Teaching Social Studies to Multilingual Learners: Strategy of the Week

• Download Teaching Social Studies to Multilingual Learners: Strategy of the Week

Each week we share one strategy that you can use to meet the needs of your diverse multilingual learners in secondary content classes. This week’s speaking strategy is specifically for secondary social studies teachers but could be adapted for use in many content areas.

Strategy: Carousel

Language Objective: I can discuss with a group by listening to my peers and adding on to the conversation.

CAROUSEL: HOW-TO

Before the Activity

1. Write questions connected to the unit you’re studying on poster paper (one piece of poster paper per question).
2. Hang the posters around the room.

During the Activity

1. Divide students into small groups so that there is one question/poster per group. Give each group of students a different color marker and assign them a question to start with.
2. Instruct students to discuss and write their responses on the poster paper.
3. Have the groups rotate to another question after several minutes. Groups discuss the question and responses. They add on to and provide additional evidence to the responses that are already written.
4. Rotate until students have discussed multiple questions.
5. Debrief each question as a whole class.

Extra Support for MLs

• Provide sentence frames to help students start their discussion.
• Allow students to write their responses before participating in a group discussion.
• Group students who speak the same first language.

Example: Historical Event Analysis

• LT: I can analyze and discuss important events in a time period. After learning about a specific time period, create posters with different key events from that time period. Students discuss important details or read primary sources about that key event, add to their poster, and then rotate to another key event. At the end of the activity, review students’ responses and debrief as a class.

Helpful Links

• Blog post from Read Write Think about this strategy along with examples and related resources 
• Carousel Brainstorming example with planning tips and research links