Social Studies Methodology- Cause and Effect Organizers

Philosophy The main idea is to focus in on cross-curricular skill building techniques. Reading comprehension, functional writing, research-oriented learning, and reflection are all components to the Social Studies methodology. The source book is entitled “The Write Path” for a reason. Writing is something that happens daily.

Cause and Effect Organizer This is a beneficial way of organizing big ideas but does take time to assist our students. I would suggest modeling the activity, using examples, and encouraging some kind of partner/group assistance with the assignment. Finally, allow students to correct their mistakes because it does them no good if they are just told they were wrong. The final product is something that can be used as a study aid…sell that idea and keep it in mind when grading their work. Great way to review understanding or gain insight into comprehension.

Outline of Expectations This is great if focusing in a key event in history or even part of a story.

Here is another student sample so you can see how easy it is to get quality work with limited time. Will we receive results like this at first? Probably not. However, just like any other skill we work on, it is about practice.

Don’ts Don’t assume students understand your expectations from just looking at the examples. They are used to seeing a direct comparison so they will create causes but try to find effects directly to those causes instead effects from the event in discussion. Don’t just use it once and walk away from it. They will struggle, work with them multiple times. Don’t change the format too much. They need this consistent from class to class. Don’t let students decide what is important at first. Great tool for those of you looking for some new way to graphically represent cause and effects.

Previous Uses In my classroom, it has been used as a way to summarize minor wars in US History. I assigned the Mexican War as the event that my students had to research using their textbooks. It was a struggle because of how your students are trained but make it formative and you will see better results.

Justification This activity will create a product for students to use as a review. You don’t have to teach and lecture about the event and put ownership on the students. Students can collaborate and learn to summarize large amounts of material by narrowing it down to causes and listed effects. Students can use higher level thinking skills by inferring possible effects from the event in discussion.

Follow up questions 1. What did you learn or find interesting? 2. How can you apply this knowledge or information to your own classroom or lessons? 3. Did you find this information useful or relevant? 4. What specific information stood out for you? Please explain. 5. Do you have any follow up questions or comments? 9

Sources used Dearie, Kurt and Gary Kroesch. (2011). The Write Path History/Social Science: Interactive Teaching and Learning Teacher Guide Grades 6-12. AVID Press. San Diego

Contact Information Jason Goodwin is in the Social Studies Department If you have any questions about how to implement this strategy please contact him at: jgoodwin@yumaed.org.