Social Studies

Social studies texts provide information about specific history events. These events can be, economics, history, geography, political science, and behavioral science. When I choose social studies textbooks for my classroom I will make sure to select a large variety of books so I have many resources to match whatever I’m teaching. I want to select textbooks that will represent my students’ background in way, or books that will make my students identify themselves with. Social studies is the study of people and the world around us. These books are important in a classroom because they will make foreign students feel like at home. When I select books I will make sure they are very appealing for my students since I want to get them involved in my classroom. One criteria that I will look for in the books that I am selecting is appropriateness. I want to select books which contain vocabulary words that are appropriate for the grade level that I'm teaching. I plan to have multiple social studies texts available for my students to read on their own time and some of the books I will use for a read-aloud. 


McCollum, S. (1999). Kenya. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Carlrhoda Books.

 Grade level in which text is considered complex:

• Second & Third

 Grade level for read-aloud

• First & Second grade 

This book provides information about the different land-forms, cultures, location, and climate in Kenya. I like this book because it contains a pronunciation guide which helps students pronounce difficult words that appear throughout the book. The book has already identified the complex words and has placed them in bold letters. Also, these words can be found at the back of the book under the glossary. This book provides fun and factual information about the country's most important aspects. It provides information about Kenya’s ethnic groups, how they live, where they live, what they eat, etc. It also contains information about the different animals found in Kenya. I like the illustrations in this book because they are very appealing most of them are real life pictures. Also, the text features like the font size and style make the book more suitable for the kids.


Morvan, Jean David. (2015). Omaha beach on d-day. New York, NY: Dupuis.


 Grade level in which text is considered complex:

• Fourth and Fifth 

Grade level for class read-aloud:

• Third and fourth 

The major theme discussed in this book  is
 World War II (WWII). The book talks about a 
photographer of D-day during World War II. His
 book starts out as a comic book, and then it
 explains what happened during Dooms Day 
also known as D-Day. It talks about how the
photographer almost got shot a couple of times.
 As the book goes on, more details about D-day are
 given and towards the end it shows 9 real life photos 
that were taking that day during the battle. This would be an interesting book for a boy to read since it starts out as an action comic book about a war and later on it provides real life pictures and information about what happened that day. Action and adventure books are often preferred by males. These books usually contain an informal type of voice which means that the book uses pronouns as if it was talking to you. These types of books are often organized in a chronological way, descriptive form, or in a cause & effect way. Most history books are either action or adventure, the action part can be found in information about wars, and the adventure part on how America was discovered.