Something that I have been thinking about...

I was laying in bed last night thinking about what gets me motivated to read in the content areas.  I do not mind reading social studies now at my age, 28.  I actually enjoy it.  An exciting night with my husband is watching a historical documentary on WWII or Alexander the Great on the History channel (We are a wild couple!).  But at the ages of 10, 11, 12...24, I was not interested at all in content area reading either.  I really had to think deep at what flipped on the switch to enjoy those things rather than dread them.  The thing that got me started enjoying studying history was the fact that I was teaching it and I did not want to be boring my students the way that I used to get bored.  As a new teacher, I knew that I had certain standards to address and a certain curriculum to follow.  As I was figuring out what to do and what to teach, no where in all that technical stuff was this statement, "All social studies instruction must be boring, dry, and uninteresting."  I only found it boring, dry, and uninteresting because of the way that previous history instruction had been provided to me.  I knew that I had to change the way that I taught if I wanted to create a love for the content area I was teaching.  This is what changed my love of social studies.  I was entertained by my own teaching.  Previously, no one attempted to activate my schema.  No one took the time to hook me in before we opened the textbook by telling me a story.  No one gave me an interesting quote to think about.  There were no pictures showing me a battle scene.  There were no short video clips or reenactment scenes to look at.  There were no battle songs to listen to or short pictures books read aloud to me.  I think you get where I am headed here.  We have to get students excited about these items if we want to get them motivated.  They have to see social studies as an exciting part of their day.  No one gets excited when they see a social studies textbook.  There are no statements, "YES!  I cannot wait to be bored to death by my excruciatingly dull social studies textbook!"  You have to supplement the excitement to make the textbook a somewhat enjoyable experience.  Here is a link to a website that may help give you ideas on where to go with your supplementation.  A Book In Time  offers maps, book lists, craft ideas, games, etc to help drum up some excitement to add to the valuable information in your social studies textbook.  Motivation will come to learn from the textbook if you can appeal to students need to be entertained.  I am not sure how many people, especially younger students, are entertained by a lecture where they get little opportunity to discuss.  Give them something to look forward to and the learning and motivation will come!