Chapter 7: Supporting Inclusion with Higher Order Thinking and Reasoning

Among challenges facing teachers in social studies classes are the dual needs to teach students to apply complex reasoning skills across history, civics, geography, and economics, and to assure that all students, including those with a variety of disabilities fully benefit from that instruction. A response to this dual challenge may be illustrated by how social studies teachers implement research and evidence-based strategies to support inclusion for students with a range of learning needs and supports. In this chapter, we propose that social studies educators implement instructional procedures called higher order thinking and reasoning (HOTR) routines developed and researched with attention to both the needs of a wide range of student needs and the increasingly rigorous thinking and reasoning standards required in our social studies classrooms (National Council for the Social Studies [NCSS], 2013). It is our belief that teachers do not need to reduce rigorous thinking and reasoning to provide access to the content for diverse populations, and HOTR routines provide a pathway to create more inclusive social studies classrooms.