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Teaching about matters of ethnicity, race, and culture in the social studies is controversial in nature, but necessary to ensuring students are leaving the classroom with some multicultural competence. In social studies , discussion of race and racism is typically confined to the master narrative, which is limited to content pertaining to slavery, the Civil War, and the Civil Rights Movement. What is missed in the discussion about racism in the social studies is the conversation about intraracial racism or discrimination, which may not be a mainstream topic, but a persistent and ever-present issue within Black communities. The purpose of this article is to provide teachers with activities that can elicit discussion about Black intraracial discrimination, a harmful legacy of slavery and colonization. By using various pedagogical tools for discussion of intraracial discrimination, teachers will be incorporating a controversial, but culturally relevant, topic into the curriculum as well as ensuring that students become aware of matters of culture and race that exist beyond the textbook.

The purpose of this paper is to provide secondary social studies practitioners with a research-based adaptable lesson plan aligned with the National Council for the Social Studies Thematic Strands and its C3 Framework incorporating the digitized collection of the National Gallery of Art and Visual Thinking Strategies to foster historical understanding through a student-driven process of online gallery curation.

The author describes the connections between constructivist learning and technology integration in the classroom, linking technological, visual, and social studies literacy. The internet mediates student experience. It is both text-based and image-saturated; therefore, it is important for students to develop fluency with the written word and visual literacy. To remain technologically relevant, teachers must harness the potential of the internet to aid students with the development of their analytic and evaluative skills. The paper outlines an adaptable method for incorporating technology and art into social studies classroom practice in order to build visual literacy, historical understanding, and skills in evidence-based research.

The National Council for the Social Studies has outlined various analytic, communicative, and evaluative skills that students should acquire for social studies literacy. This paper provides insight as to how utilizing digitized collections of artwork has the potential to engage students in active, constructivist learning in order to acquire social studies literacy.

The paper is of value to secondary practitioners who wish to incorporate visual art, technology, and constructivist learning techniques in their classrooms.