The Knowledge Matters Podcast

The Power of Historical Knowledge with Louisiana Teachers | History Matters Podcast

Knowledge Matters Campaign

Hello listeners of the Knowledge Matters Podcast! We're thrilled to welcome you to the first season of our new series, the History Matters Podcast. We decided to launch the podcast because, while the national conversation about the science of reading is growing, the role of content knowledge in reading is still woefully understated. In this inaugural season, we explore the vast untapped potential of high-quality history instruction to build knowledge, accelerate literacy, and prepare students to participate in civic life. Enjoy!

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S1E3: The Power of Historical Knowledge with Louisiana Teachers | History Matters Podcast

The more history young students know, the more they want to know. That’s one of the joyful discoveries that teachers are making in Ouachita Parish, Louisiana, which uses a content-rich, knowledge-building elementary social studies curriculum.

In this episode, host Barbara Davidson speaks with elementary school teachers Angela Barfoot and Lauren Cascio. Both teachers describe the rewards of using the Bayou Bridges curriculum, which sets high expectations for student work, in combination with a high-quality ELA curriculum, Louisiana Guidebooks.

Extensive teacher notes, rich texts, engaging visuals, and tie-ins to virtual field trips make for exciting history study in the elementary grades, the teachers say. For example, after studying Native American communities in class, students visited the nearby Poverty Point World Heritage Site and were cheering with excitement on the bus, Barfoot says.

“We’re not even there yet, and the kids start screaming, ‘The bird mound! Mound A!’ And they’re just—they can see it and they are just thrilled out of their minds. . . they were just beyond thrilled that they knew all this!”

Students are also choosing to read about historical topics at the school library, Cascio reports. They are reaching for historical fiction and non-fiction texts about what they’ve learned in social studies.

“Fifth graders love a fact,” she says. “It excites me because I want them to read different genres, and because that’s part of what I need them to do.”

Learning about different people, places, and times is enriching in multiple ways. Between knowledge-building instruction and engaging texts in their social studies and ELA curricula, students are being shown “a world that they’ve never seen before,” Cascio says.

“It is teaching them to think,” Barfoot says. “And to not take things at face value, but to really dive deep.”

Ouachita Parish was recently featured by the Knowledge Matters School Tour; visit our website for more information, including videos of lessons and interviews with students and teachers.

This podcast is produced by the Knowledge Matters Campaign and StandardsWork, on behalf of the History Matters Campaign. Follow the History Matters Campaign on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter/X. Search #historymatters to join the conversation.

Production by Tressa Versteeg. Original music and sound engineering by Aidan Shea.



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