Planning a Full Social Studies Unit Using Trade Books Instead of Textbooks

Trade books often resonate with students more than traditional textbooks. While the sheer size and scope of a textbook often feels overwhelming for children, trade books tend to feel just right. The key to successfully using trade books for social studies units involves using a few strategies that ensure the ones you choose align with your goals and keep students interested in learning. Using these ideas can help you start including trade books in your lesson plans.

The first thing you’ll want to do is identify the core concepts and objectives that you want the students to learn. At this stage of planning, you’ll simply begin creating the essential questions that you want your students to be able to answer at the end of the unit. Aligning your goals with the state standards for the grade level is one way to make sure students learn what they need to be successful. Or, you might choose to use more advanced goals for individualizing the lessons to fit your students’ learning needs.

Once you’ve determined the core concepts you want to teach, the fun part begins. Curating trade books involves looking for ones that have engaging titles and the ability to capture your students’ interest. For younger students, these books should have high-interest pictures and even a touch of humor. Finding books that include stories about kids your students’ age or that align with their personal interests helps foster connections that enhance learning.

Structuring a Unit Around Multiple Texts

Choosing multiple texts makes it possible to use each trade book to support specific concepts. Ideally, you should break up the main topic you are covering into seven to 10 subtopics. Then, draw from these subtopics to find several books to include in your lessons.

To keep multiple texts from feeling bland or overwhelming, make sure to mix it up. Selecting trade books in different formats exposes students to a diverse range of literature styles. Plus, your students will have fun reading books that stimulate different styles of learning. Informational texts are important when you are using trade books in place of textbooks. But, you can also choose fictional pieces that captivate your students with intriguing stories. Finding books with rich illustrations also brings the stories to life.

Integrating Reading, Discussions and Activities 

Trade books offer greater flexibility for incorporating them into your lessons, since they invite discussion. Trying these ideas can help you begin creating a lesson plan that maximizes your use of the trade books you choose for the unit.

Introduce Books With Traditional Read-Aloud’s 

With young children, you can easily read a picture book out loud while highlighting key moments. For older students, you might take a moment to read the synopsis of the story or do a picture walk through the many pages. Inviting a discussion at this point should inspire curiosity and help answer basic questions that the students may have as they begin reading.

Set Up a Gallery Walk 

If you plan to introduce all of the trade books for a unit at once, then setting up stations is a fun way to give your students an up-close opportunity to explore them. Basing each station on a subtopic helps students to begin grasping what they will be learning. To make this extra fun, include a few artifacts, toys or other hands-on materials that the students can engage with as they explore the book and topic.

Include Project-Based Learning Experiences 

The best trade books can also serve as inspiration for projects that your students can do to demonstrate their knowledge and deepen their understanding. Younger students might create a simple diorama or painting. Meanwhile, older students may create virtual presentations, maps or other artifacts that they can include in their portfolios.

Supporting Different Reading Levels 

Finding trade books that fit your students’ ages and reading levels is important for helping them be successful. If your students have a wide variance in their reading levels, then choose books that support each one. You can also include differentiation in your lesson planning by creating small group interactions.

For developing readers, you might include a few notes on the book’s pages that summarize some of the content. You can also focus on reading the books together to make sure everyone understands the concepts. More advanced readers might enjoy doing a deep dive for vocabulary words in a book, or you could include research topics that allow them to do a self-study project as you work through the unit.

Using Assessment Strategies That Reflect Understanding 

Naturally, you’ll want to make sure to find assessment strategies that go beyond traditional numerical and letter grading systems. Since your students will be delving into the lessons taught by the trade books, you will need to find effective assessment opportunities that go deeper than a few basic questions on a test.

Using assessments that invite reflection helps you to see where your students’ thoughts are going as you work through the unit. Journaling each day or week allows you to quickly assess how your students are developing their ideas behind a core concept. You might use a strategic prompt or simply let your students free-write about what they learned.

You can also use rubrics to check for demonstrations of the students’ understanding of the unit’s goals. Rubrics work well for assessing project-based learning experiences, and these are easily understood by both students and their families when you are engaging in progress discussions.

Creating flexible, engaging social studies units without textbooks is possible when you find trade books that support the objectives you’re planning to teach. Using multiple trade books helps to round out your curriculum, and you’ll enjoy having more control over the concepts your students learn. As you begin preparing your lessons, remember to make this part fun. Reading the texts yourself and making sure they align with the curriculum helps you be ready to provide your students with the lessons they need to succeed in social studies this year.