Social+Studies+Research

**__ Social Studies Research __** In the study, //Exploring the Effectiveness of Journal Writing on Learning Social Studies: A Comparative Study// by Cantrell, Fusaro, and Dougherty two different types of science journals are compared in four seventh grade classrooms. There has been a great deal written about the effectiveness of journal writing on student learning across the curriculum. These researchers set out to see which type of journal was more effective on student learning from social studies textbooks – summary journal writing or KWL style journal writing. Click here for more KWL resources

The KWL strategy was developed by Ogle in 1986 and focuses on what students know, want to know, and what they have learned. The other type of journal focused on having students write summaries of what they had read in their textbooks. Students were given both a pre and post test on the Social Studies content. Both were teacher created multiple choice tests. The results of the tests indicated that students who engaged in K-W-L journal writing had greater learning of social studies content than did students who wrote in summary journal writing. Therefore the authors found that the K-W-L journal writing seems to be more effective than summary journal writing on content learning. The authors attribute these results due to the fact that students had to write both before and after reading in the KWL journals making them more reflective and increasing their understanding. Plus the questions they wrote also led them to read more closely to find the answers to their own questions. Summary writing on the other hand required only after reading responses.

The researchers assert that writing strategies (especially different forms of journal writing) should continue to be integrated into various content area classrooms as a way to help students learn from textbooks. They believe that their study shows that the KWL journal method is a theory-based proven method for increasing student achievement in learning from texts.

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