Chapter 1
Chapter 1: Reading For Meaning in Social Studies
Course: Ged Test Prep
Subject: Social Studies
Chapter: Chapter 1 Reading For Meaning In Social Studies
Learning Objectives
Under this topic, you will be required to read social studies extract and answer several questions thereafter. Then you will be required to;
Identify main concepts or ideas within social studies excerpts.
Make the difference between different sources
Analyze primary sources to extract evidence supporting theories, principles, or conclusions drawn within social studies.
Social studies refer to the study of individuals, communities, systems, and their interactions across time and place that prepares students for local, national, and global civic life.
The Merriam Webster dictionary defines social studies is defined as part of a school or college curriculum concerned with the study of social relationships and the functioning of society and usually made up of courses in history government economics, civics, sociology, geography and anthropology.
It can also be defined as an integral study of social sciences and humanities to promote civic competence. According to the national council for the study of social studies (NCSS), social studies is defined as the study of individuals, communities, systems and their interactions across time and place that prepares students for local, national and global social life.
In understanding social studies, learners have to interact with numerous readings, which could be primary or secondary.
While a primary source denotes a manuscript or publication that was created by someone with firsthand knowledge of an event, a secondary source is created by someone at a later time who did not have firsthand knowledge of the event.
Primary sources contain raw data about a specific event and encompass direct evidence. As such, authors of secondary sources depend on the primary sources to improve the leaners’ understanding of social events.
Official government documents, diaries and journals, photographs, speeches and oral histories, artifacts, and newspapers are examples of primary sources. They are imperative in understanding the people’s experiences at the time.
After reading these social studies readings, learners are prompted to summarize and explain the main aspects, themes, and occurrences, to understand the social concepts explored in the various readings.
For instance, Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl (1947), shown in the picture below, is a prominent diary that presents in depth accounts of the Holocaust. In this diary, Anne Frank conveyed her experiences, emotions, and thoughts in the Nazi’s concentration camps.
Example Questions
This excerpt is from Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address delivered at Gettysburg Pa. Nov. 19th, 1863.
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.
It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. “But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Question 1
What concept is a main idea of this excerpt?
A. nationalism
B. natural rights
C. imperialism
D. majority rule
The correct answer in this question is natural rights. We arrived at this answer because the main idea derived from this excerpt is the dedication to preserving and advancing the principles of liberty, equality, and democracy.
In this address, Abraham Lincoln reflected on the sacrifices made by the soldiers during the Civil War that sought to uphold these ideals, underscoring the ongoing responsibility to ensure that their collective efforts were not in vain.
Lincoln mentions the Civil War as an important test of whether a nation founded on the principles of liberty, equality, and democracy underscores the significance of natural rights in the context of the United States’ history.
The soldiers’ sacrifices were in defense of these natural rights and the principles upon which the nation was founded. Therefore, the address calls for a renewed commitment to the cause of freedom and government by the people, signifying a desire for the nation to endure and thrive despite the challenges it faces.