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Thematic Approach

• "Letting Go": Rethinking Teaching World History at the Secondary Level. A Plan for a One-Year Thematic World History Course
  This paper examines the shortcomings of the area studies approach and the comprehensive chronological world history survey approach to teaching world history courses. The study notes the increasing interdependence of the world and its people and advocates a thematic world history approach.
• African Literature in the Secondary English Language Arts Classroom
  Explains how a teacher's trip to Africa reinforced his commitment to a multicultural literature program. Recommends several books that might be incorporated into thematically-driven multicultural units such as "traditional tales," "rites of passage/search for identity," "cultures colliding," and "colonialism and its aftermath." (TB).
• An Integrated Language Perspective in the Elementary School: An Action Approach. Third Edition
  This updated third edition is a handbook for teachers to bring the reflective inquiry emphasis of integrated curriculum theory to life in the elementary and middle school classroom. It takes an action approach to implement theory and practice in educating students for a democratic, multicultural society.
• Character Education through Story: K-6 Lessons To Build Character through Multi-Cultural Literature
  This resource manual integrates literature and social studies with an emphasis on character development. Using children's literature as a catalyst for investigating representative cultures, the manual's curriculum writers crafted multicultural, integrated, thematic lessons for the K-6 classroom that can be used throughout the year.
• Religious Music and Multicultural Education
  Discusses religious music as an extraordinarily rich resource supplementing multicultural education. Considers the divisive and problematic nature of some religious music, exemplified by a trio of Jewish students refusal to sing "St.
• Restructuring Kindergarten in an Urban School District: The Case of Newark, New Jersey
  A collaborative project of Bank Street College and the Newark Public Schools, the New Beginnings initiative was designed to bring about progressive restructuring of kindergarten classrooms. This study used a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to examine the impact of the initiative on curriculum, professional development, and student outcomes in its first year.
• The How of It: A Cultural Program Resource Guide, Innovative Educational Tools for Designing a Thematic Cultural Program. Culture at a Glance Series
  The study of other cultures enables learners to become aware of diversity and promotes their understanding, appreciation, and respect of people from other times and places. This document sets forth a cultural program that teachers and curriculum planners can use for building an in-depth curriculum by expanding content and concepts and integrating it with all other disciplines.
• Thematic Literature and Curriculum for English Language Learners in Early Childhood Education. ERIC Digest
  The incorporation of age- and language-appropriate thematic literature into the early childhood curriculum can stimulate content-based academic learning for English language learners (ELLs). This systematic approach is particularly beneficial to young ELLs ages 3 through 8, because it provides background knowledge and cultural information along with opportunities to hear, speak, and interact with carefully crafted language in thematic and story contexts.
• Tumacacori National Historical Park: Making History Come Alive. "Encounters" Fourth Grade Teachers' Guide.
  This 9-unit curriculum guide for 4th grade includes activities relating to the cultural and environmental history of southern Arizona, specifically the area known as the Pimeria Alta. The guide was designed by a group of teachers to be thematic and sequential, and to deal with the encounters of various cultures that are the history of the Santa Cruz Valley.
• World Saver Center
  Conservation is a concern for all cultures, and children are familiar with this concept because of recycling in their homes and home towns. The World Saver Center, an example of the thematic approach to learning, is designed to allow children to experiment with concepts of conservation in a familiar setting.