The California Council for the Social Studies (CCSS) recently announced an exciting event that will close their the 57th annual conference in San Diego. CCSS is partnering with The San Diego Union-Tribune to host a live, in-person forum with California's gubernatorial candidates on Sunday, March 25 at the Town & Country Hotel and Conference Center. Leading candidates have been invited to discuss their education platforms and other important issues regarding the future of California. 

Registration to the CCSS annual conference includes complimentary preferential seating thanks to our generous Forum co-sponsors Pearson, National Geographic/Cengage, McGraw Hill Education, the University of San Diego, and Luxuria Public Relations. Don't miss this exclusive opportunity to see the leading gubernatorial candidates take the stage in a moderated discussion regarding their visions for improving California.

Register for the CCSS conference today at California Council for the Social Studies - Attendee Registration 2018 to help yourself improve your Social Studies instruction and make an informed decision about the next governor of our state. See you in San Diego.

Who will replace Gov. & Mrs. Jerry Brown in 2018?

Dear NCSS Affiliated Councils,

I wanted to draw your attention to several calls for participation that appear in our new September 2017 edition of The Social Studies Professional, at https://www.socialstudies.org/calls-participation. 

The calls include:

• participation in a survey on implementation of the C3 Framework nationwide.
• manuscripts for future issues of our K-6 journal, Social Studies and the Young Learner.
• volunteer opportunities for NCSS Operations Committees.
• session proposals and travel grants for the 2018 Social Science Education Consortium's conference in Italy.

Please share these calls for participation widely with your networks. Thank you.

Best,
Larry

-- 
Lawrence M. Paska, Ph.D.
Executive Director | National Council for the Social Studies
8555 16th Street, Suite 500, Silver Spring, MD 20910
lpaska@ncss.org | www.socialstudies.org | 301.588.1800 ext. 103

Expanding Visions/Bridging Traditions

97th NCSS Annual Conference
November 15-19, 2017
San Francisco, CA
www.socialstudies.org/conference

Welcome back to school, Social Studies leaders. We hope you had a restful summer and are ready to hit the ground running. With all of the issues emanating from Washington DC, this is a great time to teach controversial issues in your Social Studies classroom. Listenwise https://listenwise.com/current_events updates their current events page daily and offers a free service that aligns Social Studies content standards with National Public Radio stories. The Constitutional Rights Foundation offers a Civil Conversation model and lesson library http://www.crf-usa.org/t2t/curriculum-library​ for helping students learn to discuss controversial issues.  Newsela https://newsela.com/ also curates current events in a searchable database. What are some of the ways you plan on including current events in your Social Studies instruction this year? Please leave a comment or reach out to us on Social Media: Twitter @SCSSA_Prez and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/SoCalSocialStudies/

We are starting to fill up our 2017-2018 calendar with a slate of great events. Visit our Events page and reserve your spot.

September 9 Constitution Day Teacher Resource Conference at Reagan Library
September 30 Fall Mini-Conference at Cal State University at Dominguez Hills
October 7 Our Time is Now: SCSSA Annual Fall Conference with Dr. Keith Barton
October (TBD) Teacher's Day Out to Hollywood Forever Cemetery Tour
November (TBD) Teaching History with Graphic Novels Workshop
November 16-19 National Council for the Social Studies Annual Conference in San Francisco
January (TBD) - Teacher's Day Out to African American History Museum
February 4  DTLA Historic Walking Tour with Michael Denman
March 10 Spring MIni-Conference at CSUDH
March 17 History Day LA at Azusa Pacific University
March 23-25 California Council for the Social Studies Annual Conference in San Diego
April (TBD) - Teacher's Day Out to Mamie Clayton Museum
June (TBD) - Teacher's Day Out to mystery location

​L-R Michael Denman, Ryan Cowden, Rebecca Valbuena, Cathy Marston, Linda Cargile, Jackie Purdy, Michelle Herczog, Scott Petri, Matt Rosen, and Chris Lewis.

The influence of common core and college readiness standards have honed my focus on using historical content to teach skills. I have examined listening skills, writing skills, speaking skills, collaboration skills, basically, anything that is difficult, if not impossible to measure with a standardized test. From what I understand about CUE, their mission is to inspire innovative thinkers and bring them together. This aligns nicely with my philosophy that great teaching is teams of teachers working together, not individual teachers working alone. For those who have never experienced a CUE Rockstar camp, this video explains their program.

​Later this spring, I will attend the CUE Rockstar – History Teacher Edition on the USS Hornet. I want to shred a session on speaking and listening instruction because I have not spent enough time improving these skills in my academic program. I hope that many History teachers will sign up and join the CUE Rockstars in Nor Cal for a memorable and powerful learning experience as we host a sleepover on the USS Hornet.
Scott Petri, SCSSA President
cross-posted at HistoryRewriter.com 

The NCSS Social Studies Performance-Based Assessment Clearinghouse has been created to provide:

1. examples of social studies performance-based assessment measures conducted at local and state levels
2. research findings that support the use of performance-based assessment to inform instruction, and
3. existing educational policies that can inform advocacy efforts for the inclusion of social studies performance-based assessment at the local, state and national level.

Many teachers have created their own performance assessments that could be included in this archive. For instance, my students were recently asked to take notes on a biography of Napoleon Bonaparte. Then, they were asked to use their textbook to corroborate or match the historical details from the video biography and provide a page number as a citation.

The chart illustrates that advanced students were able to corroborate 12-20 facts in one 53-minute class period, while lower-achieving students could only match 1 to 5 historical details from the textbook to the film in the same time frame. This population of 9th and 10th grade World History students (N=30) had an average performance of 7.87 historical matches. This activity gives students a purpose for taking notes and immediate feedback on the usefulness of their note-taking techniques. The image below shows how students matched video content to the historical details in their textbook. How do you teach students to corroborate facts using multiple sources?

Proposed Sessions for our EdCamp Session beginning at 11:30 am.

1. I want to understand what is the best way to organize and teach the election in my classroom i.e. what background information I should give, what to include, what to leave out.
   
2. I wonder - best way to establish norms for healthy-respectful debate.  I want to understand how to elicit messages within election and talk about feelings associated with these messages.
   
3. I wonder what activities would get my students excited about the election so much that they’d encourage their family to go out and vote!!
   
4. I want to learn about FlipGrid and conversations.
   
5. I need help figuring out how to make the election exciting but not hostile.
   
6. I would like to know how to make the information understandable for early ELD students.
   
7. I would like to know more about what enduring things 2nd graders should know about elections.
   
8. I want to understand how to have smart conversations in the classroom.
   
9. I wonder how I can encourage students to focus on the issues that matter most to them without getting caught up in the personality/looks of the candidates.
   
10. I am excited about teaching civics/elections in my classroom.
    
11. I need to help with making U.S. History relatable to middle schoolers.
    

2016 is shaping up to be a difficult year for Civics and Social Studies teachers interested in teaching about the Presidential election. Ainsley O’ Connell recently wrote Have Politics Become So Ugly that Educators are Afraid to Teach Civics? for Fast Company magazine. The article claims that schools wary of Clinton v. Trump minefields are avoiding teaching Civics altogether. Further, as the language on the campaign trail polarizes voters, even the driest of lessons can prompt parent complaints or stoke bullying. Indiana high school students chanted "Build a wall!" at a basketball game in March, an ugly jeer aimed at Latino students on the rival team.
A survey published by the Southern Poverty Law Center found that 43% of K-12 educators are "hesitant to teach about the election," and more than half have "seen an increase in uncivil political discourse" in their schools. Other teachers have been prohibited from discussing the subject. One middle school principal in Portland, Oregon, instituted a "gag order" on election topics, according to the survey.
In Tennessee, a Latino child was told by classmates that he will be deported and trapped behind a wall. He now asks his Kindergarten teacher every day, “Is the wall here yet?” Many children are using the political discourse they hear on TV to gang up on others. Muslim kids are being called terrorists. “Students are hearing more hate language than I have ever heard at our school before,” says a high school teacher in Helena, Montana.
Thanks to generous sponsorship from the Arasyln Foundation, our speakers: Anthony Pennay, Becky Valbuena, Rebekah Harding and Gregorio Medina will help Southern Californian educators sift through the rhetoric and Teach The Election on October 1st in Burbank. Sign up to Join us at Pickwick Gardens.
Resources
http://www.fastcompany.com/3061993/most-creative-people/have-politics-become-so-ugly-that-educators-are-afraid-to-teach-civics
https://www.splcenter.org/20160413/trump-effect-impact-presidential-campaign-our-nations-schools
http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_liu_let_s_make_voting_fun_again
​http://chssp.ucdavis.edu/programs/election/issues-briefs-and-results 

A group of SCSSA members met in Alhambra to see Snowden Live and view the Oliver Stone film. We would like your opinion about our next History teacher movie night. Denial or The Birth of a Nation? Leave your opinion in the comments section and we will poll those interested for convenient dates and locations.

On Monday, September 12, 2016, SCSSA President Scott Petri is hosting #sschat on Twitter at 7:00 pm EST and 4:00 pm PST.  Join us by following the hashtag #sschat and numbering your answers (A1... A2... A3...).

Q1 Describe a recent speaking assignment from your class? Or what prevents you from assigning speaking tasks?
Q2 How would you characterize the academic conversations that occur in your class?
Q3 How do you measure the quality of the academic conversations in your class?
Q4 When teaching speaking skills, do you focus more on building a speech or performing a speech?
Q5 How do you assess your students listening skills in Social Studies?
Q6 Poll Question: https://goo.gl/forms/fTP6JgMIQu2DcfVu2 What listening objectives are most frequently used in your class?
Q7 How do you prepare your students for listening activities?
Q8 What resources do you use to improve your students’ listening skills?

Resources
https://www.stenhouse.com/content/well-spoken
http://pvlegs.com/
https://www.stenhouse.com/content/academic-conversations
http://www.jeffzwiers.org/
https://www.amazon.com/Controversy-Classroom-Democratic-Discussion-Critical/dp/0415962293
http://teachinghistory.org/issues-and-research/research-brief/25748
http://www.procon.org/
http://blog.listenwise.com/2016/09/how-do-teachers-use-listenwise/
Interested in Social Studies learning experiences in Southern California? Follow @SCSSA_Prez. 

This summer, after seeing the exceedingly well-made Anthropoid, about the assassination of Hitler's third-in-command, some of us started talking about creating a History Teacher's Movie Club. We will rotate it around the greater Los Angeles area, pick a theater and a time, view the movie together, then collaborate on how the film could be used in Social Studies instruction. Our first viewing party will be the Oliver Stone directed Snowden on Sept. 14 in Alhambra. Fathom Events will broadcast a conversation between Oliver Stone and Edward Snowden via satellite, then teachers can view and discuss. 

Other movies we are considering are: 
Denial (Sept. 30)
Rachel Weisz

The Birth of a Nation (Oct. 7)
Nat Turner’s Rebellion

Hacksaw Ridge (Nov. 4)
Andrew Garfield

Loving (November)
http://www.focusfeatures.com/loving

Allied (Nov. 23)
Brad Pitt & Marion Cotillard

Land of Mine (Dec. 19)
German POWs digging up landmines in Denmark
http://variety.com/2015/film/reviews/land-of-mine-review-toronto-film-festival-1201591015/

Hidden Figures (Jan. 13)
True story of African American female engineering team at NASA.
http://www.foxmovies.com/movies/hidden-figures

Papa: Hemingway in Cuba (April 29)
Cuban Revolution

Dunkirk (Jul. 21 2017)

If you are interested in attending or organizing one of these events, tweet us @SCSSA_Prez, post your interest on our Facebook page, or leave a comment below.

It has long been said that good teachers borrow and the best teachers steal. Implicit in that is the understanding that when we teachers share our ideas and materials with one another our students benefit greatly. As a new teacher I was shocked how little material was available to me. Thankfully, time and the Internet have greatly improved that access. Unfortunately, Teachers Pay Teachers seems to be on a mission to undo any gains that have been made.

Though I’ve heard others say they’ve found good, free materials on TpT, they are the exception not the rule. This is by design. The site goes out of its way to make free content as limited as possible. As a buyer you have to make multiple extra clicks to search for free materials. Free lessons, no matter how popular or highly rated, are not posted at the top of site search results. As a seller you are told multiple times that should not list too many free items nor any large items for free. They state “excessive numbers of free items muddies the TpT catalogue.” How exactly? They don’t say. Apparently they operate under the theory that any free item is inherently less useful than a paid one.

Which is another problem I have with the site. It encourages teachers, especially new ones, to use materials that may not be the best for their students. Our brains are easily tricked into thinking that price means quality. It is the very basis of most luxury advertising. So, when one buys something from TpT they are given a false sense that it must be a good product. Sadly, on TpT, many of them are not. Tons of them are readings with multiple choice questions attached - some just link to a video and don’t even bother to provide a reading. While writing your own questions for appropriate media for your classroom is plenty valid, grabbing someone else’s and just assuming it will work is not.

Which leads to the core problem of the whole site - it just isn’t about collaboration or making education better for all students. It is about making money. We rightly get upset as teachers when corporations try to profit off our kids. If I design something for my students that learn from and are engaged with why would I do anything to hinder other students from sharing in that success? Would I put up a paywall with my colleague next door? Absolutely not. Neither would I do so to a colleague a street, city, state or even country away. I am the teacher I am today because others shared freely with me. My lessons are what they are because they build off what others have created. That is collaboration and should be our aim. It is not what TpT is about.

There are other sites out there that exist to share free lessons among educators like TES.com and betterlesson.org. There are also plenty out there sharing their own free resources specifically for social studies like EDsitement. That should be our goal, not personal profit.

Kevin Roughton
http://www.mrroughton.com/​