This post is by guest author Sarah Bassett, who is a first year first-grade teacher. 

My first year of teaching has struck a balance between exciting, overwhelming, and invigorating. As a first-grade teacher, I am responsible for teaching every subject in a self-contained classroom. This means that, unlike middle or high school level teachers, I don’t have the luxury of wrapping my brain around one single subject. 

Before school started, I was given a large binder filled with curricula for every subject I would teach. My math curriculum came with two teacher manuals that outlined each day’s lessons from start to finish, student workbooks and manipulatives, practice problems for each level of student understanding, and word-for-word explanations for processes. It also shows me how to encourage the students to think deeply about mathematical processes. 

On the other hand, social studies curriculum doesn’t exist much in elementary school. There are some standards, lists of topics, online videos, and great children’s literature, but there isn’t any framework or deeper intellectual schema. I received a student textbook filled with topics including economics, famous American changemakers, and community helpers, but no framework that taught my students how to think about and grapple with the material. While I had no strong feelings about any of the topics covered in this book, it was missing what the math materials had: the thinking and the why. Why should my students care about these important people in our nation? What story did they tell, what choices did they make, and what can we learn from them? 

Fortunately, I had someone I could turn to for help with my social studies problem: My dad is one of the creators of the Four Question Method (4QM). I’ve been using 4QM for social studies all year, and in January I used it to craft a unit on Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights movement. My dad asked me to share my process and thinking on that unit, so here it is!

“Story First!” for MLK

I decided early on to set aside Question Three (“Why then and there?), because it’s very difficult and abstract, and thus really hard for first graders. Instead I focused on Questions One (“What happened?”), Two (“What were they thinking?”), and Four (“What do we think about that?). I wanted my students to know who Martin Luther King was, and also be able to explain why he made the choices he did, and why those choices led him to be an American hero. 

4QM always says “Story First!”, so I spent the first three days teaching my students the story of MLK’s life. As primary teachers will know, students are at various stages of reading, writing, and spelling abilities, so differentiation is crucial. I used videos (I am a big fan of the clear and developmentally appropriate videos from BrainPop Junior) and read-alouds to teach my students the story, with more advanced students doing some independent reading. On day one, we simply focused our brains on the goal of telling a simple story of Martin Luther King. I scribed abbreviated notes on a class anchor chart as my students worked together to put his story into a rough timeline. 

On the second and third days, guided by the Core Knowledge History and Geography student book (Grade 2, Unit 11: Civil Rights Leaders), we worked our way through three major events: the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Sit-Ins, and the March on Washington. These lessons were supported by guided storyboarding of each major event. I differentiated the storyboarding by letting students write, draw, or do both in their boxes. 

(Note: I did not create this sheet, it was a free resource from Curriculum Castle on  TPT). 

Adding Question Two

 Our Question Two was focused mainly on MLK’s intentional decision to protest peacefully. My students learned that he was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi and the peaceful protests he led in India. We discussed how protesters were breaking laws (such as sitting at diners that were White-only) and why they chose to do so. By the end of these lessons, my students had a strong understanding of why MLK made the decisions he did, and how that thinking influenced the Civil Rights Movement as a whole. 

Example of student work describing MLK’s choices of non-violence, an important piece of his story.  Short and sweet!

Closing With Question Four

To close out the unit, we focused on Question Four (“What do we think about that?”): Why do we admire MLK? Why does he get a national holiday? We began by retelling our story, this time with me scribing on our whiteboard while my students worked together to retell things. Let me tell you, this was EPIC. The kids were sponges and I was so impressed by how much they remembered about the story – details and all! Throughout this unit, my students were working on an informational writing piece about MLK, and I noticed that as my students became more articulate speakers and thinkers in class discussions, their writing became clearer. “Story First” allowed students who find writing difficult to work out the story orally, and their understanding then transferred to their writing more easily.

My abbreviated scribing of my students’ retelling of our story for the unit.

We determined a few reasons why MLK is admirable: He was a role model for peaceful protesting, he helped to change laws around segregation and the public’s perspectives, and he changed the future for people of color in America. In addition to writing their thoughts, my students worked in groups to create posters to spread MLK’s message in our community. A common social-emotional learning theme in younger elementary school years is teaching kindness, empathy, and perspective-taking, and this unit echoed those messages beautifully. 

Example of a student poster 

Teacher and Student Pride

I was filled with pride throughout this unit as I watched my students slowly build a rich knowledge base of the Civil Rights movement. They were able to articulate MLK’s story beyond his famous speech, from Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat to his assassination. Their writing demonstrated an understanding of what MLK was thinking and feeling, why his story is important, and how he became a household name. 

My students have come to love social studies lessons, as evidenced in a recent question from a child, “When are we going to learn another story about someone cool?” (Don’t worry – we moved on to Ruby Bridges the following week and it was a huge hit.) 4QM is the key that has unlocked social studies teaching for me, and I have watched my students become articulate thinkers, speakers, and writers as a result. When you teach students true historical stories and give them the tools to think about them effectively, they feel smart and empowered. 4QM is the pathway to that knowledge and empowerment. 

-Sarah Bassett
Sarah is a first grade teacher at Mater Christie School in Burlington, Vermont.