The Use of Children's Literature in Middle School Social Studies: What Research Does and Does Not Show

Abstract

or as long as people have been able to communicate orally, stories have served as the narrative of the past. Tales of the adventures of ancestors passed on from generation to generation were the primary way that people learned about their history. Eventually these accounts were put down in the written word as well. It is no wonder that the "story" was synonymous with "history" (Apostol 1982). One could reason therefore that stories, in today's form of historical fiction, biographies, nonfiction and poems, would be a logical way to teach social studies. This is not the case. When children today learn about the past in school, the "story" has been taken out of history. Instead they are subjected to receiving 75 percent to 90 percent of instruction based on textbooks (Miller 1987). Although arguably a valuable tool, a textbook cannot lend itself to the same sort of detail, passion, or interest that a story can generate. Why then are stories designed for the young learner (i.e., children's literature) not a staple in the social studies curriculum? Conventional wisdom says that children's literature (defined here as any non-textbook, including fiction) ought to be a viable mode of instruction and that children would respond favorably to its use. Conventional wisdom, however, is not an indication of what actually transpires in a social studies classroom or how students respond to instructional methods. To understand the extent of the use of children's literature in social studies, we must depend on research reports and explanatory materials that examine the incorporation of social studies and children's literature. Recent research concerning social studies and the use of children's literature has been inconclusive, although plenty of "how to" and "why" materials are available. Indeed, McGowan and Sutton (1988) found that the explanatory materials ("how to") constitute up to 68 percent of recent