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Reis, S. M., Eckert, D., Schreiber, J., Jacobs, J., Briggs, C., Gubbins, J., & Muller, L. (2005). The Schoolwide Enrichment Model reading study (RM05214). Storrs: University of Connecticut, The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented.

Shea, M. (2015). Differentiating writing instruction: Meeting the diverse needs of authors in a classroom. Journal of Inquiry and Action in Education, 6(2), 80-118.

Wood, P. (2008). Reading instruction with gifted and talented readers: A series of unfortunate events or a sequence of auspicious results? Gifted Child Today, 31(3), 16-25. https://doi.org/10.4219/gct-2008-783

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I'm still struggling to figure out how to schedule everything into the week. How do others balance read aloud, independent reading, independent writing, mini lessons, conferences, book clubs, inquiry based learning projects, vocabulary, book check-out time? Distance learning has expanded my thinking to some digital options. Would I be short-changing my students if I made video mini-lessons and assigned mini-lessons based on student need rather than teaching mini lessons whole-class style?

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Same Expert Area/Topic - Different Genres or Text Formats

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Same Expert Area/Topic - Different Genres or Text Formats

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Same Genre - Different Expert Areas/Topics of Interest 

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Same Genre - Different Expert Areas/Topics of Interest 

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Read Aloud Option for Revolutions AND RL.7.3

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Read Aloud Option for Revolutions AND RL.7.3

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Read Aloud Option for "The Emerging Modern World" AND RL.7.3 

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Read Aloud Option for "The Emerging Modern World" AND RL.7.3 

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Read Aloud Option for Revolutions AND RL.7.9

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Read Aloud Option for Revolutions AND RL.7.9

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Read Aloud Option for Industrial Revolution AND RL.7.9

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Read Aloud Option for Industrial Revolution AND RL.7.9

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Students need authentic opportunities to write for a variety of purposes and audiences (Shea, 2015). Writing across content areas provides a more comprehensive picture of a student's ability to write for different purposes and the practice is mutually beneficial for grappling with new Social Studies concepts.

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Wood (2008) points out that it's a myth that gifted readers should have complete control over their reading choices, asserting that teachers have a responsibility to guide students to read a wide range of literature.

Carefully curated text sets centered on Social Studies topics/concepts could be used to offer student choice while exposing them to different genres and text formats.

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(Reis et al., 2005)

Read aloud and shared readings provides a perfect opportunity for students to access particularly challenging texts, such as primary source documents, in Social Studies.

Where students were missing important details as they struggled through unfamiliar language and format on their own, read aloud could be used to model reading and pause strategically for guided discussions.

In addition to primary sources, I could offer read aloud choices that I know have themes, conflicts, and settings that have connections to the current unit in Social Studies.

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As a middle school ELA teacher, I am always looking for ways to challenge my gifted students. When I noticed that history was also part of this focus area, the choice became a no-brainer. In an effort to make learning more meaningful, our ELA and Social Studies PLCs decided to push to become more interdisciplinary.

Our school has always pushed for cross-curricular connections, because we don't exist in a vacuum. Students must see and be able to make meaningful connections between knowledge sets. Unfortunately, due to a high teacher turnover rates, our school has struggled to maintain some of the integrity of interdisciplinary work.

Last year, a Social Studies colleague, and first year teacher, came to me frustrated that her students were struggling to pull out key concepts and themes from their readings and research. Around that same time, I had several students express that they didn't see why they needed to read science fiction or historical fiction novels. The solution immediately became apparent and we started restructuring our units, as much as we were able, so that our content areas supported one another. I could align our skills-based mini lessons with the Social Studies reading, research, and writing tasks, and with some adjustments, students started to make connections between the themes, settings, and power dynamics in fiction (and nonfiction) relate to "the real world".

We're still in the beginning phases of the "merger", and there are certainly skeptics, so we're constantly seeking research-based practices to justify and improve the quality of our instruction. When I saw that the three content areas, reading, writing, and history, appeared together, I was hoping to find strategies and resources that would help blend the three together. Although there weren't too many explicit connections between the three in the readings, synthesis of the readings brought out some practical applications and strategies.