Chapter 6: Exploring Human Rights And Civic Action Through Children’s Trade Books

According to the (National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), social studies is “the integrated study of the social sciences and humanities to promote civic competence” (2010, p. 9). Further, one of the purposes of elementary social studies is “to enable students to understand, participate in, and make informed decisions about their world” ((NCSS, 2017, p. 186). Thus, powerful social studies instruction provides space for elementary students to explore relationships and decisionmaking processes with the goal of becoming responsible citizens who participate locally, nationally, and globally. Infusing social studies instruction with powerful children’s trade books (both fiction and non-fiction) creates a point of access to grapple with challenging topics, such as human rights. In this chapter, an instructional unit is outlined in which the teacher and students use children’s literature, images, and the Inquiry Arc in the C3 Framework ((NCSS, 2013) to explore elementary students’ understandings of human rights.