Promoting Literacy through the Integration of Reading and History

Abstract

This paper provides the rationale underlying the integrated reading-history unit I have created in fulfillment of my Capstone requirements. I begin by calling for the incorporation of any of the content areas into the literacy program, drawing primarily from schema theory. Then, I explain why history is a particularly apt candidate for this sort of cross-disciplinary study. Next, I highlight the key features of the Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) model (Guthrie, Wigfield, and Perencevich, 2004), the inspiration for my unit plan, and describe how I adapted it to fit my purposes. Finally, I describe three instructional principles that guided the design of my unit: clear purpose, constructive assessment, and authentic inquiry. Contains two major components: an essay providing a research-based rationale for the integration of reading and history, and a unit plan that demonstrates how that integration might occur.