Curiosity is a muscle—it gets stronger the more you use it. But our modern environment, from the passive entertainment most students enjoy in their free time to the “one right answer” educational environment created by ubiquitous testing, has atrophied many students’ natural curiosity to the point where they struggle to access this most basic instinct. There are many great Social Studies resources for teachers out there, but here are five easy-to-implement strategies that are benefitting students in my classroom.
To retrain their brains, I’ve found short, regular bursts of practice have done wonders for my students this year. I’ve struggled with feeling like I was “giving up time” to warm-ups in the past, but this year I developed a practice that has paid huge dividends over time as my students have developed their inquiry muscles. Inspired by my trainer at CI Summit this summer, I made a schedule of warm-ups for the week: Map Monday, Thinking Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday, Biography Friday. The structure of the routine has freed them from wondering what to do and given them the confidence to exercise their curiosity in a way that doesn’t involve barraging me with questions.
Image Analysis Using Standardized Questions
For my mid-week warm-ups, I project an image of an artifact related to our study with the same three questions every time:
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What do you observe?
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What can you infer from your observations?
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What hypothesis can you make about the people who created this and the place it was created?
I follow an In2Out structure for this activity. I give students five minutes to write, then one minute to turn and talk to their partner about what they wrote. Then I have students share out in a structured class discussion for two to four minutes. It’s been a great way to stoke their curiosity for the lesson and is a completely free resource that all Social Studies teachers can adapt for their own curriculums.
Biography Friday - Weekly Mini-Research
Every Friday, my students have five minutes to research the Saint of the Week in terms of their dates, significance, patronage, and iconography. Each member of their group is responsible for one aspect, and they all have to share their information with each other. I love this because they have to negotiate about who does what, and they’re also able to support each other with corroborating information, which is a key research skill we want them to develop.
I love this strategy because it’s an entirely free resource that all Social Studies teachers can adapt to their own curriculum. For example, if I were teaching U.S. History, I would adjust this activity to shine a spotlight on all those individuals that show up in the standards, and I would change the four research categories to dates, significance, associated events, and notable features or quotable quotes.
Using Primary Sources to Defend a Point of View
By preparing my students with short, daily practice in curiosity, I find that their brains are primed to go further with their inquiry on larger projects. Students are compelled by competition when given scenarios where they have to use evidence to back up a point of view. They love a good court case where they have to prove their point using evidence from documents like the Bill of Rights, the Magna Carta, or Justinian’s Code.
Games of Chance
They’ve also really enjoyed drawing conclusions from games where they’ve gotten a taste of historical experiences. For example, when they were researching the Silk Road by visiting stations to complete their notes, I added a dice rolling activity related to the information at each station with different outcomes based on the number they rolled. The group with the most points at the end of the activity had earned the greatest profit from their merchant journey and got house points in our schoolwide competition.
Research Projects
When possible, introducing elements of student choice in projects helps students pursue the things that spark their curiosity. Yes, there are things they MUST know about certain people and events, but there can also be room for things they WANT to know about these things.
I designed a Renaissance Influencer project where students created an Instagram page for a famous artist, writer, or scientist from the Renaissance. There were required elements such as their daily life, achievements, and influence on culture, but there were also options such as Outfit of the Day, Meet a Friend for Lunch, or Confront a Rival. Each of those categories required students to think more deeply about what life was like for those notable individuals.
Don’t have time to design your own project? Teacher’s Discovery can help you out! Hero or Villain Blank Posters Set of 35 and PikTok Blank Posters Set of 35 are both flexible for any content you’re teaching.
Alexis Gross is an 8th grade European History teacher at All Saints Episcopal School in Fort Worth, Texas. She has taught Social Studies for 21 years with a focus on literacy, language acquisition, and critical thinking.
