FROM THE EDITORS The snow has finally stopped falling in Ohio, and outdoor school sports teams don’t have to worry about ice on their playing fields. In social studies classrooms across the state, students are getting jittery for the end of the year, while teachers worry if they are going to be able to make it to those last points in their curriculum map. At the same time, many teachers are very aware of the significant changes coming to schools across Ohio and the country. The implementation of the Common Core, new state social studies standards, new formative testing systems, and a much-debated teacher evaluation system are all on a horizon that no longer looks so far away. All of these changes remind those of us in the field of social studies that debates about the content, teaching strategies, and evidence of student learning matter. These debates are impacting policy and decisions at both state and national levels. This issue focuses on literacy, following up on the OCSS fall conference theme—“Critical Times, Critical Literacies.” Here we are pleased to share 11 pieces, two of which relate details about classroom practice and four of which highlight research related to teaching strategies and key questions. At the same time, we are pleased to share a few special features. Our first special feature is a focus on a classroom teacher, Bill Hilt of Perrysburg City Schools. Mr. Hilt talks us through a significant service learning project and how it impacted one student in his class. Through this piece, we hear more about civic literacy through his thinking around the assignment and the raised awareness that the “Diversity Project” had on in his classroom. Our Social Studies in Practice section presents two pieces about various literacies in various classrooms from visual literacy to just war frameworks to global perspectives. In the first, Journell details how teachers might use the television show “The West Wing” to teach about elections in off-presidential election years. At the same time, in the second piece in the section, Teegarden, Eisenhardt, and Steele take us into a primary classroom and help us understand the possible lives of third graders and how teachers might seek to expand student worldviews through contextualized problem-solving. Manuscripts in the Social Studies in Research section draw our attention to integration, discussion strategies, advocacy, and media literacy. The authors of “Teaching Children about Symbols Using Balanced Integration of Art and Social Studies” demonstrated how integration of art enhanced student learning. Shargel and Passe explored the impacts of dyadic learning and the classic peer-guided havruta tradition on students’ discussion, reporting that “students enthusiastically embraced this format, citing both social and intellectual benefits. Maguth and Moore use test results, policy analysis and context to detail the impact of policy decisions on the lives and thinking of students in Ohio schools. “The Campaign to save World History in Ohio’s Schools” serves as one key piece in understanding the consequences of state legislation, both intended and not. Our last research piece by Ching-Fu Lan leads us toward a possible framework for conceptualizing democratic media literacy. In an age where the digital lives of our students 1 Ohio Social Studies Review, Spring 2013, Issue 50, Volume 1 From the Editors impacts both their learning and their identity formation, Lan reminds us of key points to consider about the roles technology is playing in the education process. Finally, Pearcy critiques textbooks in his piece “Textbook Depictions of the Fugitive Slave Act: A Case for Historical and Moral Literacy,” arguing that “as much as we emphasize historical literacy, we should also remember that social studies, more than other subjects, deals regularly with moral issues.” In our special features section, we highlight a key issue for social studies teachers—how to build inquiry skills in the context of the Common Core. Anderson and Ross give us one possible direction with their C.S.I. (compare, support, inform) approach. In the second piece, James Shiveley shares a bibliography organized by standards and structured to support teachers looking for text resources to guide instruction. This resource list is comprehensive, and will continue to be updated. Finally, we conclude this edition of the Ohio Social Studies Review by sharing the first of submissions to our book and film review feature. Frans Doppen reviewed Howard Zinn’s adaptation--A Youth History of the United States. He relays the positive reactions of his middle childhood methods students toward this history and recommends it as a supplement in methods courses and junior high/middle school classrooms. As always, we encourage you to search the archive for articles from past hard copy editions that are available as PDFs from the Ohio Council for the Social Studies website. Also don’t forget to revisit the first online edition of the journal from Spring 2012. We are hoping you will consider submitting a manuscript for the fall edition of the journal. Submit your full-length manuscript or special feature article to: http://edhd.bgsu.edu/ossr/journal/index.php/ossr/index. The submission deadline is July 5, 2013 and this edition has an open call. We look forward to reading your research, hearing about classroom practices and teachers in the field. We also look forward to your comments and reactions to this issue and hope it contributes to increasing your awareness of literacy in the social studies in these critical times. Engaged, informed voices can do much to move our field forward. We hope this edition does some small part. Nancy Patterson, Executive Editor John Fischer, Associate Editor Fran Doppen, Associate Editor Ohio Social Studies Review, Spring 2013, Issue 50, Volume 1 2 MAKING EVERY YEAR A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION YEAR: USING THE WEST WING’S SANTOS/VINICK RACE TO SIMULATE ELECTION POLITICS Wayne Journell, University of North Carolina at Greensboro Abstract This article makes a case for using The West Wing’s Santos/Vinick presidential election as a way to simulate election politics in civics and government courses. The series provides a behind-the- scenes view of the political decisions made by both fictional campaigns throughout the course of the primary and general elections. Teachers can use the content contained within the storyline to make connections to aspects of the formal curriculum found in typical survey courses and creating opportunities for authentic learning by allowing students to place abstract content into a practical context. As the 2012 presidential election unfolded, first through the Republican primary and then the general election, social studies teachers across the United States tweaked their syllabi to include election-related projects and assignments. Presidential elections are one of the few high-profile political events in the United States that captures the attention of both political scientists and the general public, while creating an ideal opportunity for authentic learning that allows teachers to apply the formal curriculum to a real-life context for students (Haas & Laughlin, 2002). Since presidential elections only occur every four years, however, teachers are often unable to offer this type of engagement with electoral politics for the vast majority of their students. In this article, I make a case for using The West Wing’s Santos/Vinick election as a way of recreating the context of a presidential campaign for high school civics and government courses. Writing in Political Science & Politics over a decade ago, Beavers (2002) argued for the use of The West Wing as a pedagogical tool in undergraduate political science courses. The series, which aired on NBC from 1999 to 2006, has been the subject of much analysis by both film scholars and political scientists, most of whom agree that the series provides viewers with a nuanced view of the American presidency, albeit within the context of a television drama (e.g., Gladstone-Sovell, 2006; Parry-Giles & Parry-Giles, 2006; Rollins & O’Connor, 2003). Creator Aaron Sorkin went to great lengths to develop storylines that were as realistic as they were entertaining, often employing former White House staffers from both sides of the aisle, such as Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan and Clinton Press Secretary Dee Dee Meyers, as consultants (Levine, 2003; Pompper, 2003). In a special episode that aired at the conclusion of the third season, former Presidents Ford, Carter, and Clinton, as well as prominent staffers dating back to the Nixon administration, all touted the realism of the series based on their personal experiences working in the White House. Of course, the primary mission of The West Wing was to court viewers; therefore, Sorkin and subsequent writers often took dramatic license with certain material that may have created a Ohio Social Studies Review 6 disconnect between the fictional presidency depicted onscreen and the “real” West Wing (Jones & Dionisopoulous, 2004; Levine, 2003; Parry-Giles & Parry-Giles, 2006; Skewes, 2009). Conservative critics also chided what they viewed as a liberal bias in The West Wing’s depiction of government officials and policymaking. Jon Podhoretz (2003) once described the show as “the ultimate Hollywood fantasy: The Clinton White House without Clinton” (p. 222). Generally, the presidency created by Sorkin is one in which the office is treated with dignity and reverence. Some critics have argued that such a depiction of the presidency is unrealistic in that it portrays Americans’ ideal image of the individual they wish occupied the Oval Office rather than a more accurate portrayal of presidents who are multidimensional and inherently flawed (Giglio, 2000; Parry-Giles & Parry-Giles, 2006; Quiring, 2003). Despite these limitations, Beavers (2002) argues that The West Wing can serve as a pedagogical tool, provided that teachers treat the TV series as a type of text that needs to be critically analyzed and interpreted through such exercises as making comparisons between the series and real-life political events.