle Center? I can tell you that my students erupted with opinions at the mere thought of it. “Why would I owe allegiance to anything but God and my family?” one asked. Another student was suspicious: “I bet lots of them are fibbing.” Someone wistfully offered lines from John Lennon, “Imagine there’s no countries / It isn’t hard to do / Nothing to kill or die for….” Another made a key factual point, “Your allegiance here is given to a constitution, not a person. This isn’t Hail
Caesar or Heil Hitler.”
This oath is followed in the ceremony by a second with its own bundle of meanings: the Pledge of Allegiance. And this one, by state law, is recited each morning at school. Again, notice the “ands”:
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
In my classroom, I liked to simulate the whole ceremony with students so they could feel the moment. I wore a robe and played the judge; the two texts were distributed; and I asked the “immigrants” to stand as I administered the Oath, their right hands raised. After this, they recited the Pledge, hands over hearts.
At the ceremony’s conclusion, I congratulated the
“new citizens” and ended the simulation. Usually, there was a startled pause, and then opinions tumbled out. Juicy disagreements followed on the oaths’ purposes, the words’ meanings, and their implications for private and public life. It can be a mind-altering discussion. You might consider it for your classrooms or even for social studies–related clubs. The time is ripe, if you ask me, to talk about what citizenship means.
Walter Parker is Professor Emeritus of Education and Political Science at the University of Washington and continues to write on civic education K-12. His latest book is Education for Liberal Democracy (2023).
Note: This article was originally published in Post Alley, an online newsletter in Seattle, the author’s hometown.
It is the only national organization for high school juniors and seniors that recognizes excellence in the field of Social Studies. Any accredited public or private high school can apply for a local chapter, through which individuals will be inducted into Rho Kappa Honor Society.
Lessons on the Law
The Common Law, A Football Story
Dwight M. Kealy
Sports fans have an advantage when it comes to understanding the U.S. legal system because they understand what it’s like to argue about rules and follow case precedent. For example, in football, imagine that it’s first down and a quarterback throws a forward pass to a receiver. It looks like the receiver caught the ball, but at nearly the same time, the receiver is hit by a defensive player who knocks the ball loose. The team on defense then jumps on the ball. What is the legal issue facing football fans? They want to know, “Did the receiver catch the ball?” For non-football fans, we should help explain what is at stake. If it was not a catch, then it was an incomplete forward pass and the team on offense maintains possession. It’s not a big deal. If the receiver caught the ball, then we have a catch and a fumble that was recovered by the defense. That means the defensive team will now have possession of the ball. That’s a big deal. So, how do we know if the receiver really caught the ball or if the ball just bounced off the receiver’s hands? We ask a judge. We’ll call this judge the referee. The referee will look at the facts and decide if a catch was made.
We expect similar outcomes in similar situations, and so we have a problem when it looks like the same facts were called an incomplete pass in one game and a fumble in another game. To address this, we take the question to a higher court that could issue binding rules that all future games would need to follow. If we are talking about the National Football League (NFL), we could call this high court the NFL Competition Committee. This is the committee responsible for establishing the rules for the NFL.
This high court may answer our “was it a catch” question by
saying that a catch occurs when a receiver gains control of the ball while in bounds. When asked what “gains control” means, the court could say it means the receiver maintained control long enough to perform a football move. When asked, “What is a football move?,” the court could say it means the player turned up field, tucked the ball, or took several steps. The answers to these questions become the rule that future judges, I mean referees, will follow in future cases. Now, would this new NFL rule be binding on NCAA (college) football, flag football, or rugby?
No, it would only be binding precedent for the judges under the authority of the NFL. And would these rules apply if the pass was not a forward pass? No. If it was not a forward pass, then we would call it a lateral or backward pass, and different rules apply. Controlling precedent only applies when a subsequent court is applying the same law as the prior court, and it only applies to courts under the authority of the higher court.
The Common Law Tradition
The football illustration above captures the essence of the U.S. legal system. The U.S. legal system is based on the English Common Law tradition where judicial decisions form a precedent that future courts must follow. This approach is known as stare decisis which is Latin for “to stand on things decided.” In this way, a fifteenth-century English case about a cow damaging a neighbor’s crops could be a distant predecessor to modern cases involving autonomous aerial vehicles causing damage to a neighbor’s house. In both scenarios, the law aims to secure financial compensation for the victims harmed by something that escaped the
control of the owner.
How Stare Decisis Works
Under stare decisis:
1. A court should uphold its precedents unless there is a compelling reason to overturn them.
2. Decisions made by higher courts are binding on lower courts.
This provides uniformity and predictability while also offering flexibility to address new realities.
For example, imagine a scenario where an individual accidentally burns a field of onions that were about to be harvested. The farmer anticipated earning $200,000 from selling the crop. How much should the farmer be compensated? A judge may consider the anticipated $200,000, subtract any amount saved from the farmer not having to harvest the onions, and then add any other damages to the farm’s land, infrastructure, etc. For our purposes, let’s assume the judge determined that the person who burned the onion field owes the onion farmer $200,000.
Now imagine that the same fire burned two other fields of identical size. How much should the farmers of those fields receive as compensation? It is tempting to say $200,000, but we need to look at the facts. Maybe the first field was full of onions, the second field was full of tumbleweeds, and
the third field was an orchard full of mature pecan trees. Based on these facts, maybe a judge would rule that the onion farmer should receive $200,000, the tumbleweed owner should receive nothing, and the pecan orchard owner should receive $1 million. This illustrates that when we look at prior cases, we consider the reasoning behind the decisions, not just the outcomes.
When Can the Supreme Court Not Follow Precedent?
Of course, the Supreme Court does not always follow precedent. Some of its most significant constitutional decisions have overturned prior rulings. Notable examples include Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which reversed the infamous Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) segregation decision, and Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), which reversed Roe v. Wade (1973) on abortion. In Janus v. Am. Fed’n of State, Cnty., & Mun. Emps., Council 31, 585 U.S. 878 (2018), the Supreme Court identified five factors to consider when deciding whether to overrule a past decision:
1. The quality of the prior decision’s reasoning;
2. The workability of the rule the precedent established;
3. The precedent’s consistency with other related decisions;
4. Developments since the decision was handed down; and
5. The extent to which individuals or entities have relied on the prior precedent.
After evaluating these factors, the Court may conclude that stare decisis does not require retaining a previous decision.
The Civil Law Tradition
Unlike the Common Law tradition, the Civil Law tradition relies on statutes rather than case precedents. For example, a statute might set a fixed fine for burning someone’s field. This provides predictability, but it lacks the flexibility of the Common Law tradition. The Civil Law tradition is rooted in Roman law. Its influence continues to this day in countries like France, Spain, and other countries that follow their legal traditions.
Controlling Precedents and Binding Authority
Under stare decisis, courts must follow the controlling precedents in their jurisdictions. These controlling precedents are called binding authority because lower courts are bound—that is, required—to follow the precedent. Controlling precedents include constitutions and statutes. Controlling precedent only applies when the subsequent court is applying the same law as the prior court. For example, maybe one fire was caused by accident, and another was started on
1950s it seemed clear that the precedent was outdated. But in Toolson v. New York Yankees, Inc., 346 U.S. 356 (1953) the court indicated that its role was to follow precedent and if the legislature desired a different outcome, it should pass a new law for the court to apply. This new legislation arrived with the Curt Flood Act of 1998.
Courts answer questions through what are called legal opinions. These opinions not only state a court’s decision but also the reasoning behind the decision. There are several types of opinions:
1. Unanimous Opinion:
Represents the view of all judges who heard the case.
2. Majority Opinion:
Represents the views of the majority of judges deciding the case. It becomes binding precedent. For the U.S. Supreme Court, a majority opinion requires at least five of the nine justices.
3. Concurring Opinion:
Written by judges who agree with the majority opinion but have different reasoning or want to emphasize specific points not covered in the majority opinion.
4. Dissenting Opinion:
Written by judges who disagree with the majority opinion. (I often read these
opinions first because they tell me what a smart Supreme Court Justice and their smart staff identify as the key contested issue in the case. But it is important not to fall in love with the arguments of the dissent because, well, they lost. It may be influential for future cases, but it is not part of the majority opinion and, therefore, not binding precedent.)
5. Plurality Opinion:
Supported by the largest number of judges, but not a majority. It reflects a divided court where no single opinion gained a majority.
6. Per Curiam Opinion:
An unsigned, unanimous opinion of the court. It comes from the Latin meaning, “by the court.”
For example, imagine a case where Jack burns Jill’s house. The case reaches the U.S. Supreme Court after four justices grant a writ of certiorari. Five justices decide that Jill should receive $200,000. That would be the majority opinion. Three justices decide that Jill should not receive $200,000. That would be the dissenting opinion. One justice agrees that Jill should receive $200,000, but for different reasons than the majority. That would be a concurring opinion. If only four justices agreed on the reason why Jill should get $200,000, three justices disagreed, and two justices had
In this Dec. 17, 2017, file photo, Pittsburgh Steelers tight end Jesse James (81) loses his grip on the football after crossing the goal line on a pass play against the New England Patriots. Citing precedent, the NFL’s “high court,” determined the play to be an incomplete pass, and the Patriots won.
AP Photo/Don Wright, File
a different opinion, there would be no majority opinion because a majority requires five justices. In this scenario, the four justices would have the plurality opinion because it was supported by the largest number of justices. And, of course, if all justices agreed on an opinion, they could issue an anonymous per curiam opinion.
Case Precedents and Football
To illustrate case precedents, let’s get back to football. Imagine it is first and ten at the quarterback’s own 20-yard line. The quarterback drops back to pass but gets sacked by the defense at the 10-yard line. For the second down, the new line of scrimmage would be where the sack occurred. That is, the 10-yard line. However, if the quarterback drops back and throws a pass to an eligible receiver who drops the ball,
then there is no loss of yardage, and the line of scrimmage for the second down remains unchanged at the 20-yard line.
Considering this, what if a passer, facing imminent loss of yardage due to defensive pressure, throws a forward pass without a realistic chance of completion to avoid being sacked ten yards behind the line of scrimmage? Treating this as an incomplete pass seems unfair, especially if the quarterback is in his own end zone, where a sack would result in a safety, which would earn the defense two points and possession of the ball.
To address this, football fans know there’s a penalty for “intentional grounding.” This penalty occurs when a passer, under defensive pressure, throws a forward pass without a realistic chance of completion. The penalty options are:
1. Loss of down and 10 yards from the previous spot;
2. Loss of down at the spot of the foul; or
3. If the passer is in the end zone, it results in a safety.
The Supreme Court’s role is like the NFL Competition Committee (rules committee). Once the Supreme Court answers a legal question, their answer is now the new rule that governs future cases. Some Supreme Court observers sound like old football fans saying things like, “that used to be a sack” or “that used to be an incomplete pass.” While historically interesting and maybe insightful for future decisions, the new rule is the binding precedent that all future cases
Sports and Law Learning Opportunities
The world of sports is filled with connections to law— conceptually in terms of governance, socially in terms of norms, and actually with real-life moments in court. Explore any of these connections to engage students in substantive dialogue.
• All sports leagues—professional, amateur, student, national, international—have governing bodies with responsibilities much like the NFL rules committee. Students might select a sport and see where it leads them in terms of governance at local, state, national, and international levels.
• Sports have long been stages from which to forge diplomatic relations and raise awareness of important issues—antitrust,
due process, civil rights, labor, health, sex, gender, immigration, equity, doping, gaming, privacy, ethics, to name a few. Pick something and explore, as primary sources of controversy, court documents, interviews, images, news media abound for analysis and discussion.
• Invite a local lawyer or other professional who might practice in sports-related legal or medical areas to come to your classroom and speak with students. From sports agents to Title IX experts to medical professionals parsing the latest on concussions, there might be someone close to share a real perspective with students.
must now follow unless or until it is overruled by a future court.
Those are the Rules
Even if we do not always agree with the rules, our legal system—and the NFL rules committee—gives us predictability and consistency. We saw this in action on a game-deciding play in a Week 16 matchup between the Patriots and Steelers in 2017. Was it a catch and a touchdown and a win for the Steelers, or an incomplete pass and a win for the Patriots?
At the time, former New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning shrugged, “I know the rules…. You hate it. When you’re watching it live, you don’t even think about that not being a catch…. [But] those are the rules.” Manning understood
precedent. It was determined to be an incomplete pass, and the Patriots won. The disappointed Steelers coach Mike Tomlin also understood precedent, but he recognized the need for a higher court to address the workability of the rules. As a member of the NFL Competition Committee (the league’s “high court”), Tomlin accepted the loss but added, “We all can acknowledge that all of this needs to be revisited,” and, “As a member of the Committee, I acknowledge we got our work cut out for us this offseason.” Tomlin understood both the obligation to follow precedent and the responsibility to review it. Football and the Common Law tradition remind us that although we may not always agree with the rules,
our system allows us to enjoy the predictability of precedent while preserving the flexibility to ask a higher court if there is now a compelling reason to overturn an old rule.
Dwight M. Kealy is an attorney licensed in California and New Mexico, and a College Professor of Business Law at New Mexico State University. He is the author of Sports Law: A Narrative (LawPro Publishing, 2024)
Lessons on the Law is provided by the American Bar Association from its Division for Public Education. The ideas presented are the author’s own and should not be construed as reflective of policy of the American Bar Association, its Board of Governors, House of Delegates, Standing Committee on Public Education, or any other association entity.
The twenty-seven published articles in this book, drawn primarily from the “Teaching the C3 Framework” columns in Social Education , demonstrate how the ideas of the C3 Framework have made their way into many facets of social studies: standards, curriculum, instruction, assessment, and teacher education. Looking back on a decade of inquiry, Kathy Swan, S. G. Grant, and John Lee invite you to join the celebration of the C3 Framework’s impact on social studies education and to continue blazing the inquiry trail and fueling the revolution.
Source and Strategies
The 1864 “Little People’s Petition”:
Inspiring Student Investigations Related to Abolition, Individual Rights, and Executive Power
Alli Hartley-Kong
Petitions are political tools that can give voice to the disenfranchised. In 1864, a petition created and signed by a group of American citizens who could not vote—a female teacher and nearly 200 of her minor students—prompted a direct response from President Abraham Lincoln himself. The petition and the response demonstrate how primary sources can inspire students to embark on investigations related to abolition, individual rights, and executive power.
Setting the Scene:
Concord, Mass., 1864
Students may be familiar with the town of Concord, Massachusetts, and its rich Revolutionary War heritage. But they may not be aware that this New England community was an antebellum-era center of abolitionist thought and action, led by the Middlesex County Antislavery Society and the Ladies’ Antislavery Society of Concord. Local Transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau delivered antislavery speeches, and young Louisa May Alcott wrote and produced an evening of short plays to benefit her abolition organization of choice. Visitors to the city included Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, John Brown’s daughters, and, most notably, formerly enslaved
people who found refuge in the city’s many Underground Railroad stops as they selfemancipated. It was from this environment that Concord educator Mary Rice and 195 of her students—all disenfranchised by either gender, age, or both— exercised their constitutional right to petition in April 1864, fifteen months after Lincoln officially issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
The Petition and Response
The Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, declared that all enslaved people in states or parts of states that were in rebellion were freed. This meant that enslaved people in the five Union states that allowed slavery, as well as regions in seceded states that were controlled by the Union, such as several counties in
Virginia, were not affected by the proclamation.
Clearly these legal limitations had an impact on Mary Rice, a Concord schoolteacher and abolitionist, leading her and her students to directly petition the president to “free all the little slave children in this country.” Rice framed the issue of slavery in a way that would be relatable to the young people she taught. She explained in the introduction to the petition featured in this article and available online at https://www. loc.gov/item/mal3213100 that her students opposed slavery because “when they are instructed to know that little slave children are constantly liable to be sold away—fathers and mothers also, their sensibilities are wrought up to the highest indignation.”
After Rice collected hundreds of signatures (some with assistance, as the signatories were as young as five years old), she used her Concord connections to get the letter into Lincoln’s hands. Her actions were the focus of a letter sent
Concord Massachusetts Children to Abraham Lincoln, April 1864 (Petition urging Lincoln to free all slave children)
Letter from Abraham Lincoln to Mary Mann, Tuesday, April 05, 1864
THE 1864 “LITTLE PEOPLE’S PETITION” from page 331
by Abraham Lincoln on April 5, 1864, to Mary Peabody Mann, the widow of prominent Massachusetts educator and politician Horace Mann (https://www.loc.gov/item/ mal3212200). In his generous response to the petition, Lincoln shared how abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner passed the petition to him. He also shared that while he was glad to see the request from “these little people” (creating the moniker “The Little People’s Petition”), as it showed “their young hearts are so full of just and generous sympathy,” he explained that he could not do what they asked. His response demonstrated his understanding of how the Constitution limited his executive power.
Primary Source Analysis
Divide your students into pairs. Assign half of the pairs the petition and half of the pairs Lincoln’s response to read, analyze, and describe to one another. You may wish to distribute copies of the Primary Source Analysis Tool available from the Library of Congress at https://www.loc.gov/static/ programs/teachers/gettingstarted-with-primary-sources/ documents/Primary_Source_ Analysis_Tool_LOC.pdf to guide their analysis.
After students have analyzed the documents with their partners, invite them to create new pairings. Ensure that students who analyzed the petition
and students who analyzed the responses are now paired together. If your students are familiar with the “InsideOutside Circle” classroom routine, you may use or modify this technique to create these new discussion pairs. Whatever technique you choose, ensure that one “expert” from each of the documents is in conversation with the other. Encourage students in these groups to share and summarize the petition and response that they analyzed.
Then, lead a class discussion. Potential prompts include:
• What was the age range of the young people who signed the petition? What do you wonder about how they learned about the issues discussed in this petition?
• Why do you think the “little people” signed the petition? What evidence do you see directly in the document that shares their reasoning?
• What do your students know about Concord, Massachusetts (where the students were from)? What are they wondering about the community, based on the letter?
• What surprised you, if anything, about Lincoln’s response? Why might he have felt that he alone could not end slavery?
• What do you think might have happened next? Brainstorm with your students to review different paths to changing laws and the Constitution.
Researching Further
Other materials from the Library of Congress can help extend students’ understanding of the many themes present in these documents. Encourage exploration on the following topics:
• Abolition and the Emancipation Proclamation Students may erroneously believe that Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation permanently ended slavery in all of the United States. Encourage them to explore what the proclamation actually said through the Library’s digital resource guide (https:// guides.loc.gov/emancipation-proclamation/digital-resources) as well as newspaper articles available through Chronicling America (https://guides. loc.gov/chronicling-america-emancipation-proclamation). Assign your students to examine the full text of the order, either in its final draft form (https://www.loc.gov/ item/mal2082000) or as printed in a newspaper of the time (https:// www.loc.gov/resource/ sn84030186/1863-01-10/ ed-1) using the ObserveReflect-Question technique. Ask students:
▶ What does the Emancipation Proclamation actually state? What surprises you about the text of the document?
▶ According to the document, where did the proclamation apply—and where did it not apply? Who actually was emancipated by the proclamation?
▶ Based on what you’ve read, why do you think Mary Rice felt compelled to petition Lincoln to end slavery, even more than a year after the proclamation went into effect?
For additional context about Lincoln and emancipation, see https://www.loc.gov/collections/abraham-lincoln-papers/ articles-and-essays/abrahamlincoln-and-emancipation
• Right to Petition
The right to petition is enshrined in the Constitution. Share a contextual essay about this right, through the Library’s Constitution Annotated resource (https://constitution.congress.gov/ browse/essay/amdt110-1/ALDE_00000407/). Then, encourage your students to explore materials related to petitions in the Library’s collection. For examples, students might read a petition from North Carolinians requesting that their
state be reinstated into the Union after the Civil War (https://www.loc. gov/item/2020783054), make observations on this photograph of suffragists with their petition (https:// www.loc.gov/resource/ mnwp.15000_150002), or explore this petition signed by Black South Carolinians who demanded access to the vote (https://www.loc. gov/item/mss33555dig).
Assign your students to first explore with the ObserveReflect-Question technique, then ask students:
• What are some issues that Americans over time have petitioned their government about?
• Were these petitions successful? What are some research strategies you can use to learn about the results of these petitions?
• What are some other ways, beyond petitions, that average Americans have used to enact political change? For example, protests or writing to their legislatures?
Executive Powers and Slavery
As an extension activity, place this document (Lincoln’s letter) in context with Lincoln’s other writings from April
1864. The very day before Lincoln sent his response to the petition, he wrote a letter to Kentucky newspaper editor Albert Hodges summarizing a conversation he had with Hodges and other politicians from Kentucky, a border state (See https://www.loc.gov/ item/mal3207700). Lincoln’s letter shares that while he had always been against slavery, the presidency never allowed him “an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling.” Throughout the letter, Lincoln reiterates the belief that his oath of office was to uphold the Constitution which did not grant him the executive power to end slavery, that he only took steps to end slavery when he felt it was necessary to preserve the Union, and that he ultimately believed the events of the war and the imminent end of slavery was controlled by a higher power. Lincoln knew he was writing for an audience wider than just Albert Hodges—several newspapers in Chronicling America, the Library’s online newspaper database, contain reprints of this letter (https:// www.loc.gov/resource/ sn83045784/1864-05-05/ ed-1).
Distribute the letter from Lincoln to Hodges (https://www.loc.gov/ item/mal3207700) to your students and invite them to analyze it using the ObserveReflect-Question technique. Invite students to summarize Lincoln’s position on the extent of his own power to end slavery, based on both the
Mapping Meaning: Using Life Maps to Foster Geographic Thinking and Identity
Michael L. Boucher Jr., Karen L. B. Burgard, Logan
Adams,
Valen Bernal-Mendoza, Alazay Gamboa, and Julie Mendez
Life mapping offers a dynamic blend of reflection, creativity, and geographic thinking—inviting individuals to chart the moments, relationships, and experiences that have shaped their lives.1 As patterns emerge across memories and milestones, this practice fosters self-understanding, highlights personal growth, and opens pathways toward future goals.2 Introduced in our social studies methods course, life mapping also proved to be a powerful pedagogical tool—supporting identity development, nurturing critical consciousness, and promoting spatial awareness in meaningful and lasting ways.3
Typically, life maps divide life into distinct periods—childhood, adolescence, adulthood—and plot key memories, influences, challenges, and aspirations along a conceptual or literal timeline.4 Core elements include timelines for life stages and historical events, visual symbolism, thematic patterns, the integration of memory with landscapes, and future planning. But life mapping goes beyond chronological order. Students use symbols, drawings, and color to create personal visual stories.5 Creativity is central. Some maps flow like rivers, others branch like trees, or take abstract shapes. Cooper’s Mapping Manhattan illustrates how mapping can merge memory with
geography, encouraging spatial storytelling.6 Life mapping can also explore personal and community histories, helping cartographers see history in a geographical context.
Projects like Mapping Inequality7 and the Westside San Antonio8 collections reveal how redlining and urban policies shape neighborhoods and life trajectories. Here, mapping serves as a bridge between the personal and the political, a tool for social critique that reveals how place is connected to power. Duncan et al. demonstrated how mapping functions as both method and methodology when documenting the lived experiences of Black educators navigating anti-Black educational contexts.9 They traced resistance and transformation across eras, centering historically oppressed voices. Life mapping blends storytelling, creativity, critical consciousness, and emotional insight. It challenges dominant narratives and imagines liberatory futures. The technique helps students understand where they have been and who they might become, personally and politically.
How Life Maps Became a Classroom Project
In spring 2025, Michael Boucher introduced life mapping in an undergraduate social studies
Alazay Gamboa linked education to ambition and cultural recognition. Her map honored Indigenous place names and historical sites: “I drew the mission of Valero.... My childhood home is a six-minute drive from [Mission] San Jose…. My graduation was at the Pearl.… My university is near Mission Espada.” Education here became a bridge between cultural heritage and personal achievement.
Together, these stories demonstrate that education is a powerful force for personal and social transformation.
Family and Life Goals
Family and goals were deeply intertwined across narratives. Julie Mendez’s narrative indicated family obligations from an early age: “My grandmother’s home became the center of my early life.… I took on a caregiving role, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic…. This map reflects my journey and the strength that defines who I am today.”
Valen Bernal-Mendoza explored identity, family, and independence. Starting in the Rio Grande Valley and moving to San Antonio, he recalled
LESSON PLAN
Life Maps (Level: 9th or 10th Grade)
Subjects: Social Studies/World Geography or Classroom Advisory/SEL Period
Objectives
Students will:
• explain their own geographic awareness by analyzing meaningful life locations and events;
• identify how place and space influence identity, emotions, and personal growth;
• reflect on life experiences and envision future goals using spatial reasoning;
• practice mindfulness and apply reflective thinking for life planning.
Materials Needed
• Blank poster paper or cardstock
• Markers, pencils, stickers, etc.
Standards
National Geography Standard 1
Day 1: Mapping Memory and Place Warm-Up Activity (5 min)
• Mindful moment: Building on students’ existing understanding of the concept of “place,” lead students in a 3-minute reflection on the places that have shaped who they are.
• Quickwrite: “Name three important places in your life and why they matter to you.”
Content Delivery (15 min)
• Introduce the concept of life mapping—explain to the students the purpose of Life Maps and how they can be a tool for self-identify and discovery and also learning geographic skills;
• How to use maps and other geographic representations, geospatial technologies, and spatial thinking to understand and communicate information.
NCSS Standard PEOPLE, PLACES, AND ENVIRONMENTS
• This theme helps learners to develop their spatial views and perspectives of the world, to understand where people, places, and resources are located and why they are there, and to explore the relationship between human beings and the environment.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.9-10.3 (Common Core State Standards for ELA-Literacy in Social Studies 9-12)
• Analyze in detail a series of events described in a text; determine whether earlier events caused later ones or simply preceded them.
Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Competencies (CASEL SEL Framework)
• Self-Awareness, Develop accurate self-perception and recognize strengths.
• Self-Management, Practice goal-setting and organizational skills.
• Social Awareness, Understand others’ experiences and perspectives.
• Responsible Decision-Making, Reflect on personal values and future plans.
• Show students some example maps (e.g., Cooper’s Mapping Manhattan);
• Discuss with your shoulder partner, “How does place shape who we are?”
Brainstorm Activity: Identifying Life Events (15 min)
• Students list 2-5 historically significant moments in their lives;
• Identify the location of each (home, school, city, neighborhood);
• Use guiding questions such as:
▶ Where did this happen?
▶ How did this place make you feel?
▶ What changed after this?
Homework / Family Connection
• Ask a family member about a place that shaped their life.
• Do a rough draft of a Life Map and bring it to class the next day for revision and refining.
Day 2: Mapping a Life Setup and Review (5 min)
• Recap/Review the purpose of maps: maps tell stories— personal, emotional, geographic.
Main Activity: From the rough draft, revise, refine and detail the Life Map (30 min)
• Students design personal life maps that include,
▶ Future goals and desired destinations. Encourage non-linear creativity (tree, road, spiral, city grid, river journey, etc.).
Personal Reflection/Narrative (Homework)
• Have students write a short narrative paragraph on the back of their life map or on a separate sheet of paper that explains each of the events and symbols used on their map and what they learned from the experience.
Share and Reflect (10 min)
• Pair or small group share.
• Questions,
▶ What was surprising as you mapped your life?
▶ How might mapping help you plan the future?
Assessment
• Formative assessment: participation in large group discussion and brainstorming journaling activity on Day 1.
• Summative assessment: Life map with short reflection/ narrative paragraph turned in after revisions.
challenges: “I got broken into at my first studio apartment … crashed my car on my birthday.” Yet he found growth through dance and art: “Life has its ups and downs. Using drawing to bring that animated element is my way of reflecting.”
Alazay Gamboa expanded responsibility to cultural stewardship: “I incorporated my passion in Indigenous culture … labeled the San Antonio River as Yanguana.” Her map resisted reductive identity narratives by centering cultural continuity.
For Logan Adams, family provided emotional grounding, and travel memories represented a goal of more adventures: “My personal life goal is to travel the world, so being able to include a literal map of where my life has taken me was an important part of this activity.”
These stories portray responsibility and goals not as passive birthrights, but as chosen commitments that shape identity. Each student identified critical transitions, such as loss, relocation, and
shifting roles, as catalysts for growth. Education emerged as both a milestone and a strategy for resilience. Family support, caregiving, and tradition formed the backdrop for transformation. Through life mapping, the university students revealed how place, memory, and identity intersect with broader social contexts.
It was clear to Boucher, as their teacher, looking across their maps that these preservice teachers were seeing their lives through the lens of space, movement, and connection. Their choices revealed how environments and histories shaped their journeys. This was the heart of the assignment: telling stories in context, woven into the fabric of geography and human experience.
Life Maps Lesson in Today’s Classroom
The Life Map lesson is designed to make geography both meaningful and personally relevant for preservice teachers and their future students. By
encouraging creativity and individual expression, the activity invites students to explore the places and spaces that have shaped their identities. Because the study of geography can often feel abstract or disconnected from lived experiences, life mapping helps bridge that gap by grounding geographic concepts in personal narratives.
Notes
1. Robert J. Helfenbein, Critical Geographies of Education: Space, Place, and Curriculum Inquiry (Routledge, 2021).
2. Elisabeth Garratt, Jan Flaherty, and Amy Barron, “Life Mapping,” in Methods for Change: Impactful Social Science Methodologies for 21st Century Problems, eds. Amy Barron, et al. (Aspect & The University of Manchester, 2021), 142150, https://aspect.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/ Elizabeth-Garrett-A4-Guide-27-Sept-1.pdf
3. Eva Gachirwa, “Things I Learned About Life Mapping for Self-Awareness,” Medium, (March 11, 2022), https:// medium.com/@evaGachirwa/things-i-learned-about-lifemapping-for-self-awareness-1f16a45f4b1e; Shunali Gupta, “What is a Life Map? Benefits and How to Create One,” Verywell Mind (August 2024), https://www.verywellmind. com/life-map-benefits-8684585
4. The Counterstory Project, “Create Your Life Map,” 2018, https://www.thecounterstory.com/create-your-life-map.
5. Gachirwa, “Things I Learned About Life Mapping for SelfAwareness”; The Counterstory Project, “Create Your Life Map.”
6. Maria Popova, “Mapping Manhattan: A Love Letter in Subjective Cartography by Neil deGrasse Tyson, Malcolm Gladwell, Yoko Ono & 72 Other New Yorkers,” The Marginalian (April 2, 2013). https://www.themarginalian. org/2013/04/02/mapping-manhattan-becky-cooper
7. University of Richmond, Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America, Digital Scholarship Lab, 2023, https:// dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining
8. University of Texas at San Antonio, Westside San Antonio Historic Preservation Collection, UTSA Libraries Digital Collections, 2016, https://digital.utsa.edu/digital/collection/p16018coll12
9. Kristen E. Duncan, Amanda E. Chisholm, and Theron J. Lewis, “I Don’t Feel Noways Tired: Why Black Teachers Will Persevere Through the Anti-Truth Movement,” Critical Education 16, no. 2 (2025): 155–170, https://doi. org/10.14288/ce.v16i2.186982
10. National Council for Geographic Education and the American Geographical Society, Geography for Life: National Geography Standards, 2nd ed. (National Geographic Society, 2012).
11. Council of Chief State School Officers and National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, “English Language Arts Standards: History/Social Studies, Grade 11–12,” Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2010, https://www.thecorestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RH/11-12.
12. Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, “Fundamentals of SEL,” CASEL, https://casel.org/ fundamentals-of-sel.
Michael L. Boucher, Jr., Ph.D., and Karen Burgard, Ph.D., are Associate Professors in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Texas A&M University–San Antonio. Both teach the secondary social studies methods courses along with other teacher preparation classes. Boucher, a former social studies teacher with 18 years of experience in Minneapolis, studies equity and solidarity in education. He has served as president of the Minnesota and Indiana Councils for the Social Studies and as a member of the NCSS board of directors. Burgard taught secondary social studies in Missouri for 14 years, and her scholarship explores the intersection of race, culture, and historical understanding. She has also served on the NCSS board of directors and as president of the Missouri Council for the Social Studies.
Logan Adams, Valen Bernal-Mendoza, Alazay Gamboa, and Julie Mendez are social studies pre-service teachers obtaining secondary certification at Texas A&M University–San Antonio. Adams and Mendez are history majors preparing to connect culturally relevant understanding of the past to their future classrooms. Gamboa is pursuing a degree in political science and legal studies, with a focus on civic engagement and government. Bernal-Mendoza is majoring in Interdisciplinary Studies (4–8 Education), with a focus on middlelevel teaching.
Reinterpreting the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression Through Eitaro Ishigaki’s Art
Sohyun An
What new insights into U.S. history and society emerge when Asian American experiences are brought to the forefront? This article explores the life and art of Eitaro Ishigaki (1893–1958), a Japanese immigrant artist whose paintings critically engage with the pervasive forces of racism, capitalism, and other defining structures of the “Roaring Twenties” and the Great Depression. Beginning with a brief biography, the article examines select pieces from Ishigaki’s oeuvre and offers instructional suggestions for incorporating his art into the study of early twentieth-century U.S. history in high school history or ethnic studies classrooms.
Ishigaki’s Background
Eitaro Ishigaki was born in Japan in 1893 and immigrated to the United States in 1909 to reunite with his father, who had settled here earlier.1 Initially employed as a day laborer on fruit farms and in restaurants in Seattle, Washington, and Bakersfield, California, Ishigaki’s early years reflect the harsh conditions faced by many Asian immigrants. In 1912, his move to San Francisco marked a turning point, as he became immersed in the vibrant cultural and political milieu of the city. There, he encountered Sen Katayama (1859–1933), a Japanese activist and key figure in the founding of communist parties both in Japan and the United States. Katayama, a significant intellectual influence, introduced Ishigaki to socialist and
communist theories. Additionally, interactions with local artists and writers in San Francisco ignited Ishigaki’s passion for pursuing art as a career.
In 1915, Ishigaki relocated to New York City, where he enrolled in art school while working menial jobs to sustain himself. Within New York’s thriving leftist art community—a network composed largely of immigrants from Russia, Italy, Mexico, China, and Japan—he found a space of shared struggle and collective resistance. These artists, united by experiences of socioeconomic and civic marginalization, formed a cultural front to critique capitalism and racism through their work.2
The upheavals of the 1910s and 1920s, including economic depression, rising fascism, and escalating racial tensions, fueled radical artistic and intellectual movements. The Mexican and Russian revolutions, along with the ideas of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin, became significant sources of inspiration. Artists across various mediums and disciplines collaborated, producing revolutionary literature and artwork, organizing unions, convening congresses, and advocating for anti-capitalist change.3 The Ashcan School, including artists like Robert Henri, George Bellows, and John Sloan, for example, challenged the conventions of idealized academic art by rejecting polished portrayals of beauty, tradition, and the upper class. Instead, they focused on raw, gritty depictions of the working class and urban life,
laying the foundation for later movements such as Social Realism and Depression-era art.4 At the same time, the Harlem Renaissance thrived, with Black artists, writers, and musicians such as Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Duke Ellington celebrating Black identity, challenging racism, and redefining African American culture. Influenced by leftist thought, many of these artists used their work to advocate for racial and economic justice, paving the way for future civil rights movements.5
In this sociopolitical and cultural landscape, Ishigaki became a prominent figure among socialist artists circles. He was a founding member of the New York chapter of John Reed Club—a leftist cultural network of writers and artists—and produced many paintings that addressed critical issues of the time (1920s-1940s), including class conflict, economic exploitation, and lynching.6
During World War II, Ishigaki and other Japanese American artists residing on the East Coast
avoided incarceration, unlike their counterparts on the West Coast who faced forced removal under Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066. Nevertheless, they were subjected to surveillance as “enemy aliens.” Despite this scrutiny, Ishigaki persisted in creating art that depicted civilian suffering caused by the war, furthering his anti-fascist commitments.
However, Ishigaki’s artistic activism waned after World War II under the pressures of McCarthyism. Like many leftist artists, he was targeted by the FBI for his socialist affiliations, facing harassment and interrogation. This hostile environment ultimately forced him to leave the United States in 1952. He returned to Japan, where he spent his final years, passing away in 1958.7
Artworks of Eitaro Ishigaki
Deeply informed by his experiences as a racially and economically marginalized laborer and a leftist artist, Eitaro Ishigaki’s art offers a critical lens on the sociopolitical struggles of the early twentieth century. His paintings interrogate structural inequities and challenge dominant narratives of prosperity and progress. Following are two of his major works along with instructional suggestions.8
Town (1925):
Uneven Realities of the Roaring Twenties
Ishigaki’s Town (also known as Street), cut into two pieces for reasons that remain unclear, presents a vibrant yet fragmented portrayal of 1920s New York City, capturing the social disparities of the era (see Figures 1 and 2). The composition juxtaposes a range of figures: elegantly dressed flappers in coats and hats, nuns, a mother with a surly expression holding her child’s hand, a man on crutches (likely a neglected World War I veteran) and a Salvation Army volunteer ringing a bell for donations. A man shouting into a bullhorn, a young newspaper seller, a policeman with a dog, and other characters populate the scene, together showing an urban coexistence characterized by deep disconnection.
As a racially and economically disenfranchised immigrant artist living in New York City, Ishigaki was uniquely positioned to critique the unequal distribution of wealth and opportunity during the so-called Roaring Twenties. The era’s celebrated
Ishigaki standing before his painting at Harlem Court House
the painting help us think about who benefits from economic success and who doesn’t?
• Ishigaki’s Town also shows a busy city where people are together but don’t seem connected. How do today’s cities show inequity and social divisions in similar or different ways?
These discussions can help students understand how Ishigaki’s work connects to past and present struggles, deepening their understanding of how art, politics, and society intersect. Through this process, students will engage with key concepts and skills outlined in the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework, including D2.His.4.9-12, which focuses on analyzing complex and interacting factors that influenced people’s perspectives in different historical periods, and D2.His.5.9-12, which emphasizes understanding how historical contexts have shaped and continue to shape perspectives.14
Bonus March (1932): Black Power and Leadership in Social Struggles
Another significant piece by Ishigaki is Bonus March (1932). This painting presents a powerful visual narrative of the historic protest by World War I veterans in Washington, D.C., amidst the economic devastation of the Great Depression (see Figure 3). In 1932, thousands of unemployed Black and white veterans marched on the nation’s capital, demanding early payment of their promised “bonus checks,” originally scheduled for 1945. As financial hardships increased, these veterans and their families established makeshift settlements, known as Hoovervilles, near the Capitol while awaiting government action. However, tensions escalated when President Herbert Hoover ordered the military to disperse the protesters using tanks and tear gas, resulting in violence and fatalities.15
Illustrating this event, Ishigaki’s Bonus March portrays a determined Black veteran carrying a fallen white comrade, followed by three white civilians marching defiantly against a backdrop of institutional power: a police officer, military personnel, a tank, and the Capitol. The painting underscores themes of interracial solidarity and
Black leadership in the struggle for justice, both critical yet often overlooked dimensions of the historical event.
According to art historian ShiPu Wang, Ishigaki’s depiction is unconventional for two key reasons.16 First, the work centers a Black veteran as both a protagonist and a leader, challenging the erasure of Black agency in contemporary accounts of the Bonus March. For instance, the cover of John Henry Bartlett’s The Bonus March and the New Deal (1937) features only a white veteran walking toward the Capitol, a common narrative exclusion.17 Second, Ishigaki’s portrayal contrasts with the victimized representations of Black individuals in other leftist artworks of the time, such as George Bellows’ lithograph The Law is Too Slow (1923) or Harry Sternberg’s Southern Holiday (1935).18 These works often depict Black people as passive, powerless victims in need of external rescue. In contrast, Ishigaki portrays his central Black figure with strength, determination, and leadership.
This distinct artistic statement gains deeper meaning when contextualized through Ishigaki’s positionality. As a Japanese immigrant denied U.S. naturalization under the 1924 Immigration Act, and as a member of New York City’s working-class and artistic communities, Ishigaki experienced both systemic racism and the cultural
Figure 3. The Bonus March (1932)
empowerment of the Harlem Renaissance. Confronted with racial exclusion, he likely recognized parallels between his own struggles and those of African Americans. By foregrounding a noble, strong Black veteran in Bonus March, Ishigaki may have envisioned not only solidarity, but also the potential for radical change led by marginalized communities.19
Taken together, Bonus March serves as a powerful counternarrative, challenging dominant depictions of both the event and U.S. history more broadly. It offers a lens to examine Black presence, power, and interracial solidarity—elements often omitted from conventional accounts. In high school history or ethnic studies classrooms, the painting can be used as a primary source alongside photographs and newspaper articles, where the presence and agency of Black people are frequently overlooked.20
To facilitate this lesson, teachers can utilize the National Archives’ primary source analysis worksheets or Project Zero’s Thinking Routines, such as “Looking Ten Times Two,” “See, Wonder, Connect x2,” or “Values, Identities, Actions” guide.21 These strategies help students closely examine sources, spark curiosity, interpret the creator’s perspective, consider the historical context and intended audience, and draw connections to both historical and contemporary issues. After students complete their small group analysis, teachers can lead a whole-class discussion, encouraging students to share their insights and connect their findings to broader themes in U.S. history. Some guiding questions might include:
• Why do you think Ishigaki chose to show a Black veteran as the main leader in his painting? How does this change the way we think about the Bonus March?
• How does Ishigaki’s portrayal of Black people in his painting differ from the way other artists of the time often depicted them as victims in need of rescue?
• The painting also shows both Black and white veterans marching together. Why is it important to see them working
together in this way?
• Ishigaki, a Japanese immigrant, faced discrimination because of laws like the 1924 Immigration Act. How do you think his own struggles influenced the way he depicted the Bonus March in his painting?
• Ishigaki lived in New York City during the Harlem Renaissance, a time of rich artistic and cultural flourishing of Black America. How do you think this cultural movement might have shaped Ishigaki’s perspective on Black power and leadership in U.S. history, as well as his portrayal of the Bonus March?
• How do you think the themes of Black power and racial solidarity in Ishigaki’s painting relate to struggles for racial justice today? Can you think of any current movements where these values are important?
By guiding students through these questions, teachers can help them connect Ishigaki’s personal and political experiences to his artistic response, facilitating a deeper understanding of how art intersects with social movements. This approach will strengthen key disciplinary concepts and skills from the C3 Framework, particularly D2.His.4.9-12 and D2.His.5.9-12, that focus on analyzing historical context, considering multiple perspectives, and developing critical thinking.22
Conclusion
Eitaro Ishigaki’s work demonstrates the power of art as a tool for resistance and cross-racial solidarity. As a Japanese immigrant, urban poor, and socialist artist in early twentieth-century America, Ishigaki used painting to critique systemic oppression and imagine a more just society. His unique sociohistorical position allowed him to create visual narratives distinct from many white progressive artists, offering insights that remain both powerful and transformative.
Ishigaki’s legacy, however, is not an isolated phenomenon. Many Asian immigrant and Asian
American artists of his era also used their art to challenge dominant narratives of U.S. history and society, constructing counterstories that resonate with ongoing struggles for racial and economic justice. ShiPu Wang’s book, The Other American Moderns, provides a critical entry point into understanding these artists and their collective significance. Wang’s article, “By Proxy of His Black Hero: ‘The Bonus March’ (1932) and Eitaro Ishigaki’s Critical Engagement in American Leftist Discourses,” offers a nuanced exploration of Ishigaki’s life and art, situating his work within the radical intellectual and artistic movements of his time.
Ishigaki’s paintings, many of which are now in the public domain and accessible through platforms like Wikimedia Commons, remain vital educational resources.23 They encourage students to reconsider the 1920s and 1930s from diverse perspectives and show how marginalized voices have shaped U.S. cultural narratives. Engaging with Ishigaki’s work reminds us of art’s enduring power to challenge, inspire, and reimagine a more inclusive future.
Notes
1. The biographical information on Ishigaki is drawn from ShiPu Wang’s The Other American Moderns: Matsura, Ishigaki, Noda, Hayakawa (Penn State University Press, 2018).
2. Alejandro Anreus, Diana L. Linden, and Jonathan Weinberg, eds., The Social and the Real: Political Art of the 1930s in the Western Hemisphere (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006); Andrew Hemingway, Artists on the Left: American Artists and the Communist Movement, 19261956 (Yale University Press, 2002).
3. The Art Story, “Social Realism Movement Overview and Analysis,” www.theartstory.org/movement/social-realism.
4. The Art Story, “Ashcan School Movement Overview and Analysis,” www.theartstory.org/movement/ashcan-school
5. Rebecca Seiferle, “Harlem Renaissance Art Movement Overview and Analysis,” The Art Story, edited and revised by Sarah Archino. First published Dec. 23, 2018, www. theartstory.org/movement/harlem-renaissance
6. Wang, 2018.
7. Wang, 2018.
8. Information on Ishigaki’s artworks is largely drawn from Wang, 2018; ShiPu Wang, “By Proxy of His Black Hero: ‘The Bonus March,’” American Studies 51, no. 3 (2010): 7–30.
9. David J. Goldberg, “Rethinking the 1920s: Historians and Changing Perspectives,” OAH Magazine of History 21, no. 3 (2007): 7–10; Erika Lee, America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States (Basic Books, 2019).
10. National Archives and Records Administration, “Document Analysis Worksheets,” National Archives, www.archives. gov/education/lessons/worksheets; Project Zero Thinking Routines, Harvard University, https://pz.harvard.edu/ thinking-routines.
11. Such photos can be found in Heather Thomas, “American Fads and Crazes: 1920s,” Library of Congress, Jan. 24, 2023, https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2023/01/american-fads-and-crazes-1920s; “The Roaring 20s,” American Experience, PBS, www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/ features/crash-roaring-20s
13. U.S. Congress, Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, ch. 126, 22 Stat. 58. May 6, 1882; U.S. Congress, Immigration Act of 1924, ch. 190, 43 Stat. 153. May 26, 1924. https://catalog.archives.gov/ id/5752154; House Joint Resolution 1 Regarding the 19th Amendment. 5/19/1919. (HR 66A-B6). Bills and Resolutions Originating in the House, 1789–1974. Records of the U.S. House of Representatives, Record Group 233. National Archives Building, Washington, DC. [www.docsteach.org/ documents/document/house-nineteenth-amendment].
14. National Council for the Social Studies, The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards: Guidance for Enhancing the Rigor of K–12 Civics, Economics, Geography, and History (NCSS, 2013).
17. John Henry Bartlett, The Bonus March and the New Deal (M.A. Donohue & Company, 1937). A rare exception is Paul Dickson and Thomas Allen, The Bonus Army: An American Epic (Walker Books, 2006), which addresses Black and white solidarity in the march.
18. George Bellows’ The Law is Too Slow can be accessed via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Law_is_Too_ Slow_MET_2835-180.jpg; Harry Sternberg’s Southern Holiday can be accessed via https://whitney.org/collection/ works/10776
19. Wang, 2018.
20. Underwood and Underwood, Bonus Army Stages Huge Demonstration at Empty Capitol / Photo by Underwood and Underwood, Washington. Washington D.C, 1932 July 2, www.loc.gov/item/2016649901; Theodor
Horydczak, Bonus Veterans. Bonus Veterans from Jeannette, Pennsylvania. Washington D.C., ca. 1920-ca. 1950, www.loc.gov/ item/2019673206; Photograph of Bonus Marchers, 1932. National Archives, https://catalog.archives. gov/id/593253; Veteran’s Rank and File Committee. Veterans March to Washington to Arrive at Opening of Congress, December 5th, to Demand Cash Payment of Bonus. New York. New York, 1932, www. loc.gov/item/2020782504
21. National Archives and Records Administration, “Document Analysis Worksheets,” www. archives.gov/education/lessons/ worksheets; Project Zero, “Values, Identities, Actions.” Harvard
University, https://pz.harvard. edu
22. NCSS, The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards.
23. For free access to Ishigaki’s paintings, visit Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Category:Eitaro_Ishigaki
Sohyun An is a Professor of Social Studies Education at Kennesaw State University. A former social studies teacher in South Korea, her work focuses on curriculum, pedagogy, and the movement of K–12 Asian American Studies and Ethnic Studies.
COMING SOON FROM NCSS
Teaching Conflict-Related Sexual Violence Through Human Rights Education: The Case of Japanese Military’s “Comfort Women”
By Jing A. Williams and Phyllis Kim
How can educators engage students in learning about conflict, human rights, and historical remembrance in ways that enhance global awareness, foster empathy, and encourage a commitment to justice? Williams and Kim meet this challenge. More than a specialized topic, the case of the Japanese military’s “comfort women” system, a powerful example of conflict-related sexual violence, opens discussions on the protection of human rights, the role of institutional practices, and the debates around commemoration.
Jing A. Williams and Phyllis Kim
“Songs Make History”: How Music Boosts History Students’ Skills and Engagement
Dave Marshall
“Songs make history and history makes songs.” — Irving Berlin1
“I think of the America we live in as a series of songs.” — Questlove2
As a high school history teacher, I’ve integrated music more and more into my lessons over the years, yielding powerful results. Early in my career, I did this by playing a relevant song to start class—perhaps Edwin Starr’s “War,” before studying anti-Vietnam protests. Later, I built full lessons around particularly layered songs, like Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit,” and created a process to scaffold this called CALM Analysis (Context; Artist; Lyrics; Music). Soon, I began making history assessments around themed groups of songs, which breathed new life into student essays, presentations, and discussions.
A few years ago, I wondered: What if instead of enhancing my curriculum with songs, the music drove my curriculum? For the past three years, I’ve taught a 12th-grade elective at my independent school called “Music and U.S. History”—which has proven to be the most rewarding course of my 18-year career. While such a class may not be feasible for everyone, I believe that all humanities teachers can benefit from infusing songs into their curriculum, as this boosts students’ engagement, historical skills, and interdisciplinary thinking.
CALM: A 4-Step Process for Analyzing Songs
Whenever I have students analyze a song, we use the acronym CALM:
Context: What is the relevant historical and musical background?
Artist: What aspects of their life and past work inform this song?
Lyrics: Which lines seem important and why? Are there any allusions?
Music: What are the most notable musical elements, and what do they achieve?3
I begin by giving students a model of my expectations (see sidebar on p. 354). With regular practice and feedback from me, the students can soon do the CALM analysis independently. In surveys, students in the elective consistently rank it our most valuable learning tool. One student wrote, “CALM notes help make my thoughts more organized when analyzing songs.” Another added, “It’s so useful to have a simple template that separates a song into different elements.” This process also helped students practice key skills from both the C3 Framework (“evaluating the context within which events unfolded” through their historical research) and the Common Core ELA Anchor Standards for Reading (“Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it”).4
Once students have built the skill of breaking down one song, we started juxtaposing groups of songs. For one assessment, students had a graded discussion on five songs about climate change, including Marvin Gaye’s “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology),” and Childish Gambino’s “Feels Like Summer.” To prepare, students wrote CALM
analyses on each song, crafted thesis statements arguing which song addressed environmental issues most effectively, and brainstormed questions to ask their peers. This assessment helped students meet C3 Framework indicator D2.His.12.9-12: “Use questions generated about multiple historical sources to pursue further inquiry and investigate additional sources.”5 For teachers concerned about content coverage, this activity sacrifices little class time, and transformed my previous lesson on climate change (a rather dry timeline activity) into a lively debate on how musicians, politicians, and others grapple with global challenges. For example, after we heard Joni Mitchell in “Big Yellow Taxi” sing “Hey farmer, farmer / put away the DDT now,” the students were eager to learn about Rachel Carson, the first Earth Day, and the founding of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Creating the Music + History Elective
In January 2023, I began teaching my twelfthgrade elective. All eleventh graders take a yearlong U.S. History survey that spends relatively little time on modern America; so my goal for the elective was using music to dig deeper into
recent controversies. Our main source was an 84-song playlist I created with input from students (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2CHjhV YdkkD5lQBZejPEBC); I chose songs that tackled key social justice themes in America since 1950. Our four thematic units focused on Race + Racism; Protest + Patriotism; Climate Change; and Gender + Sexuality. See the full syllabus here: bit.ly/MusicFSS24.
Framing the course around social justice themes gave the curriculum greater coherence and increased student interest. Three veteran music educators, Campbell, Scott-Kassner, and Kassner, note, “Songs motivate, reinforce, and deepen learning of social-historical facts, promote equity, social justice, and empathy.” 6 In Social Education , Stacie Moats and Stephanie Poxon wrote, “Music can provide a powerful entry point for students to begin investigating difficult topics from the past that may still be controversial in the present.” 7 Indeed, I found using music as an entry point made students more willing to discuss challenging issues and connect them to current events. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who drew regular inspiration from music, stated, “In a sense, songs are the soul of a movement.” I saw this firsthand when my students and I connected Civil Rights Era songs like Mahalia Jackson’s rendition of “We Shall Overcome” to “Freedom” by Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar. 8
The elective opened up exciting new opportunities for student choice and voice—especially for student presentations. In 2023, two seniors jumped at the chance to teach a joint lesson about Taylor Swift’s impact on feminism and the music industry. They were deeply engaged—a month before graduation, no less—and honed skills in research, collaboration, and public speaking. Additionally, all three years that I’ve taught this elective, my students created and presented music-based history lessons to elementary students. Each spring, I give my students several options of protest songs, from John Lennon’s “Imagine” to “Change” by H.E.R. To scaffold their work, I have students submit two drafts of their lesson and then do a full dress rehearsal for their peers before teaching their final lessons to an eager group
American R&B singer Gabi Wilson, known as H.E.R., performing at Coachella in 2018
of third graders. This partnership has been so successful that we plan to continue it again in the spring.
The elective let me pilot another unique student-driven assessment: annotated playlists. I was inspired by Kelly R. Allen’s “Activating HipHop Pedagogy in the Social Studies Classroom” (Social Education, May/June 2023). In it, Allen wrote, “using Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly as a guide, students crafted their own playlist around a specific topic concerning race relations
in the United States…. Along with links to their songs, students provided an explanation for why or how each song spoke to their selected topic.”9
In May 2024, I created my own version of an annotated playlist; I had students pick 4–6 songs on a related theme, write a cited paragraph on each, and then connect them with a unified argument. My students dove in, analyzing songs on topics from 9/11 to reproductive rights; in the end, they named it their favorite assessment, and also produced their most sophisticated work of the year.
Example CALM analysis for Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.”
(www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPhWR4d3FJQ):
• Context– This was the title track of Springsteen’s seventh album, which has sold 15+ million albums in America alone.10 He released it in June 1984, as Ronald Reagan ran for reelection. Reagan referenced it that September at a rally in Springsteen’s home state of New Jersey. Reagan’s campaign director later said Springsteen “fit the blue-collar Democrat model that we were going after”; though Springsteen never endorsed him, Reagan won easily in November.11 Many other politicians have used the song without permission—most were Republicans, from Bob Dole in 1996 to Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020.12
• Artist– Springsteen acknowledges he was a “stone-cold draft dodger” during Vietnam. Years later, he wrote the song—originally titled “Vietnam Blues”—due to this guilt, and inspired by traumatized veterans like Ron Kovic in his memoir Born on the Fourth of July.13 Springsteen chafed that Reagan co-opted his song and misinterpreted it as purely patriotic. In a December 1984 Rolling Stone interview, Springsteen reflected on America’s last 15 years: “There was Vietnam, there was Watergate, there was Iran—we were beaten, we were hustled, and then we were humiliated…. And that’s why when Reagan mentioned my name in New Jersey, I felt it was another manipulation.”14
• Lyrics– A close reading makes Springsteen’s bitter message clear: “Come back home to the refinery / Hiring man says, ‘Son, if it was up to me’ / Went down to see my V.A. man / He said, ‘Son, don’t you understand.’” Even a decade after the war’s end, many veterans struggled with trauma, unemployment, and government neglect. The APA first added PTSD to its official list of mental disorders in 1980, largely due to advocacy from Vietnam veterans.15 Springsteen’s line “Nowhere to run / ain’t got nowhere to go” likely references two songs: his 1975 hit “Born to Run,” and Martha and the Vandellas’ 1965 “Nowhere to Run”—another song blending upbeat music with heavier lyrics.
• Music– There’s a stark contrast between the bleak verses and infectious, singable chorus. An NPR critic notes, “Rarely has a man with nowhere to go sounded so triumphant.”16 Springsteen told Terry Gross that “the hope … was in the chorus,” while “the blues … are in the verses.”17 In some versions (www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3PkmGgY4iw), Springsteen plays the song solo on a haunting acoustic guitar, its message painfully clear. Though it has every element of a rock anthem, John Mellencamp observes that it’s also “a beautifully-written folk song.”18 Overall, the album is “a perfect distillation of the anger and bitterness seething beneath the surface of Reagan-era America.”19
Bruce Springsteen, New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival 2012
Takahiro
Kyono / Wikimedia Commons
Three Benefits for all Humanities Teachers
For those who integrate music into their history courses, I count three main benefits: enhancing students’ engagement, historical skills, and interdisciplinary thinking.
(1) Boosting student engagement: Several students who were apathetic throughout my eleventh-grade U.S. History course dove into our music-based lessons in twelfth grade. One senior wrote that this music-driven approach helped them “see more about the culture surrounding historical events”; another said that it made learning history fun. As Campbell writes, music “can add magic and motivation to transform a plain, dull, and uninspiring classroom to one in which children love learning with and from each other.”20 This was especially true when students chose songs and issues that resonated with them and then taught their peers. One student even said that she listens to music differently now: “I’ve learned to be curious about a song and its background, and how that interacts with the time in which it was created, the artist who created it, and the listener.”
(2) Building key historical skills: When students place a song in historical context or parse its lyrics, they’re doing primary source analysis—and
may not even realize it. Indeed, the C3 Framework and ELA/Literacy Common Core Standards both emphasize “analysis, argument, evidence, and questioning.”21 For her final paper, one ambitious senior chose to explore the question: “To address gun violence in America, are protest songs more impactful than political speeches?” She integrated scholarly research with deft analysis of five songs to write a brilliant thesis on how music can effect change. Furthermore, studies show that infusing music into core academic classes improves long-term retention of course content,22 develops social-emotional learning,23 and “enhances capabilities such as reading and solving mathematical problems.”24
(3) Fostering interdisciplinary connections: The C3 Framework states, “Social studies involves interdisciplinary applications and welcomes integration of the arts and humanities.”25 While infusing music into history curriculum is interdisciplinary by nature, these links proved even richer than expected. For example, a class-wide CALM analysis of Nina Simone’s 1967 song “Backlash Blues” involved studying:
• The history and structure of the twelvebar blues
• The Harlem Renaissance and Langston
Key Resources
TeachRock.org, a non-profit founded by musician Steven Van Zandt that offers hundreds of free unit and lesson plans on music, history, and more.
Documentaries
The CNN documentary Soundtracks: Songs that Defined History has brilliant thematic episodes on feminism, LGBTQ+ rights, 9/11, and more.
Additional class-ready films include:
• Questlove’s Summer of Soul (2021)
• Beyoncé’s Homecoming (2019)
• The 1619 Project, Episode 3: “Music” (2023)
• Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World (2017)
• Chuck D’s Fight the Power: How Hip Hop Changed the World (2023)
Books
• Major Labels (2021), Kelefa Sanneh
• Songs of America (2019), Jon Meacham and Tim McGraw
• Just Around Midnight (2016), Jack Hamilton
• Glitter Up the Dark (2020), Sasha Geffen
• A Change Is Gonna Come (2006), Craig Werner
Websites
• AllMusic.com: Invaluable context on artists, albums, and songs.
• Genius.com: The best lyrics database, with crowdsourced analysis.
• WhoSampled.com: Traces samples, covers, and remixes of over 1 million songs.
Hughes, who wrote the lyrics
• How the Vietnam draft disproportionately impacted low-income Americans and people of color
• Nina Simone’s biography, through clips from the documentary What Happened, Miss Simone?
• The history of segregation and redlining, to unpack the line “You give me secondclass houses / And second-class schools”
Though Simone’s song is under three minutes, we ended up dissecting it for a full hour!
Three Caveats
While integrating music and history has myriad benefits, I also discovered three challenges. First, some songs can spark controversy, so think carefully about what music, lyrics, and issues you deem appropriate for your group. Then, communicate your rationale clearly to students, families, and administrators. Additionally, establish clear class norms and expectations. I always prefer brainstorming them with my students early in the year. With these frameworks in place, I found that students showed impressive maturity.
Second, students often have strong opinions about music, which can undermine serious
discussion and analysis. Right after hearing a song, my students often wanted to share how much they liked it, and this sometimes led to debates that got bitter, superficial, or both. To counter this, I shared the Latin saying De gustibus non est disputandum—there’s no accounting for taste—and we brainstormed new norms on how to share our preferences productively. Over time, I found that we had deeper discussions when I replaced asking “Did you like the song?” with “What were the artist’s goals, and how effectively did the song achieve them?” or just focusing on CALM analysis.
Third, devote plenty of time to building the skill of close listening. Like close reading, this takes effort, practice, and modeling. I invited two music educators to share their expertise with the class, and I also provided a glossary of music terms and resources. As my guidelines for take-home listening assignments say, “This isn’t background music! If you listen passively or multitask, you’re doing it wrong. Give the song your undivided attention, follow the lyrics on Genius, and take notes as you listen. The songs we analyze are rich with layers, allusions, and meanings, so you should listen 2-3 times.”
In his 1977 classic “Sir Duke,” Stevie Wonder sings, “Music is a world within itself / With a language we all understand”—yet deciphering it does
not come naturally. With intentional structure and practice, my students honed their historical skills, learned key content, and had fun in the process.
Notes
1. S. J. Woolf, “Sergeant Berlin Re-Enlists,” The New York Times (May 17, 1942), 27, www.proquest.com/ historical-newspapers/sergeant-berlin-re-enlists/ docview/106455099/se-2
2. Questlove with Ben Greenman, Music Is History (Abrams Image, 2021), 9.
3. Since my students had a range of musical backgrounds and understanding, I gave them short introductions to concepts like meter, rhythm, and melody as needed.
4. College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards: Guidance for Enhancing the Rigor of K-12 Civics, Economics, Geography, and History (NCSS, 2013), 46; “English Language Arts Standards, Anchor Standards, College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading,” last updated 2021, www.thecorestandards.org/ ELA-Literacy/CCRA/R
5. C3 Framework, 48.
6. Patricia Shehan Campbell, Carol Scott-Kassner, and Kirk Kassner in Larry Ferlazzo, “Five Ways to Use Music in Lessons,” Education Week (July 13, 2020).
7. Stacie Moats and Stephanie Poxon, “‘I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier’: Ideas and Strategies for Using Music from the National Jukebox to Teach Difficult Topics in History,” Social Education 75, no. 6 (Nov/Dec 2011), 291.
8. Jon Meacham and Tim McGraw, Songs of America: Patriotism, Protest, and the Music That Made a Nation (Random House, 2019), 149.
9. Kelly R. Allen, “Activating Hip-Hop Pedagogy in the Social Studies Classroom,” Social Education 87, no. 3 (May/June 2023), 172-77.
10. Josh Jackson, “The 25 Best-Selling Albums of All Time,” Paste Magazine (Aug. 22, 2018).
11. “How ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ Made Bruce Springsteen a Political Figure,” video, YouTube, posted by Politico, June 4, 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQLQm2UvHcw
12. Here, I tell the students that some songs may have multiple meanings, but others (like this one) clearly have “right” and “wrong” interpretations.
13. Kenneth Partridge, “Born In the U.S.A.: How Bruce Springsteen’s Anti-Vietnam Anthem Got Lost In Translation,” Mental Floss (July 7, 2020).
14. Kurt Loder, “The Rolling Stone Interview: Bruce Springsteen on ‘Born in the U.S.A.,’” Rolling Stone (Dec. 7, 1984).
15. Matthew J. Friedman, MD, PhD, “National Center for PTSD,” U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (Oct. 6, 2022), www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/treat/essentials/ history_ptsd.asp
16. Steve Inskeep, “What Does ‘Born In The U.S.A.’ Really Mean?” NPR Morning Edition (March 26, 2019).
17. Bruce Springsteen, “Backstage With Bruce: Springsteen On His Early Work,” interview by Terry Gross, NPR Fresh Air (Jan. 30, 2009).
18. CNN, “Kent State and the Vietnam War,” video, Soundtracks: Songs that Defined History (Nov. 20, 2017).
19. Anastasia Rose Hyden, “How the 1980s Output of Bruce Springsteen and Morrissey Captured the Working-Class Experience in America and the UK,” in Rock Music Icons: Musical and Cultural Impacts, eds. Robert McParland and Thomas M. Kitts (Lexington Books, 2022), 105.
20. Patricia Shehan Campbell, “Bonding Through Music,” American Educator (Fall 2022), www.aft.org/ae/fall2022/ campbell
21. C3 Framework, 51.
22. Mariale Hardiman, Luke Rinne, Julia Yarmolinskaya, “The Effects of Arts Integration on Long-Term Retention of Academic Content,” Mind, Brain and Education 8, no. 3, (Aug. 18, 2014), 144-148, https://doi.org/10.1111/mbe.12053
23. Judit Váradi, “A Review of the Literature on the Relationship of Music Education to the Development of Socio-Emotional Learning,” SAGE Open 12, no. 1 (Jan. 11, 2022), https://doi. org/10.1177/215824402110685
24. Ashraf Alam and Atasi Mohanty, “Music and Its Effect on Mathematical and Reading Abilities of Students: Pedagogy for Twenty-First Century Schools,” in Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Sustainable Development, 1st ed. (London, CRC Press, 2023).
Dave Marshall is in his eighteenth year teaching high school history, and currently works at Friends Select School in Philadelphia. Previously, he taught at the Punahou School (HI), Marin Academy (CA), and University Prep (WA). Outside of the classroom, he loves going on adventures with his wife and daughter, following the NBA, and seeing live music.
Holocaust Memorials in Action: Students Take the Lead Analyzing One Family’s Unpublished Letters and Photos
Brian Levinson
I had only ever seen one image of Rosa Milewski. She was perhaps five years old in the photograph and wearing a dress coat, a Jewish girl in Germany before the Nazis came to power. However, I had read the letters that Rosa sent a decade later to her half-sister in the United States, describing the family’s increasingly desperate efforts to escape. These were written in 1939, but little had been known about what happened between the time of the letters and the time of Rosa’s murder in a Nazi concentration camp. The photo and the letters were like pieces of a puzzle. Then, in the spring of 2024, my history classroom became part of a larger effort to put those pieces together. It was a unique experience for me as a teacher. I would learn that, if some puzzles are meant for solving, then others can become memorial acts. In fact, using analytical tools and historical-thinking skills, they can help U.S. high school students focus attention on the real people at the heart of this immense tragedy.
I teach ninth-grade World History at West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South, located in central New Jersey. For several years, my colleague Elsa Lapidus (Rosa Milewski’s niece) would visit my classroom during our study of the Holocaust and talk with students about her family. Elsa is an instructional aide at our high school. She grew up in Savannah, Georgia, and later moved North. Elsa’s parents escaped Germany in the 1930s. In fact, her mother Helen departed the city of Brandenburg just after Kristallnacht,
the antisemitic riot of November 1938, when she was only 17 years old.
On Elsa’s visits to our classroom, she would pass her family’s primary-source documents around the room so that students could examine the swastikastamped passports from Nazi Germany and also the U.S. certificates of naturalization that her parents ultimately obtained. Elsa’s mother Helen had been one of the lucky ones. Helen’s halfsister Rosa, from a second marriage, remained in Germany with their mother and other relatives.
“I never had a big family growing up,” Elsa would tell my students. “Most of my aunts and uncles, and my grandmother, were murdered.”
I began with class lessons that built a foundation of basic knowledge (see Table 1 on p. 362). I also made clear that our upcoming Holocaust project was not a survey of the war or even a comprehensive study of genocide. Rather, student teams were tasked with choosing one primary source from the family catalog, and then using that source to tell a larger but still limited history of the Holocaust. Teams were required to: (1) conduct outside research in order to contextualize and corroborate; (2) build a visually engaging museum exhibit; and (3) produce oral history through recorded interviews with Elsa Lapidus and other community members. I also worked with students to identify points of further exploration. For example, in one of her letters to her sister Helen, Rosa mentioned the family’s efforts to flee to Shanghai, China (see letter on p. 360). The group that selected this letter conducted research on the improbable but very real escape hatch to Shanghai, even in the midst of Japanese occupation.
Finding legitimate resources was an integral part of the student-centered work. Earlier in the year, I had introduced students to databases like ProQuest, for which we have subscriptions through the school district. Students also became familiar with strategies to determine the credibility of articles they come across on the wider internet. I now spent time re-teaching these strategies, in particular “lateral reading.”5 Rather than “score” websites based on sometimes antiquated criteria (for example, whether the domain is .org or .com), I encouraged students to open new browser tabs and learn more about writers and their platforms. If research is a challenge, then so too is analysis—especially when it comes to Holocaust primary sources. After all, survivor testimonies are the stories of those who survived. Even letters of those who did not ultimately survive, like Rosa, present challenges for historians. As Jeffrey Butinger has noted of the authors of memoirs from the World War II ghettos, “Their death appears ‘offscreen,’ beyond the main text. As a result, the ‘worst’ remains forever unknowable, beyond our comprehension.”6 It is also true that primary sources compartmentalize our understanding of the Holocaust. We spotlight particular stories in ways that might deflect attention from other experiences and narratives. For this reason, I tasked some students
with exploring history beyond just the primarysource catalog of Elsa Lapidus’s family. One group focused on the genocide of the Romani people. Another looked at the experience of Jews in the western republics of the Soviet Union. Many were killed not in death camps but at the hands of mobile killing squads.
Building a Community of Researchers
Student groups set to work inside and outside the classroom. They scheduled time to sit down with Elsa for background interviews, and they recorded interviews that satisfied the oral history component of the project. The list of resources, and community partners, continued to grow.
It was at this time that Elsa connected with Rachel Fisher, a New Jersey-based documentary filmmaker. Fisher is distantly related to Rosa’s father (Anton Milewski). She had done extensive research on the family back in the 1990s, and she supplied a number of missing pieces to our historical puzzle. For example, Rosa’s letters to Helen had referenced a man in New York who was gathering affidavits and financial support for Rosa Milewski and her parents, all of them stuck in Germany in the late 1930s. The man, Herbert Aptekar, was Fisher’s grandfather, and he left behind a trove of documents related to his tireless (and, in the end, fruitless) efforts to save the family. Fisher traveled to our school to meet with my students. She shared primary sources that tracked the sizable amounts of money and the desperate appeals that Aptekar sent to organizations like the London-based German Jewish Aid Committee. I had asked students to prepare questions ahead of her visit, and this helped to ensure more productive conversations.
Fisher was not only another living link to our Holocaust project, but someone who brought academic insight and authority to the high school space. Her work on the Aptekar family documents inspired her 1999 PhD dissertation, A Place in History: Genealogy, Jewish Identity, Modernity. 7
In fact, it was genealogical research that often sparked the most student interest. We learned that Elsa’s grandmother, Klara Milewski, was born in a city called Kalush. At the time of Klara’s birth, Kalush had been controlled by Austria-Hungary, an empire that collapsed at the end of World War
I. Kalush became part of newly inde pendent Poland (and today forms part of Ukraine). Jewish people were often painted, and persecuted, as a stateless diaspora, loyal to no single nation. For Klara, this was compounded by a political map that shifted beneath her feet. Making sense of the "identity" of Helen (Klara's daughter and Elsa's mother) proved no less complex. Helen was born in Germany yet carried a Polish passport. My students in New Jersey, many of them from immigrant fami lies, were familiar with the concept of birthright citizenship here in the United States. But we talked about how different nations have different rules. German-born children, even today, are not always considered German citizens.
Table 1. Components of Teacher-Led and Student-Centered Work
1. Providing Context (3-4 class periods)
2. Promoting Student Choice (1-2 class periods)
3. Honing Online Research Skills (1-2 class periods)
4. Engaging with Experts / Outside Participants (recurring)
Class lessons covered topics that included the:
• history of antisemitism;
• end of WWI and the interwar period;
• rise of dictators and demagogues.
Prior to topic selection, groups had the opportunity to:
• review primary sources listed in our catalog;
• speak directly with Elsa Lapidus about her family’s history;
• conduct preliminary secondary-source research.
As part of this review, students were able to:
• reacquaint themselves with library databases;
• learn about credible online databases for Holocaust research;
• review “lateral reading” strategies to determine the credibility of sources.
Students interacted (in-person and virtually) with:
• Rachel Fisher, documentary filmmaker;
• staff from Historical Society of Princeton (one of NJ’s official Holocaust/Genocide Resource Centers);
• district educators with family histories in impacted areas of the former USSR;
• high school students in Brandenburg, Germany.
5. Creating the Exhibits (6-7 class periods)
6. Hosting the Museum Event (1 class period)
Significant class time was afforded for student groups to:
• record interviews with Ms. Lapidus and others;
• analyze and expand on their chosen primary source;
• design presentation platforms and materials for the class museum.
The museum was housed in the Media Center, where students presented to the following authentic audiences:
• district administrators and teachers;
• interested parents;
• students from other history classes.
Yuzheng (left) and Liz (right) stand beside family tree carved using bandsaw
Memorializing the Family
In early June of 2024, we turned the school’s Media Center into a museum, featuring the many exhibits created by student groups. These exhibits included traditional cardboard trifolds that mixed visual resources, like photos and maps, with explanations and analysis. But there were unconventional formats as well. One group, led by an accomplished woodworker, crafted a unique kind of family tree (see photo on p. 362). That student used a bandsaw to carve out the many branches of Elsa’s family. Another group focused on Helen’s passport. These students recruited a Polish American friend from another class to help translate the document and decipher some of the handwriting. It opened up new avenues of research about Helen and her mother on the database of Yad Vashem, Israel’s World Holocaust Remembrance Center. Students found a photograph of a group of Brandenburg Jews, among them Klara and Anton Milewski, on the day of their deportation from the city. Visitors to our museum, including parents, administrators, and peers from other classes, were able to view these photos and speak with my students about their discovery process.
Our school year ended soon after the museum project, but the memorialization was not quite over. On July 16, 2024, the engraved memorial stones were laid in the sidewalk at Sankt-Annen-Straße 14, the last address where the Milewskis had freely resided. (During the Nazi era, the block was called Adolf-Hitler-Straße.) Public officials were on hand to give speeches, along with the two German high school students who led the effort to install the newest stones. A written statement sent by Elsa, in which she references seeing Rosa in the Warsaw Ghetto film, was also read aloud.
“I will never stop remembering their faces,” she wrote in her statement. It is a commitment
that should extend to the classroom, where there are few things more important than the act of remembering.
Notes
1. Tilman Blasshofer, “German Artist Nearing 100,000 Cobblestones to Mark Victims of Nazis,” Reuters, (May 5, 2023); See also Eliza Apperly, “The Holocaust Memorial of 70,000 Stones,” BBC (March 29, 2019).
2. “Warschau,” RG Number: RG-60.2114, accessed at US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Library of Congress: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/ irn1000953
3. “Warschau,” RG Number: RG-60.2114.
4. David Cesarani, Final Solution: the Fate of the Jews 1933-49 (London: Macmillan, 2016), xvii-xviii.
5. Sam Wineburg and Sarah McGrew, “Lateral Reading and the Nature of Expertise: Reading Less and Learning More When Evaluating Digital Information,” Teachers College Record 121, no. 11 (2019).
6. Jeffrey C. Blutinger, “Bearing Witness: Teaching the Holocaust from a Victim-Centered Perspective,” The History Teacher 42, no. 3 (2009): 274, JSTOR.
7. Rachel Fisher, A Place in History: Genealogy, Jewish Identity, Modernity (doctoral dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1999), 312-313.
8. National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards: Guidance for Enhancing the Rigor of K-12 Civics, Economics, Geography, and History (Silver Spring, MD: NCSS, 2013).
Brian Levinson is a Social Studies Teacher at West WindsorPlainsboro High School South in Princeton Junction, New Jersey.
Note: Elsa Lapidus and the other participating educators were consulted for this article and have consented to its publication. For classroom access to the family’s catalog of letters and photos, please email brian.levinson@wwprsd.org
Table 2: Relevant Standards from The College, Career & Civic Life (C3) Framework8
D2.His.1.9-12
D2.His.12.9-12
D2.Geo.4.9-12
D2.Geo.12.9-12
Evaluate how historical events and developments were shaped by unique circumstances of time and place as well as broader historical contexts.
Use questions generated about multiple historical sources to pursue further inquiry and investigate additional sources.
Analyze relationships and interactions within and between human and physical systems to explain reciprocal influences that occur among them.
Evaluate the consequences of human-made and natural catastrophes on global trade, politics, and human migration.
Can ChatGPT Make Quality Social Studies Lesson Plans? The Answer Surprised Us
Taylor M. Kessner and Sarah J. Kaka
Lesson planning is an essential part of teaching— but it also remains one of the most demanding. Crafting a strong social studies lesson requires attention to instructional goals, alignment with standards, thoughtful activities, appropriate assessment methods, and built-in supports for a range of learners. For many teachers, especially new ones, this process can sometimes be daunting and is always time-consuming.
Even experienced educators often spend evenings and weekends designing lessons that meet student needs, district expectations, and state requirements. With rising class sizes, ongoing curriculum shifts, and political debates about what can or cannot be taught in social studies classrooms,1 it is no wonder teachers are looking for new tools that can lighten the load.
One such tool is generative artificial intelligence (AI), especially language-based models that have exploded in the past two years like ChatGPT. These tools can generate full lesson plans in seconds—but are they actually useful for real classrooms? Do they meet the quality standards teachers and students deserve?
We recently conducted a study to answer these very questions. Like others who think about technology—and specifically AI—in social studies education, we ourselves were deeply skeptical AI could produce quality lesson plans,2 so we recruited seasoned social studies teacher educators to evaluate lesson plans written by preservice teachers and compare them to lesson
plans generated by ChatGPT. We share with you how our teacher educator participants rated each type of lesson, what they preferred, and what the results reveal about the strengths and limitations of AI in the lesson planning process. Most importantly, we offer concrete insights that classroom teachers and teacher educators can use to harness AI without losing the professional and pedagogical values at the heart of teaching.
The Study: Comparing Human and AI Lesson Plans
In this study, we recruited ten experienced social studies teacher educators from across the United States to evaluate six high school social studies lesson plans. Participants possessed an average of seven years of K-12 classroom experience (range = 1.5 to 15) and 11.7 years of experience as teacher educators (range = 4 to 24). We started with three lesson plans created by preservice teachers during their student teaching semester. We then used ChatGPT to generate the other three lesson plans. Each preservice teacher-created lesson plan had an AI-created lesson that assessed the same standards and content. For example, Lesson Plan 1 is a preservice teacher-generated lesson, and Lesson Plan 2 is the AI-generated lesson treating the same standard. Thus, Lesson Plans 1 and 2 (Gay Rights, 10th grade), 3 and 4 (Civics, 11th grade), and 5 and 6 (Civil Rights Movement, 10th grade) each formed like pairs.
Social Education 89 (6)
National Council for the Social Studies
We used the following prompt:
Write a 45-minute lesson plan for a high school U.S. history class on the [standard]. Include links to websites with instructional materials and resources. The lesson plan should include: Subject: [Insert subject here]; Duration: [Insert duration of lesson here]; Materials Needed: [Insert all materials needed for the lesson here]; Objectives: [Insert learning objectives for the lesson here]; Standards: [Insert relevant academic standards for the lesson here]; Anticipatory Set: [Insert an activity or discussion prompt to introduce the lesson and engage students here]; Instructional strategies; Closure: [Insert an activity or discussion prompt to summarize the lesson and check for understanding here]; Assessment: [Insert assessment method(s) that will be used to measure student learning and understanding here].
Participants did not know that any of the plans were AI-generated, only that we were conducting a study on lesson plan quality. To systematically evaluate the lesson plans, we created a researchbased rubric addressing five dimensions: coherence and clarity, quality of learning objectives, learning activities, alignment of assessments with objectives, and the integration of inquiry and critical thinking. We chose these criteria because they align with the scholarship of teaching and learning.3 For each criterion, participants rated lesson plans using a scale from 1 (poor) to 4 (excellent).
The goals of the study were not only to compare AI- and human-created content, but also to understand what teachers value in lesson planning and what tools (human or machine) help them achieve those values. As such, participants also answered open-ended questions about each lesson’s strengths and weaknesses and indicated which lesson in each pair they would prefer to teach or experience as a student.
AI’s Strengths: Structure, Clarity, and Alignment
Across nearly all rubric categories, the AI-generated lesson plans outperformed those authored by preservice teachers. While this does not mean AI produces better lessons, it does suggest AI can create technically strong plans. Participants identified three consistent strengths across the AI-generated lessons.
Coherence and Clarity
Participants repeatedly described the AI lesson plans as “well-organized,” “easy to follow,” and “clear.” The structure of each lesson—typically including an anticipatory set, main instruction, and closure—was predictable and professional. Transitions between sections were smooth, and objectives, activities, and assessments were clearly labeled.
Structure matters, especially in fast-paced school environments where teachers may not have time to decode unclear or fragmented materials. For example, participants praised Lesson Plan 4 for having “a clear progression of content from start to finish,” making it easy for a teacher to pick up and use.
Strong Learning Objectives
AI lesson plans were also more likely to include specific, measurable objectives clearly aligned with standards. In Lesson Plan 2, participants noted objectives were “written in a measurable way that is directly aligned with the activities and assessment methods.” This clarity supports effective instruction and evaluation. By contrast, preservice teacher-authored objectives were sometimes vague or broad—for instance, aiming for students to “understand a topic” without clarifying what understanding looks like.
Aligned Assessments
Good teaching requires more than setting goals—it requires assessing whether those goals are met. AI-generated lessons included formative assessments (e.g., exit tickets, short reflections) and aligned them with objectives. This alignment made lesson plans feel complete and cohesive. Reviewers described Lesson Plan 4 as offering “clear opportunities to evaluate student learning,”
a key factor in determining a lesson’s overall effectiveness and students’ readiness for new learning.
Beyond the Basics: Inquiry, Depth, and Engagement
While AI-generated lesson plans scored well on structure and alignment, they were not without limitations. Participants highlighted a critical shortfall: inquiry and critical thinking, two pillars of high-quality social studies instruction,4 were inconsistently or superficially addressed in AI-authored plans.
Structured but Shallow Inquiry
Several AI-generated lessons included activities labeled as “inquiry-based”—for instance, asking students to analyze a document or answer openended questions. However, these tasks often lacked the scaffolding or depth required to push students into more meaningful engagement. For example, while participants praised Lesson Plan 6 for being “organized” and “studentfriendly,” one noted it lacked sufficient nuance to support a classroom discussion beyond surfacelevel observations. Another lesson included matching activities that, while easy to assess, failed to stretch students’ critical thinking. AI could replicate the appearance of inquiry—but not always the depth.
Missed Opportunities for Complexity
History and social studies education often revolves around complex, sensitive, and contested issues— topics like civil rights, immigration, or war. The AI lesson plans tended to play it safe, often focusing on straightforward facts or narratives.
This shortcoming does not necessarily constitute a flaw in the technology, but it does reflect a critical limitation: AI draws from patterns in existing public data, which often prioritize simplicity over complexity and neutrality over controversy. As a result, AI-generated lessons may unintentionally reinforce dominant narratives or omit marginalized voices.
The Human Advantage: Creativity, Context, and Connection
In contrast, preservice teacher-authored lessons, though less polished, often demonstrated
creativity, responsiveness to context, and potential for rich student engagement. Put another way, preservice teachers performed much better on the criteria many history teachers and teacher educators would argue are most important.
More Inventive and Thoughtful Prompts
Some preservice teachers’ lessons included innovative, ambitious essential questions reaching beyond basic content. Participants praised Lesson Plan 5 for posing “thought-provoking essential questions that can lead to deep discussion.” A different preservice teacher’s plan was cited as using diverse historical sources to foster engagement and interpretation, rather than passive recall. This reaffirms that even novice teachers are capable of designing instruction that challenges students to think deeply—especially when they feel confident about the content and are encouraged to take pedagogical risks.
Greater Historical Nuance
Teacher educators also appreciated the historical complexity in some preservice teacher lessons. Lesson Plan 1 was described as helping students “engage meaningfully with historical content,” including primary source analysis and contextual background often absent from AI lessons. While these lessons may not have scored as highly in clarity or structure, they offered more opportunities for depth and interpretation—hallmarks of quality social studies teaching and learning.
Evidence of Student-Centered Design
Unlike the AI plans, which were written in a generic style for a generalized audience, preservice teacher-authored lessons often reflected an awareness of students’ needs, local issues, and classroom dynamics. Even when pacing or organization was off, preservice teachers’ efforts to connect content with and design for students’ realities was visible. One participant remarked that one preservice teacher lesson “did not seem realistic for 45 minutes” but appreciated its ambitious scope and attention to equity-oriented themes.
Lessons for Classroom Teachers: How to Use AI Thoughtfully
Based on both our study and personal
experiences, we know AI is not magic, and it cannot replace good teaching—but it can be a solid tool to add to teachers’ toolboxes. For busy educators, AI could serve as a planning assistant, offering a foundation on which to build meaningful instruction. Here are several practical strategies:
Use AI to Draft, Not Deliver
Think of AI as a co-planner, not a substitute for the design work of teaching. Use AI to create a rough outline or generate potential activities. Then, teachers should revise the plan to suit their students, context, and goals. Using AI in this way may prove especially helpful when teachers find themselves low on time or bandwidth but committed to maintaining quality instruction.
Ask AI to Brainstorm Multiple Options
Need three different lesson hooks? Or two possible discussion questions for your lesson on the Compromise of 1877? Ask ChatGPT to generate variations. This gives you more choices to work with, allowing you to select or combine ideas based on your students’ interests and needs.
Check for Gaps and Bias
Always review AI-generated content with a critical eye. Ask:
1. Does this lesson center diverse voices?
2. Is the content accurate?
3. Is the inquiry authentic or just surface-level?
4. Are the materials developmentally appropriate?
5. Does it align with my values and the needs of my students?
If the answer to any of these questions is no, revise accordingly.
Save AI for Routine Tasks
Rather than writing every lesson from scratch, consider using AI to handle routine or repetitive components—like formatting lesson structures, aligning objectives with standards, or generating exit tickets. This frees up more time and mental
energy for creative and responsive teaching.
Cautions and Ethical Considerations
AI holds great promise—but it comes with limitations. Teachers and schools must be aware of these risks before integrating AI into their planning routines.
Bias in Training Data
AI models like ChatGPT train on publicly available internet content, which often reflects historical bias, incomplete narratives, or dominant cultural norms. Left unchecked, these biases can sneak into lesson content and materials. A lesson on civil rights, for example, might default to a sanitized timeline of events unless specifically prompted to include grassroots activism or lesser-known figures. Educators must review AI content critically, particularly in disciplines like social studies that ought to center contested histories and diverse perspectives.
Oversimplification of Complex Topics
While AI can summarize information efficiently, it often glosses over complexity. Nuanced issues like redlining, colonization, or gender equity require careful framing—something AI struggles to do without specific, thoughtful prompts. Teachers should treat AI outputs as drafts, not final products. Complexity and nuance emerge through the revision process.
Risk of Overreliance
Could easy access to AI reduce the depth of pedagogical reasoning among new teachers? This is something about which we remain concerned. If lesson planning becomes a “copy-paste” exercise, teachers may lose opportunities to reflect deeply on the instructional choices they make—and why. Schools and teacher preparation programs must strike a balance: using AI to support, not supplant, the professional thinking that defines transformative teaching and learning.
What This Means: Teaching in the Age of AI
The big takeaway? AI can be a helpful planning partner for social studies teachers—but it does not replace the professional wisdom, ethical discernment, and relational care that teachers bring to
the classroom everyday. Here is what educators can take away from this study:
1. Use AI as a part of the planning process, not a final product.
2. Critically review what AI produces— revise, enrich, and personalize.
3. Do not outsource the heart of teaching: building relationships, honoring student identities, and making content relevant.
4. Practice and teach AI literacy, especially in teacher prep programs.
5. Remember what AI cannot do: imagine, empathize, adapt in the moment, or see the student behind the standard.
Conclusion:
Lightening the Load without Losing the Craft
This study adds early empirical weight to a question that is rapidly gaining urgency: How do we integrate artificial intelligence into teaching in a way that enhances rather than erodes instructional quality?
The answer, at least for now, lies in balance. Let AI do what it does best—structure, alignment, efficiency. Let teachers do what they do best—make meaning, respond to students, and create spaces where learning is personal, challenging, and joyful. In a time when educators are asked to do more with less, AI can help lighten the load. But it remains the human heart, head, and hands that bring a lesson to life.
Notes
1. Sarah J. Kaka et al., “‘Divisive Issues’ and Collateral Damage: The Evolving Needs of Teachers Entrenched in the Culture War,” Journal of Education 204, no. 4 (2024): 663-675; Sarah J. Kaka et al., “‘I Have Never Wanted to Quit More as a Teacher’: How ‘Divisive Issues’ Legislation Impacts Teachers,” Educational Research: Theory and Practice 35, no. 1 (2024): 133-156.
2. Daniel G. Krutka, Marie K. Heath, and Lance E. Mason, “Technology Won’t Save Us: A Call for Technoskepticism in Social Studies,” Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education 20, no. 1 (2020): 108-120; Jacob Pleasants, Daniel G. Krutka, and T. Philip Nichols, “What Relationships Do We Want with Technology? Toward Technoskepticism in Schools,” Harvard Educational Review 93, no. 4 (2023): 486-515; Christopher H. Clark
and Cathryn Van Kessel, “‘I, for One, Welcome Our New Computer Overlords’: Using Artificial Intelligence as a Lesson Planning Resource for Social Studies,” Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education 24, no. 2 (2024): 151-183.
3. Charlotte Danielson, The Framework for Teaching (The Danielson Group, 2022); Robert J. Marzano, Designing & Teaching Learning Goals & Objectives (Solution Tree Press, 2010); Grant P. Wiggins and Jay McTighe, Understanding by Design (ASCD, 2005); S.G. Grant, Kathy Swan, and John Lee, Inquiry Design Model: Building Inquiries in Social Studies (National Council for the Social Studies, 2018).
4. S.G. Grant, Kathy Swan, and John Lee, Inquiry-Based Practice in Social Studies Education: Understanding the Inquiry Design Model (Routledge, 2022); Ryan Suskey, Sarah Jane Kaka, and Lauren Colley, “Meeting the Moment: How Micro-Inquiry Could Save Us in These Divisive Times,” Social Education 88, no. 6 (2024): 356-362.
Taylor M. Kessner is an Assistant Professor of Adolescence Social Studies Education at SUNY Geneseo. Prior to moving into teacher preparation, Dr. Kessner taught middle and high school in Michigan and Virginia. His research focuses on games, simulations, and other emerging technologies, particularly for social studies teaching and learning.
Sarah Jane Kaka is an Associate Professor of Education at Ohio Wesleyan University and COO of EdClimb Learning Partners. Prior to making the shift to higher education, Dr. Kaka taught high school social studies for a decade in Virginia and Colorado. Her research strives to support effective, long-term educators in all settings.
Moving?
Keep your Social Education magazine subscription coming. Use the QR code to sign into your online NCSS profile and update your address. It’s easy.
Teaching the C3 Framework
How Do I Make Inquiry My Own? Embracing the Instructional Artistry of the IDM Blueprint
Kathy Swan, John Lee, Emma Thacker, and Laura Darolia
There is nothing quite like seeing an inquiry teacher at work. She knows how to ask a stimulating compelling question and then step out of the way as students wrestle with it. She knows exactly when to re-enter the chat, probe, scaffold, and push further. She can bring it all back together with ease. There is artistry and precision when you see an inquiry teacher enacting her craft.1
We created the Inquiry Design Model (IDM) blueprint to assist teachers in honing their inquiry craft. The blueprint provides a structure and backward-mapping process for designing compelling and supporting questions, formative and summative performance tasks, and disciplinary sources to show how inquiry-based instruction coheres.2 These elements of the blueprint are critical but equally important is what isn’t written into the boxes of the blueprint. That is, the blueprint is intentionally designed with a creative inquiry license inviting teachers to embrace and activate their instructional intuitions and to make it their own. With this sense of teacher agency in mind, we created the “Double Dog Dare Inquiry Challenge.” This was a playful
and adventurous undertaking that a group of third grade teachers took on this past spring around an inquiry that asked, “How Does Our Garbage Hurt Us?”3 In the portraits that follow, we show you how teams of third grade inquiry teachers took up the dare and doubled down with their own artistry and personalization to the inquiry. This is a story of inspiring teachers who showed us what it looks like to teach with a creative inquiry license mindset and what that can do for curriculum and for students.
How Do I Make Inquiry My Own?
One of the most important principles of the Inquiry Design Model is that every IDM blueprint is minted with a Creative Commons BY-SA (AttributionShareAlike 4.0 International)
license symbol.
If you’re not familiar with Create Commons, it is “the nonprofit behind the open licenses and other legal tools that allow creators to share their work.”4 In practice, this open license means teachers are welcome to share and adapt published blueprints without running afoul of copyright law as long as they credit the original and promise to share any adaptations they make. The Creative Commons license signals to users that the use of a published inquiry is not fixed but instead invites users to be creative, to be themselves, and to find a way to teach the inquiry that works best for their classroom. We think of
C3 Framework
Indicators
Staging the Question
Elementary Garbage Inquiry
How Does Our Garbage Hurt Us?
D2.Geo.5.3-5. Explain how the cultural and environmental characteristics of places change over time.
D2.Civ.9.3-5. Use deliberative processes when making decisions or reaching judgments as a group.
Think through your day so far. Turn and talk about items you have thrown away or you have seen thrown away. What do you think happens to our trash after we drop it into a garbage can? Source: The Problem of Waste, excerpt from the book, What a Waste: Trash, Recycling, and Protecting our Planet by Jess French.
How do different kinds of garbage hurt us?
Create a class mind map about the different types of garbage (e.g., water, plastic, electronic, etc), and why this particular type of waste is a problem.
Source A: Kinds of Waste, excerpts from the book, What a Waste: Trash, Recycling, and Protecting our Planet by Jess French:
Complete the research organizer about why landfills are a problem.
How does garbage hurt our oceans and marine life?
Choose a photograph and create a caption that shows how garbage negatively impacts oceans and marine life.
Source A: What is a Landfill? excerpt from the book, What a Waste: Trash, Recycling, and Protecting our Planet by Jess French:
Source B: Garbage Breakdown: How long will it last? Infographic
Source C: Plastic Waste per Capita, Map, Our World in Data
Source D: Locations of Landfills, Waste Atlas
Source E: Landfill Photostory, adapted from PBS NewsHour story
Source A: The Mess That We Made, a tradebook by Michelle Lord (read aloud).
Source B (Optional): Great Pacific Garbage Patch, excerpt from the book, What a Waste: Trash, Recycling, and Protecting our Planet by Jess French.
How does our garbage hurt us? Construct an argument (e.g., draw a picture) that shows how garbage affects people, animals, and our planet using at least one claim and evidence from the inquiry.
UNDERSTAND Conduct a personal waste audit for a day and add up the kinds of things you throw away. Tally the numbers for the entire class using the same table
Taking Informed Action
ASSESS Summarize the patterns for the class and where you might need to reduce waste. Generate a list of possible solutions to reducing a particular kind of waste.
ACT Propose an initiative to reduce the chosen form of waste and implement the solution.
Note: Please access this inquiry and links to resources at c3teachers.org.
this as a license to be creative in the classroom.
In other words, we want you to innovate with the blueprint. After all, you know what is best for your students and how they might respond to different parts of the inquiry process. If that means adding a source, add it. If you think the supporting question needs a tweak, tweak it. If you are inspired to change the staging, argument, or action task, lean into it and make it your own. We trust you. 5
The Double Dog Dare Inquiry Challenge: “How Does Our Garbage Hurt Us?”
In 2025, we wrote a new book focused on inquiry in the elementary classroom. 6 We wanted to tell the story of the IDM blueprint through adaptations made by skilled inquiry teachers. We designed an inquiry, “How Does Our Garbage Hurt Us?” and engaged 14 enthusiastic third grade teachers from 8 different districts from across the country to teach it in May 2025.
The following six Portraits of Inquiry are powerful vignettes demonstrating how these teachers made the blueprint their own. 7 We organized these stories according to the question-task sequence of the garbage blueprint, highlighting how inquiry instruction can take on different hues and styles and organically come to life in classrooms.
Portrait 1: Ms. Kautzer (Up)Stages the Compelling Question
Ms. Kautzer is a literacy specialist who taught the garbage inquiry at Menominee Elementary in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. She revised the introductory staging exercise to focus on a series of images showing bird nests made from candy bar wrappers, earbuds, windshield wipers, and thick layers of surgical masks from the Covid era. 8
Ms. Kautzer thought these images would be just the thing to spark students’ curiosity around the compelling question. She reported, “As soon as you bring in the element of how what we do as people affects animals, the kids are instantly dialed into whatever the topic is.” 9
Good call, Ms. Kautzer!
Staging the Question
How Does Our Garbage Hurt Us?
Examine images of bird nests made from trash. Discuss: What types of trash have researchers found? How does trash end up in birds’ nests? How could these nests present problems for the birds?
Portrait 2: Ms. Baker Molds the Task for Supporting Question 1
Ms. Baker teaches third graders in Norwalk, Connecticut, at Columbus Magnet School. She refashioned the formative performance task for supporting question 1 to encourage more movement and curiosity.
Instead of creating a mind map, Ms. Baker focused the task on making observations about the data within the six different infographics. Students worked together to uncover initial observations and then shared their findings with others while circulating about the room. Ms. Baker sent us a video of one student who added up the food waste at various stages and found that almost 30 percent of food is wasted from when it leaves the farm to when it makes it to the dinner plate. 10
Way to be observant, Ms. Baker!
Supporting Question 1
What kinds of waste do people create?
Formative Performance Task
Make observations about the different types of waste (e.g., water, plastic, electronic, etc) and why this particular type of waste is a problem.
Featured Sources
Source A: Kinds of Waste, excerpts from the book, What a Waste: Trash, Recycling, and Protecting our Planet by Jess French:
Repurposing trash as fashion in Norwalk, Connecticut.
Portrait 3: Mr. Gardner Sculpts the Sources for Supporting Question 2
Mr. Gardner teaches third graders in Harrisonburg, Virginia, at Spotswood Elementary School. When he taught the garbage inquiry, he felt the sources for supporting question 2 could be more comprehensive.
He noted that source D only showed unregulated landfills, which are concentrated outside of the United States.11 Worried that students might conclude that the United States does not have any landfills, he added another map showing the density of sanitary landfills in the U.S. along with additional data about the impact of waste sites nationally.12
Bravo, Mr. Gardner!
Supporting Question 2
Why are landfills a problem?
Formative Performance Task
Complete the research organizer about why landfills are a problem.
Featured Sources
Source A: What is a Landfill? excerpt from the book, What a Waste: Trash, Recycling, and Protecting our Planet by Jess French.
Source B: Garbage Breakdown: How long will it last?
Infographic
Source C: Plastic Waste per Capita, Map, Our World in Data
Source D: Locations of Unsanitary Landfills, Waste Atlas
Source E: Density of Sanitary Landfills in the United States, Map
Source F: Landfill Photostory, adapted from PBS NewsHour story
Portrait 4: Ms. Bremer Plans to Go Digital for Supporting Question 3
Ms. Bremer teaches third grade students at Long Branch Elementary in Boone County, Kentucky. After 19 years in the elementary classroom, she describes it as her “favorite jam.”13
The garbage inquiry was a hit in her classroom, but Ms. Bremer still envisioned teaching it a little differently next year. She plans for students to research and find their own photographs on the web for formative performance task 3. Way to level up, Ms. Bremer!
Supporting Question
How does garbage hurt our oceans and marine life?
Formative Performance Task
Search the web and find a photograph that captures how garbage negatively impacts oceans and marine life. Create a caption and explain your selection.
A: The
Featured Sources
a
Source B (Optional): Great Pacific Garbage Patch, excerpt from the book, What a Waste: Trash, Recycling, and Protecting our Planet by Jess French
Portrait 5: Ms. Watson and Wilder Mixed Media for the Summative Argument Task
Ms. Watson and Ms. Wilder are third grade teachers at Starke Primary School in Pekin, Illinois. They
Source
Mess That We Made,
tradebook by Michelle Lord (read aloud)
Photograph by Lauren Baker
taught the garbage inquiry at the end of the year in what they called the “May Cray.”14 Field trips, end of year celebrations, and fatigue combined with high-stakes testing make the month of May particularly challenging.
That didn’t stop them from taking it up a notch on the summative argument task. Students created posters that included a claim with evidence as well as a picture to illustrate what they learned.
Way to personalize the inquiry through the May Cray, Pekin!
Summative Argument Task
How does our garbage hurt us? Create a poster that includes an evidentiary claim and illustration showing how garbage affects people, animals, and our planet.
Portrait 6: Ms. Jackman, Brauer, and Soyster Repurpose Trash into Action Murals
Ms. Jackman, Brauer, and Soyster are thirdgrade teachers at Kellison Elementary School in Rockwood, Missouri. They said students were so invested in raising awareness about the problem of trash that students kept asking, “What can we do?” throughout the inquiry.15
These teachers saw artistic potential in their students’ interest. They revised the taking informed action task so students could work collaboratively to create a class mural about the trash problem. The teachers said, “Students came up with the whole design and the title.”16
Nice teamwork, Rockwood! Taking Informed Action
Understand: Examine a collection of local murals and discuss the messages the artists are sharing.
Assess: Make a plan for a class mural depicting the garbage problem and decide on what materials to use and messages the mural should communicate.
Act: Work together to create the mural and share the art with others at the school.
Summary
Each teacher reimagined some part of the inquiry during the challenge. While they all held onto the overall structure of the blueprint—the questions, tasks, and sources—they expressed themselves through creative adaptations and recognized something unique in their students. Ms. Kautzer sparked her students’ imagination through an expanded staging exercise. Ms. Baker refashioned the first formative task using the power of observations. Mr. Gardner expanded the scope of the sources for the second supporting question. Ms. Bremer wove in personal research and related sources. Ms. Watson and Wilder amped up the summative task of adding artistry to the claims. Ms. Jackman, Brauer, and Soyster let their students loose on the taking informed action task.
These portraits show how teachers bring creativity into their inquiry teaching. They showed us that implementing an inquiry is far from a one-size-fitsall script. It’s a journey of expression and discovery with students at the center of it all. John Steinbeck once wrote, “I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist.”17 Inquiry teachers remind us to remain nimble around students’ interests
Starke Primary School students create posters to illustrate their learning, Pekin, Illinois.
The waste mural that Kellison Elementary students, in Rockwood, Missouri, created to illustrate the trash problem.
Photograph by
Sarah Wilder
Photograph by
Megan Jackman
Teaching With a Global Perspective
Approaches and Strategies for Secondary Social Studies Teachers
Jing A. Williams, Bárbara C. Cruz, and Anatoli Rapoport
Photovoice as Pedagogy for Civic Engagement and Social Justice
Kimi Waite, Pamela Williams, and Qiong Annie Wu
Photovoice is a versatile research method that combines photography and storytelling, enabling high school teachers, university instructors, community members, and students to identify areas for action in promoting civic engagement and social justice. Many photovoice projects aim to raise students’ awareness about a community issue and provide a pathway for addressing root causes through policy and system changes. When applied as a teaching tool in upper elementary, middle, high school, or undergraduate education, photovoice empowers students to document and directly address issues of concern from their unique social location and perspective.
This article outlines a flexible and actionable framework titled “Photovoice Pedagogy for Civic Engagement and Social Justice.” The instructor (Kimi Waite), a former K-12 public school teacher, developed the pedagogical framework with input and beta testing from her two students (Pamela Williams and Qiong Annie Wu), who were enrolled in an undergraduate research methods class that focused on social justice education, experiential learning, and campus civic engagement.
Possibilities for Social Justice Education: Critical Geography and Photovoice
For this framework, we are using a definition of social justice from the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership1:
Social justice recognizes the inherent dignity of all people and values every life equally. Social justice calls for both personal reflection and social change to
ensure that each of us has the right and the opportunity to thrive in our communities, regardless of our identities. (para. 3)
This definition of social justice is complementary to critical geography, as “radical and critical geographies seek not only to interpret the world but also change it through the melding of theory and political action.”2 Photovoice,3 is considered a community-based participatory research (CBPR) method. CBPR “begins with a research topic of importance to the community and has the aim of combining knowledge with action and achieving social change….”4
Applying these academic research concepts to professional practice begins with reconsidering the role of teacher/instructor and student. The teacher/instructor’s role in photovoice is to facilitate conversations and reflections, and also to scaffold understanding, rather than being a “sage on the stage” (where only the teacher is assumed to have knowledge and expertise).
Toward Collaborative Teaching and Learning
Diaz and Flores argue that teachers often serve as sociocultural mediators in addition to their roles as academic instructors.5 To be effective in this role, teachers—especially those with students of color or other historically marginalized groups— must recognize that students bring rich personal, cultural, and community knowledge into the classroom. Teaching and learning, therefore, become a mutual, collaborative process where students are active creators rather than passive recipients of
knowledge. This perspective supports activating student expertise to address issues of inequity in their schools or communities.6 Like inquiry-based learning, this student-centered approach empowers students to take ownership of their learning.7
As the instructor, I (Kimi Waite) created research projects for my courses that were grounded in experiential learning and got students outside of the classroom. The university campus itself functions as a real-life laboratory, making research more meaningful and relevant to students’ daily lives.8 Classroom teachers can similarly use school campuses as “laboratories.” This particular approach relates to the NCSS curricular themes of PEOPLE, PLACES, AND ENVIRONMENTS, as well as CIVIC IDEALS AND PRACTICES and is complementary to geography education.
Geography Education and Photography
Photography has long been linked to geography and is an established research method in both human and physical geography.9 It intersects with geographical inquiry and imagination, offering a powerful tool for exploration and representation.10 With the rise of location-based mobile apps in classrooms,11 photography now allows for instant sharing, analysis, and discussion—opening new avenues for (geo)photographic thinking.12 Approaches like Photovoice also support the development of students’ geographic thinking skills.
The National Geography Standards assert that geography is an active process—something students do. 13 Geography education equips students with the perspectives, knowledge, and skills to engage ethically with people, cultures, species, and environments.14 A geographically informed student understands the spatial distribution of human and physical phenomena and the significance of their arrangement across space and scale. Photovoice aligns with Geography Standard 3: How to analyze the spatial organization of people, places, and environments. It uses spatial concepts and models to explain the world from local to global levels. Especially during times of social injustice, photovoice offers a powerful, critical methodology for bringing social justice into geography or social studies education.
Suggested Timeline for Classroom Implementation
The following suggested timeline for implementing a photovoice project with a focus on civic engagement and social justice in the high school or university classroom is adaptable for different grade bands and can be implemented in four class periods of 50 to 90 minutes. The only required materials are smartphones, digital cameras, or tablets. Students can work in groups or teams if 1:1 devices are not available. Optional materials include chart paper for whole-group discussions, notebook paper, and printed campus maps. Students can also complete the entire process digitally using collaborative apps such as Google Docs or Google Slides. To frontload the overall structure of the Photovoice project and process, the teacher informs students of the following steps: (1) First meeting, brainstorm, create photo mission; (2) Plan route and take pictures; (3) Meet and discuss pictures and refine the wording of the photo mission; (4) Meet and analyze pictures using the SHOWED method; (5) Create a plan to display pictures in the community; (6) Develop a plan to take action.
Class Meeting #1
To support difficult conversations about injustice, instructors can use Facing History and Ourselves’ Preparing Students for Difficult Conversations guide throughout the year.15 Building on collaborative teaching practices, teachers can help students claim their expertise by playing a “credibility game.” This activity encourages students to identify injustices they want to address in their school or university and to draw on their lived experiences as sources of insight and solutions. In rethinking traditional teacher–student roles, the concept of “expertise” itself must also be reconsidered. All students have expertise that they bring to the classroom, such as:
• Lived experiences
• Cultural knowledge
• Linguistic knowledge
• Community knowledge
• Job and/or profession
• Hobbies and/or passions
• School/being a student
To activate students’ expertise, we played “The Credibility Game,” in which students brainstormed their areas of expertise and established their credibility using the sentence starter, “My name is ____ and I’m an expert in______.” Here are two examples from undergraduate students:
• “My name is Pamela Williams, and I’m an expert in fashion design. I specialize in women’s fashion and cross-cultural fashion awareness.”
• “My name is Qiong Annie Wu, and I’m an expert in cross-cultural K-12 education comparison between the U.S. and China.”
Next, to activate thinking on issues of concern around the school campus, students participated in a free-write activity where they practiced brainstorming ideas, arguments, and outcomes (Table 1). After students engaged in the free-write activity, they discussed their ideas, arguments, and outcomes in groups. After discussing in groups, the class debriefed as a group and made a bulleted list of ideas, arguments, and outcomes. Some examples follow:
• Idea 1: To have a positive school environment, I propose addressing concerns about access to healthy food on the go in between classes.
• Argument 1: I believe that having healthy food options on campus is a collective responsibility that requires the joint effort of every stakeholder.
• Outcome 1: By increasing awareness and advocating for actions to improve campus food options, we can have a healthy learning environment.
• Idea 2: Students deserve a clean, nurturing environment. I propose raising awareness about the lack of cleanliness on campus and the appearance of
unclean facilities and surfaces.
• Argument 2: “See something, Say something”! We must take ownership of our campus environment and hold those in charge of campus beautification accountable.
• Outcome 2: Making changes to promote action will create a unification of campus awareness. The awareness will promote change, discipline, accountability, and a beautiful kind environment.
Table 1. Brainstorming, Free-write Activity
What’s Your Idea?
(Something that inspires you, makes you angry, makes you sad)
What’s Your Argument?
(What are you making a case for?)
What’s Your Outcome?
(What is your intended outcome? i.e., Policy change, program implementation, legislation, etc.)
Photovoice projects often serve dual purposes: raising students’ critical awareness of community issues and laying the groundwork for addressing root causes through policy or systems change. They also help students make these issues visible and engage peers or community members in advocacy. For inspiration, students can consult their school or university’s student-run newspaper to identify pressing campus concerns such as school environment, available food options, after school activities, or building maintenance.
After individually brainstorming an idea, argument, and outcome, engaging in group discussions with peers, and reading the studentrun newspaper, students decided on a “photo mission,” or topic for their photovoice project, and used campus maps to plan their route. Students also reviewed ethics in research and ethics in photography. Specifically, we discussed that with
photography, they should always be mindful and respectful when the photographs involve/depict human beings. If a photo features people, they should try to keep faces or other identifying features out of the photo unless they have explicit permission. They should also be mindful of local customs when taking images, and if they use a picture from the internet, they should ensure that they obtain permission from the creator and cite their sources.
Class Meeting #2
In the second class meeting, students spend the majority of the time taking pictures around their school or community. Before heading out for data collection, they review their routes, their agreed-upon photo missions, and their photography ethics. Students should also ensure that their smartphones or devices are fully charged. Students can take pictures with their phones and then share them in Google Drive, Dropbox, or the Photos app. After students have finished data collection, they refine the wording of their photo mission and select the photos that best correlate. This can also be done in another class period, depending on the class’s needs and structure.
Class Meeting #3
In the third class meeting, students analyze their photos using the SHOWED method, six questions that encourage viewing photographs within the broader context of specific communities and historical events16:
(S) What do you SEE here?
(H) What is HAPPENING here?
(O) How does this relate to OUR lives?
(W) WHY does this happen?
(E) How can this EDUCATE others?
(D) What can we DO about this?
Students then select a target audience for the photography exhibition and begin creating a plan to display pictures around their school or in
the greater community or town.
Class Meeting #4
In the last class meeting, students finalized plans for a community photography exhibit. Some ideas from my students included setting up an informational booth by high-trafficked areas such as the library, using bulletin boards around campus to hang up informational flyers, creating an exhibit with QR codes that other students could easily access, writing to city councilmembers, writing to school leadership, and inviting the larger Los Angeles community to a community exhibit. Example 1 (on p. 379) details a project about Healthy Food Options.
Assessment
There are many possibilities for assessment. For example, students can engage in experiential learning and write an essay about their process and the photovoice project, which the instructor can grade according to Common Core and grade-level standards. Additionally, students can present their findings in a formal presentation and be evaluated on their delivery and speaking skills. Students could also use digital tools like Google Slides, PowerPoint, or Canva to create presentations or infographics of their findings. ArcGIS or StoryMaps are additional options.
Conclusion
One of the most compelling reasons to adopt pedagogical tools like photovoice is to provide students with the knowledge and experiences needed to think critically about community issues and injustices, and then actively participate in an action to create change. Students can also engage in photovoice to develop and strengthen their research skills. Ultimately, photovoice aims to value and elevate student voice in the classroom, creating a learning environment where students feel comfortable actively participating in and critiquing real issues, and enacting change in their school or community.
Notes
1. Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, About Arcus Center: Our Definition of Social Justice (2020), https:// reason.kzoo.edu/csjl/about
2. N. Blomley, “The Spaces of Critical Geography,” Progress in Human Geography 32, no. 2, (2008): 285-293, https://doi. org/10.1177/0309132507084401
3. C. Wang and M. A. Burris, “Empowerment Through Photo Novella: Portraits of Participation,” Health Education Quarterly 21, no. 2 (1994): 171-186, https://doi. org/10.1177/10901981940210020.
4. B. A. Israel, A. J. Schulz, E. A. Parker, and A. B. Becker, “Review of Community-Based Research: Assessing Partnership Approaches to Improve Public Health,” Annual Review of Public Health 19, no. 1 (1998): 173-202.
5. E. Diaz and B. Flores, “Teacher as Sociocultural, Sociohistorical Mediator: Teaching to the Potential,” The Best for Our Children: Critical Perspectives on Literacy for Latino Students (2001): 29-47.
6. Diaz and Flores; P. Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, new rev. ed. (M. Bergman Ramos, Trans., 1993).
7. R. Spronken‐Smith and R. Walker, “Can Inquiry‐based Learning Strengthen the Links Between Teaching and Disciplinary Research?” Studies in Higher Education 35, no. 6, (2010): 723-740, https://doi. org/10.1080/03075070903315502.
8. K. Waite, “Pocket-Sized Strategies: Citizen Science and Nature Interventions for Mental Health in Undergraduate Students,” The Geography Teacher (2024), https://doi.org/10. 1080/00221341.2024.2367441
9. T. Davies, C. Lorne, and L. Sealey-Huggins, “Instagram Photography and the Geography Field Course: Snapshots from Berlin,” Journal of Geography in Higher Education 43, no. 3 (2019): 362-383, https://doi.org/10.1080/0309 8265.2019.1608428; T. Hall, “The Camera Never Lies? Photographic Research Methods in Human Geography,” Journal of Geography in Higher Education 33, no. 3 (2009):
453-462, https://doi.org/10.1080/03098260902734992; P. Fraile-Jurado, E. Sánchez-Rodríguez, and S. B. Leatherman, “Improving the Learning Processes of Physical Geography Through the Use of Landscape Photographs in Class,” Journal of Geography in Higher Education 43, no. 1 (2019): 24-39, https://doi.org/10.1080/03098265.2018.1515189; J. E. Thornes, “The Visual Turn and Geography (Response to Rose 2003 Intervention),” Antipode 36, no. 5 (2004): 787794, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8330.2004.00452.x
10. J. M. Schwartz and J. R. Ryan, “Introduction: Photography and the Geographical Imagination,” in Picturing Place (Routledge, 2021), 1-18.
11. Waite, “Pocket-Sized Strategies.”
12. Davies, Lorne, and Sealey-Huggins, “Instagram Photography and the Geography Field Course.”
13. National Council for Geographic Education, Geography for Life: National Geography Standards (2012).
14. Geography for Life, 13
15. Facing History and Ourselves, Preparing Students for Difficult Conversations (28 March 2016).
16. UCROP Curriculum, Photovoice: Visualizing Our Identities and Cultures for Empowerment (University of California, Irvine, 2023), https://sites.uci.edu/voice/curriculum
Kimi Waite is an Assistant Professor of Child and Family Studies at California State University, Los Angeles, and an affiliate faculty member in the Ed.D. program. She is the 2021 California Council for the Social Studies Outstanding Elementary Teacher of the Year..
Pamela Williams is a graduate of the Child Development B.A. at California State University, Los Angeles.
Qiong Annie Wu is a graduate student in the School Psychology Program at California State University, Los Angeles.
The C3 Framework and Film: Bringing Hollywood to the Social Studies Classroom as a Catalyst for Teaching Inquiry
Edited by Starlynn Nance and Scott L. Roberts
Featuring films from animated shorts to full-length documentaries, this practical resource shows how film can be more than just passive entertainment—film can be the gateway for historical inquiry, literacy skills, and critical thinking. Grounded in the C3 Framework and the Inquiry Design Model (IDM), editors Starlynn Nance and Scott L. Roberts and the book’s contributors offer classroom-ready, teacher-tested units that cover major content areas like geography, world history, and economics. Elementary educators will discover how film can integrate social studies and English language arts content, and secondary educators will learn how to foster active, student-led inquiries.
