Text Book Review

Textbook Review Blake Powell
Grand Canyon University: EED465
5/14/2015

Textbook Review “Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today” (MalcolmX, n.d.). In preparing for the future, we also need teach students about the past and how, as a country, we came to be where we are today. In learning about the history of this country, the textbook that will be reviewed is an eighth grade teacher’s edition of “America History of Our Nation Beginnings through 1877 (AHON), Tennessee Edition” (Davidson & Stoff, 2009). In comparing this textbook to the definition of social studies, first one needs to look at what the definition of social studies. According to the text by Chapin, the definition of social studies is “Social studies is the integrated study of the social sciences and humanities to promote civic competence” (Chapin, 2013). The Chapin text also includes “seven themes of social studies; those themes are anthropology, history, geography, psychology, sociology, political science, and economics.” In addition to the themes listed, there are also skills used in social studies learning, and those “four skills are literacy, critical thinking, learning strategies, and personal interaction and civic engagement strategies” (Chapin, 2013). Now the question is, does the AHON textbook fulfill this requirement? Yes, it does. In the special features section of the teacher’s edition it lists different topics that are included in the seven themes of social studies, and how each section fulfills that requirement. For example, the literacy skill includes reading, identifying main ideas and supporting details, determining meaning from context clues, and making inferences and conclusions (Davidson & Stoff, 2009). The textbook also lists each chapter and what state education standards each chapter meets. The second