Can you imagine King George III rapping about the American Revolution, Jane Addams and President Benjamin Harrison texting about the Hull House, Paul Revere whining about his midnight ride, a press-conference by Caesar Chavez, and Abraham Lincoln reading a love letter?
Now you can.
Swashbuckling Social Studies: Drama Activities and Creative Writing to Make Social Studies Come Alive: American History is jam-packed with monologues, skits, songs, and creative writing projects that allow young scholars to put words into the mouths of social studies topics. These research-based activities, geared for grades 4-8, encourage young scholars to channel their passions into social studies, reading, writing, researching, public speaking, and dramatic activities! The activities promote literacy, encourage social studies content knowledge, and make history come alive. This is readers’ theater at its absolute best!
Swashbuckling Social Studies provides:
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Sample monologues and skits for students to perform.
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Printable step-by-step directions for students to pen their own scripts. These directions emphasize research and creative writing.
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Ideas for using each activity in the classroom. You can choose to use the creative writing component or not!
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Sample rubric for assessment.
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Academic-research as to why writing and drama should be included in the classroom.
SWASHBUCKLING IS FULL OF:
WHINES, BRAGS, SONGS & RAPS, CADENCES, CLASS ACTION STORIES, LETTERS, TEXTING THROUGH HISTORY, PRESS CONFERENCES, AND SCANDALS!
Did you know that the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote, was ratified because one man listened to his mama? Yep. In this book Harry T. Burn’s mama gets to brag a bit about her little boy following her advice.
CADENCES
Washington with his big white hair;
Hatched a plan to cross the Delaware !
The Military uses cadences to keep in step. You can use cadences to help you learn historical information. In a cadence, a leader says no more than ten syllables in a line for everyone to repeat. It is called a “call-and-response” verse. Sometime the last word in each line rhymes; but that isn’t necessary.
IDEAS FOR USING CADENCES IN THE CLASSROOM:
March to the Beat: Start of end class with a marching cadence. Students can march in place at their seats for exercise.
Anticipatory Set: Perform cadences at the beginning of a unit to build excitement about the subject.
Transition Time: Have a leader lead a cadence during transition time.
Daily Cadence: Each day of the week, have a minute of class devoted to a student leading a student written cadence.
FOLLOW THIS LINK FOR A FREE DOWNLOAD OF CADENCES featuring the Underground Railroad & Harriet Beecher Stowe
We would love to see student work! Share the video or photo on social media. Tag it with #swashbucklingsocialstudies
Meet the Authors
The authors put their combined sixty years of teaching experience, forty-five years of parenting, ten university degrees, and tons of imagination into this romp of a social studies resource.
Dr. Sarah Philpott earned her PhD from the Department of Theory and Practice in Teacher Education at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She has contributed to books such as Contemporary Social Studies: An Essential Reader, has been published in numerous journals such as Social Studies for the Young Learner, and is the author of Loved Baby: 31 Devotions Helping You Grieve and Cherish Your Child After Pregnancy Loss. She is the mother to three, farm wife, former teacher, and currently a writer who stays at home with her young children.
Dr. Thomas N. Turner is a Professor Emeritus of Social Science at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He is the author of numerous books, including Essentials of Elementary Social Studies, and has authored over a hundred book chapters and journal articles. His research interests include drama in the classroom and children’s literature.
Dr. Jeremiah Clabough is an Assistant Professor of Social Science Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is the one of the editors for Getting at the Core of the Common Core with Social Studies and lead author for Unpuzzling History with Primary Sources. His research interests include integrating primary sources, graphic novels, and trade books into the social studies classroom.
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