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I am a social studies & history buff and music lover. As I am sure you could tell from my first blog, Social Studies Alive! Teaching Tips to Keep Students Engaged, I love engaging students. I feel it is important to involve them in a wide variety of ways as teachers cover the text and content required by the curriculum and standards. I greatly enjoy the use of music and graphic organizers, and make sure to take every opportunity to use them in my lessons. In this article, I will to share with you instructional strategies for using graphic organizers effectively in your class. To do this, let’s take a look at an example that combines music, industrialization and my favorite type of graphic organizer---maps.

This lesson example came about when two of my former social studies methods students asked me to come to Short Mountain Elementary School in Cannon County, Tennessee and teach a social studies lesson to their classes. Since one class was studying the transformation brought about by industrialization it seemed to be a perfect chance to reinforce important content, extend the application of industrialization, use map skills, listening skills, and even discuss when, if ever, it is all right to steal from someone.

Start the Lesson

The lesson began, as most lessons do, with a review of the textbook chapter about industrialization and key concepts. Most discussions centered on student awareness of factories in the region, as well as, identifying objects in the room that were most likely produced in a factory.

Get Moving

Movement can be an important part of any lesson. It changes the tone and has the ability to recapture student attention. Being aware of this, I directed the students to arrange three paper clips on their desks into a triangle, and then to stand behind their desk. The instructions were to remove one paper clip from their triangle, move to the next seat and place their paper clip in the location of the missing paper clip. This process was repeated until returning to their original triangle. Why was this activity important? What did the students gain from participating in the moving of paperclip from one triangle to the next? After the students had a chance to sit back down, the discussion turned and focused on the key reason the paper clips could be moved and replaced each time. The concepts of standardization and interchangeable parts were identified and repeated in unison verbalization.

Add a Little 'Twang'

The next phase of the lesson then moved to deal with discussion of vehicles they had ridden and seen in recent days. A slideshow of Henry Ford and the emergence of the automobile industry transitioned into listening to a song by Johnny Cash, “One Piece At A Time”. Johnny Cash tells the story of a Kentucky worker who migrated to Detroit to work in the automobile plant. The worker decided to take one piece of a Cadillac home each day and in the end assembled his own Cadillac for free. Now it’s time to get the students involved. Using a map, students first plotted Cannon County, Tennessee. Then as we listened to ‘One Piece At A Time”, the students followed along by pointing to Kentucky then to Detroit and plotting them on a map of the US.

Bring It All Together

It is important not to stop at the end of plotting locations on a map. You need to tie it back to the real world and the current objectives. The post-activity discussions honed in on two important dimensions. First, discussion focused on essential questions like:

• What made it possible for the worker to be able to put the various Cadillac parts together?
• What key ideas of industrialization that we illustrated with the paper clips earlier made it possible for the worker to put together the stolen Cadillac parts?

The students in this lesson were able to identify standardization and interchangeability.

The second discussion attacked the ethical/moral dimension with the following questions:

• Do your parents, teachers, or religious leaders say it's wrong to steal?
• Was it wrong for the auto plant worker to steal the parts to make his Cadillac?

Students agreed that their authority figures said it was wrong to steal and that the worker shouldn’t have stolen the parts. However, there was carry over points centered around why some people might take things from their employer and not feel guilty. Questions such as “Is it possible that just taking one part wouldn’t seem like a bad thing to the worker?” sustained the discussion.

At the conclusion, we went back over key concepts including industrialization, standardization, and interchangeable parts. They pointed to locations on the US map, and responded to questions regarding the concepts illustrated in “One Piece At A Time". Throughout the lesson, students were focused on their core curriculum content while being engaged, on task as well as using different sources of information and learning styles.

Things to remember while planning the perfect lesson:
Lessons like the one above can be created using your school system’s teaching model. Know your standards, content, and tie them together with a variety of materials. Then, create an introduction to focus their attention, engage them step-by-step with student-teacher interaction and concrete actions to master the content and thinking skills. Then, review the skills and content ‘one-last-time.

It's Your Turn

I want to know what other songs would you have used to teach the concepts in this lesson? Or share with me some creative ways you have taught industrialization in your classroom. I am always interested in growing in my knowledge of teaching skills, teaching materials and content!

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