Support Culturally-Responsive Social Studies Classrooms
Help students make stronger connections to the world around them and grow into independent, adaptable learners by giving students the context they need to grasp the concepts they’re studying. From news articles of today, to primary sources of the past, learners have access to content that is contextualized to help them successfully progress beyond the memorization of dates and toward practicing analytical and critical thinking skills.
Empower Educators
With new content added and updated regularly, Gale In Context continually incorporates new ways to help students build and practice critical thinking skills. For help engaging students with curriculum-aligned content, teachers turn to Gale In Context: For Educators. Here, users find material that supports state and national standards paired with ready-to-use lesson plans—all to make it easier to achieve instructional goals and meet the needs of diverse learners.
With the instructional support available within Gale In Context: For Educators, teachers can:
- Engage students with a wide variety of primary sources, informational texts from newspapers, magazines, journals, books, videos, images, podcasts, and learning activities—all aligned to the curriculum.
- Differentiate instruction with customizable lesson plans to suit the needs of students at all levels.
- Improve outcomes with built-in checks-for-understanding.
- Collaborate with other educators to ensure continuity within and across teams.
Gale in Context: For Educators has over 1,200 lesson plans that feature questions designed to promote critical thinking by presenting students with artifacts and primary sources that give voice to numerous viewpoints, and by posing essential questions that can serve as readymade writing assignments or used to spark lively class discussions. For Educators teacher tools make it easy to find and organize content for these lessons. Some lesson plans to support ethnic studies include:
- African American History: 1920s and the Jazz Age, African’s Rich History
- African American Literature: African American Folktales, Maya Angelou’s “Harlem Hopscotch” Brainstorm, Between the World and Me: Epistolary Nonfiction, Harlem Renaissance
- Asian American History: Asian American and Pacific Islander Contributions to the United States, Chinese Transcontinental Railroad Workers
- Asian American Literature: Examining Ocean Vuong’s “Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong,” Chinese New Year Poem
- Hispanic American History: The Farm Workers Movement, Mexican American War
- Latinx Literature: Feminine Gender Roles in Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street, Imagery and Symbolism in Gary Soto’s “Oranges”
- Native American History: Investigating the Lasting Impact of Native American Land History, Iroquois People
- Native American Literature: Exploring Theme in Sherman Alexie’s Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Corn Mother Legend of the Penobscot People
- Additional Topics and Biographies: Lessons about Amanda Gorman; Dolores Huerta; Antisemitism; Beginnings of a Diverse Society: Bulletin Board; Bias; Equality, Equity, and Liberation; Housing Inequality: Redlining; Intersectionality
Access Trusted Content
Gale resources support skill-building and the development of information literacy, across a breadth of content that includes financial literacy, sociology, government, and economics because while content is critical for gaining knowledge, the importance of developing source awareness and an in-depth understanding of the context of human events cannot be overstated.
Students seeking factual overviews can choose a reference source. Those wanting to see what people thought at the time can find a primary source. Students hoping to understand why a historical topic is still significant to the world today can consult news or magazine sources. This variety of sources brought together with intentionality enables well-rounded discussions about societal issues—with the necessary context and relevance.
Provide Essential Tools
Teachers and students benefit when content is available in digital resources that work for their individual needs. With the Gale In Context suite, school communities find:
- Efficiency. Integrate seamlessly into existing workflows, including learning management systems like Canvas, Schoology, and Google Classroom. Add to that the power of Google Workspace for Education and Microsoft 365 tools, which enable users to easily share, save, and download content—including highlights and notes.
- Accessibility. Search for content by Lexile range, translate content into more than 50 languages, and view text using the OpenDyslexic font or a variety of readability tools.
- Relevance. As standards and curricula change, your digital resources adapt to meet current and future goals.