Writing a Social Studies Story
Combine Story Writing with Social Studies Facts
Creating a good short story with social studies facts on a specific concept.
Writing a story can be daunting if the student does not have a recipe on how to write a good short story. Often story writing is left to language class and is eliminated from other subjects. Students will learn non fiction quicker with a fun and interesting story.
Social Studies Story Writing Lesson
Objective: Students write a story about a social study concept. The student must include specific information about the concept; however the rest of the story is created by the student’s imagination.
Guided Story Writing
Teacher picks a familiar social study concept with students, such as continents. Teacher asks the class to identify all the seven continents. As well, she will ask them to describe each continent with a few words.
After the information is on the board that must be included in the story, the creative process begins. Teacher outlines the basics of a story
Basics of a Story
Every story has a beginning, middle, and end.
Main character of the story
Villain (character who puts blocks into the main character reaching their goal)
Jokers (character that adds a little humor to the story)
Setting
Problem (what is the problem for the main character to overcome)
Solution (how did the main character solve their problem)
Social Studies story must include the basics of a story and specific information on a concept.
Teacher asks the class what the problem will be involving the continents? After the problem is identified, the teacher can brainstorm with the class the other elements of the story. The teacher will write their ideas on chart paper.
Story may begin with a classic Once upon a time… or something a little less common such as On a cold winter night… Students will write the story with the information from the chart paper.
Sample Social Studies Story
This story is just the beginning of each section of a story and is not complete. The sample is to illustrate how a story can introduce different concepts.
Continents: Africa, Asia, Oceania, North America, South America, Europe, and Antarctica
The story will include each continent and a few physical descriptions of the land.
Social Studies Beginning: On a cold wintry night, an Emperor penguin was stranded in Nunavut, Canada. Nunavut is the largest and newest territory of the three territories located in Canada. The Emperor penguin was a wise animal; he had traveled outside of the Antarctic but never this far from home. He knew he was in North America but did not realize the province of Nunavut alone covered 1.9 million squared kilometers. The penguin began to waddle across the frozen lake to walk home but within a second…
Social Studies Middle: If only I was a little taller, they would be able to rescue us. However, his feeble attempt to gain the attention of a worker on the 100 feet oil rigger was not being noticed. Jimmy, the emperor penguin was frustrated because he still was unable to return home and he missed home very much. If only the polar bear’s dad knew the importance of his home. Jimmy quickly went to tell Naku’s dad all about the seven continents and their wonders...
Social Studies End: Naku, Iqualit, and Jimmy reach Antarctica and as he waves goodbye to his friends, he realizes the journey was worth all the hard work because now he had two best friends on the other side of the world…
It is important to model a story to illustrate how non fiction information can be placed in a short story. Students can be given specific non fiction concepts to create a story and later, share with the class. Many social studies concepts have many components such as the solar system. Students can create stories individually or in pairs or small groups. Learning about the solar system will be more interesting with a few explosions, black holes, and an alien that must find a way to pass the obstacle course ring on Saturn.
