January represents a critical instructional moment in middle school social studies. The social studies classroom is a space where critical reading skills intersect with complex ideas related to history, economics, culture, government, and geography. Within this context, instruction must move beyond exposure to content and toward the intentional design of learning experiences that support students in internalizing and applying their learning.
As teachers and students return from winter break, instructional momentum must be intentionally reestablished. Educators are revisiting learning goals, reinforcing classroom routines, and addressing deficient skills such as uneven reading stamina and comprehension, particularly in text-intensive content areas. At the same time, teachers are balancing pacing demands and test preparation while planning instruction that supports students with applying high-leverage literacy skills and strategies to combat persistent barriers to students’ access and comprehension of complex texts.
In this season, it is tempting to push harder by assigning additional passages, layering on more questions, and accelerating content coverage. However, my research and experience as a literacy educator suggest a different approach—one that prioritizes purpose, clarity, and meaningful engagement over increased volume. We must be careful not to overemphasize helping students acquire technical aspects of reading. However, we must move reading critically or reading in ways that helps students better understand the world around them and their role within it.
The shift I want to offer is simple, yet powerful: instead of asking students to read to find information, ask them to read to decide something. In today’s social context, young people are already skilled communicators. They form opinions, negotiate ideas, and marshal evidence to justify their positions in everyday interactions. When this natural disposition is intentionally leveraged in academic settings, reading becomes purposeful, engagement increases, and comprehension deepens.
Why Purpose Matters in Social Studies Reading
In many classrooms, students encounter social studies texts without a clear reason for reading beyond “answer the questions.” My research found that when reading lacks a defined purpose, students—particularly those with weaker reading identities—default to surface-level behaviors: skimming, copying phrases, or disengaging altogether.
In contrast, when students are given a clear cognitive task such as a claim to evaluate, a position to defend, or a decision to justify, reading becomes meaningful. Students know what to look for, what matters most, and how ideas connect.
This aligns directly with what social studies assessments demand: determining central ideas, analyzing cause-and-effect, and using evidence to support conclusions. Let’s explore an experience that promotes connection rather than coverage.
The Core Idea: Start With Lived Reasoning, Then Academicize It
- Before asking students to read like historians, ask them to think like people.
- Adolescent readers already make claims every day—about fairness, power, loyalty, and opportunity—based on lived experiences, social media, music, and community narratives. The instructional shift is not to replace that thinking, but to surface it, name it, and then show students how school disciplines formalize the same moves.
Try This: Experience → Name → Transfer
- Goal: Engage students authentically first, then transition their thinking into academic, discipline-specific reading.
Step 1. Start with an experience, not a text (5 minutes)
- Present a relatable scenario, image, short quote, or dilemma—no worksheet, no reading yet.
- Example: “A group of students follows all the rules but still doesn’t get access to the same opportunities as others. Is that fair? Why or why not?”
- Students turn and talk, vote, or write a quick response. The key is opinion grounded in reasoning, not correctness.
Step 2. Name the thinking students already used (3 minutes)
- Pause and make the invisible visible.
- Say something like: “You just made a claim. You gave reasons. You weighed fairness, power, and opportunity.” This step validates students’ thinking and reframes it as intellectual work rather than just talk.
Step 3. Transition to the academic task (10–15 minutes)
- Now introduce the text and make the bridge explicit, for example, you might say, “Historians do the same thing you just did, but they use evidence from texts to support their claims.”
- Scaffold: Plant two to three vocabulary words, sentences, or phrases that may cause a barrier to accessing the text.
- State the inquiry question: What claim can we make about power or opportunity in this historical moment?
- Students read with a clear purpose: find evidence that supports, challenges, or complicates their initial thinking.
Step 4. Close the loop: from life to discipline
- End by naming the transfer: “You didn’t start reading to answer questions—you read to test your thinking.”
- Allow time for students to capture their final thoughts by writing to capsulate their claim and provide evidence that supports or challenges the claim. This reinforces reading as a tool for meaning-making, not task completion.
Why This Works (and Why It’s Repeatable)
- Simple: No special materials—just a prompt, a pause, and a bridge.
- Authentic: Honors adolescent identity and lived experience first.
- Disciplinary: Makes academic thinking a refinement of existing reasoning, not a replacement.
- Repeatable: The same structure works across units, grade levels, and content areas.
Click here for an overview of the process.
As the semester begins and the pace of the season picks up, remember coverage may get you through the curriculum, but connection gets students thinking—and thinking leads to learning that sticks. Give students opportunities to make decisions, explain their reasoning, and engage deeply with ideas; these moments turn content into understanding.
This article draws on findings from my doctoral dissertation: Walker, N. (2024). [Effective Reading Strategies for African American Boys in Urban Elementary Schools]. Texas Wesleyan University.
Dr. Nikita Walker is a dynamic academic leader in her 29th year as an educator, currently serving in an HR role supporting building leaders with instructional growth and leadership development. She holds a doctorate in Educational Leadership, with expertise in PK–5 curriculum and a specialized focus on reading and literacy development. Her goal as an educator and author is to bridge research and practice by supporting leaders and teachers in creating learning experiences that move beyond coverage and lead to meaningful, lasting student learning.