Why build literacy skills?

I know as teachers we already have quite a lot on our plates. We have so much content to get through as it is that adding in literacy skills seems like just another thing to pile on top of us. It's easy to just brush it off and think "well their former teachers should have taught them these things already." or "the LA teachers will take care of this." But when only 66% of graduating seniors in 2011 met the English standards expected of students entering college it becomes an issue for all teachers (Evans and Clark, 2015). In 2006 40% of students entering college needed to take remedial English classes (Evans and Clark, 2015). As teachers we often lament about the reading and writing skills of our students as we grade yet another essay from a 9th grader that reads like a 6th grader wrote it. But if we will not step up and teach our students to meet the standards they should be then who will? As Ghandi famously stated "be the change you wish to see in the world." And is that not why we became teachers in the first place? To help change and better the lives of our students?

But why us? Why the social studies teachers? Why do we have to be the ones to pick up the slack? Due to the nature of what we teach there is almost an endless amount of way to convey information to our students. We can use non-fiction books, newspapers, the internet, maps, photographs, primary documents, the list is endless (Ogle, Klemp, Mcbride, 2007).

As social studies teachers we have been given the task to broaden our students view of the world, to expose them to new ideas and places. What children learn will shape their views on the world as they grow up and become members of the "global community" (Ogle, Kemp, McBride, 2007). In more way than one we are shaping the future citizens of our country. What we teach, especially the history of the last 150 years or so will be incredibly relevant to their lives as they continue to grow. We want our students know about the horrors of the holocaust to prevent something like that from ever happening again. We want them to understand deep rooted racist history of the Jim Crow South so they may continue to make America a country of true equal opportunity for all races. We want them to understand the importance of political efficacy and participation so that they know they can have a say in the government that represents them. As Winston Churchill once said "those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it." There are endless examples of the importance of learning history, and if our students are not equipped with the literacy skills to effectively do so then it is up to us to build those skills.