How History Knowledge Fuels Literacy and Inquiry | History Matters Podcast

The science of reading is a frequent topic of conversation and source of policy reform, with new mandates for curriculum and instruction coming online in dozens of states this year. But it’s not just for literacy teachers, history educator Amy Rosenkrans notes in this episode of the History Matters Podcast.

In conversation with host Ebony McKiver, Amy says the science of reading has “reinforced what I've been thinking about over the past 25 years of my career” and stresses the importance of knowledge and vocabulary, alongside the excitement that studying history brings to the classroom.

“Content is almost everything in social studies,” she says. “In order for students to understand reading, in order for them to write about it, in order for them to talk about it, they need to know and understand what the content is.”

Amy explains that social studies naturally strengthens literacy by exposing students to diverse texts, building vocabulary, and providing the background knowledge necessary for comprehension. Rather than treating content as secondary to inquiry or reading strategies, she emphasizes that historical knowledge is the foundation that allows students to read, write, discuss, and investigate meaningful questions.

She also highlights the power of connecting history to place. By exploring local landmarks, school names, parks, and historic sites, students discover that major events like the American Revolution or the War of 1812 are part of their own communities. These authentic connections spark curiosity, deepen understanding, and inspire further inquiry. Amy also stresses that discussion-based learning—including Socratic seminars, debates, and evidence-based conversations—helps students develop critical thinking, evaluate sources, and engage respectfully with differing perspectives. (At Knowledge Matters, we couldn't agree more, especially because these rich discussions also build oracy and language skills for the growing population of multilingual students in American public schools.)

Social studies should be one of the most exciting parts of the school day. When teachers provide rich historical content, engaging primary sources, and meaningful context, they cultivate not only stronger readers but also curious learners and thoughtful citizens who are prepared to participate in civic life.

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

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

Transcript

Amy Rosenkrans

If we connect The American Revolution to our community, to the names on the street signs, to the parks in our community, to the names on our buildings, our school buildings, kids can start making those connections. 

Kristen McQuillan

Welcome to Season 2 of the History Matters Podcast. I’m Dr. Kristen McQuillan, Executive Director of Knowledge Matters. This season our hosts, Kyair Butts, Barbara Davidson, and Ebony McKiver, along with their guests, will tell the story of how elementary history instruction serves both literacy and civic goals.

Ebony McKiver

Hello, I'm Ebony McKiver, one of the hosts of the History Matters Podcast. Today, I’m excited to share my conversation with Amy Rosenkrans, former teacher, Director of Humanities, and current instructional coach with Baltimore City Public Schools.

When I talked with Amy, she shared how bringing excitement into the classroom is one of the best things a teacher can do for kids—and social studies is where that excitement really happens. She points out that content isn’t just an add-on to reading and inquiry skills. It’s what makes them possible.

Amy also shows how getting into local history—like the stories behind street names, statues, or even the cannons in a neighborhood park—can turn something like the American Revolution from an abstract idea into something students feel proud to connect with. And by helping kids get to know places, real historical figures, and primary sources, she believes we’re not just building stronger readers, but also thoughtful, engaged citizens.

Because Amy clearly makes a connection between history, engagement and student impact, I think you’ll enjoy this conversation.

Ebony McKiver 

So before we jump in, I have to say that this conversation feels a little full circle to me. A long time ago, before I was doing this work nationally, I was a teacher in Baltimore City Public Schools, and Dr. Amy Rosenkrans was our district's humanities lead.

And one of my favorite professional learning experiences was a course that you actually developed around the Civil War. And as participants, we traveled to sites across Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Washington DC. And before each visit, we had to immerse ourselves in books and historical accounts that helped us understand why those places mattered. 

Looking back, Amy, I realized that experience taught me something really important. Places don't tell stories by themselves. Knowledge gives those places meaning. And in many ways, that idea sits right at the heart of the conversation we're having today. 

So I want to first welcome you and say thank you for agreeing to participate in this conversation we're going to have today. My heart is just full and I am so happy.

Amy Rosenkrans 

Oh wow, Ebony. I don't even know what to say to that. I'm so excited and proud of all the work that you've been doing since you were in Baltimore. 

Ebony McKiver

So as many people really talk about reading and social studies, they talk about them as separate things. And how do you think that relationship between building knowledge and developing strong readers happens?

Amy Rosenkrans 

Well, I think you can build strong leaders through social studies content. Social studies content provides so many different types of texts, whether it be informational text, it could also be narrative text from diaries or things like that. It could be—as I was thinking about this, text information, like text features. All of those things are important things that a social studies teacher teaches, which is a part of reading instruction.

Ebony McKiver

As this conversation around the science of reading really starts to expand—it's, you know, been the topic of conversation for the last few years. How has that influenced or reinforced the way you think about social studies?

Amy Rosenkrans

I think it's reinforced what I've been thinking about over the past 25 years of my career. The idea that background knowledge is important, that in order to understand what you're reading, you need to have some background knowledge. 

The idea that vocabulary is important. When we talk about social studies, there's so much tier two and tier three unique vocabulary words that students need to understand. And that's something that we've been working on for the past two decades or so, I—or more, I would say—at least in Baltimore City. 

And then the idea of learning how to read different texts. All of those things are aspects of the science of reading that we've been talking about lately.

Ebony McKiver

As we're having this conversation in social studies, we are often talking about, you know, the C3 framework and inquiry. And then we're talking about historical thinking skills and what that means for a student. And now background knowledge has entered into the conversation. 

For me, it sometimes feels like the content itself is getting treated as secondary. So I wanna ask you, why does content matter so much in social studies? And what do we lose when students don't have that rich foundation of historical knowledge?

Amy Rosenkrans

Content is almost everything in social studies. In order for students to understand reading, in order for them to write about it, in order for them to talk about it, they need to know and understand what the content is.

So if we're talking about the Civil War in Maryland and the students have to do some type of inquiry on the Civil War in Maryland, they really need to understand: What was the Civil War? What was the role that Maryland played in it? And then they need to be able to continue on with that information. If students don't have content, they can't do the rest well. 

And one of the things that I think is also an important thing to think about when we talk about content goes also back to what you were saying and the idea of place, right? When you are in a place, when you see a place and when you can read the place. We used to talk about reading a historical site as text, right? There's all sorts of different texts. 

When we're able to provide students with those experiences, whether it be about reading it, even better if they're in the place. If we're learning about the War of 1812, we go to Fort McHenry, they're in the place where the flag was still there! That provides a whole new context and content that just is incredible for students—and teachers, by the way.

Ebony McKiver

But you also really just made me think about something when you're talking about the place, right? Because I see it as the same thing, as reading the place and close reading skills. 

So when we ask students to participate in close reading, we're saying: Okay, the first time you're going to see a text, you're just going to tell me what do you notice about it? What do you think, you know. This is going to be about? What feelings does this invoke for you before we even get into understanding and walking through the text?

And then in that second—you know, in that close read, then we're asking students to really read it. And then this was when we say: Okay, what's the main idea? What questions do you—does this text arise? And then that last piece of this is like, how do you apply that? 

And so when you—again, when you experience a place, it is the same thing. As soon as you, you know, walk up to Fort McHenry, it's like, what do you see? And that also recalls back to, you know, the text and everything that students have been reading. And so it continues to build that knowledge.  

And so this is a great question then because we've already sort of been speaking to it. How—explicitly say, how does knowledge and inquiry work together especially for, again, our elementary students?

Amy Rosenkrans

I think it's a circle, right? You need knowledge in order to understand what you want to find out about, in order to set up the inquiry. But then you need the inquiry. Then, Oooh! That leads you to another—whether I want to say a rabbit hole—Oh, who was Francis Scott Key? Where was he from? Then, Oh I need more knowledge. I need more content to do that. And it's just this cycle that happens in social studies. 

Ebony McKiver

We've been talking a lot about knowledge and how knowledge really strengthens social studies for students. Can you offer some other ways that you think are powerful within social studies and history instruction that can strengthen students' reading comprehension?

Amy Rosenkrans

I think discussions. And all different types of discussions, whether it be Socratic seminars, whether it be debates, whether it be any type of discussion technique that you might use in the classroom. Having kids think things out and speaking them is important. But also probably even more is them learning how to do that with other people and how to be able to agree and disagree with one another in a civil manner. 

That's what social—one of the really important things that social studies does. I think that's one of the things that perhaps we've been missing in some of our elementary education, even secondary. And maybe that's why we might be in a position we're in today. People are not listening to each other and trying to understand where they're coming from. We can provide those skills to our students, starting with our littlest babies in elementary school.

Ebony McKiver

I actually was gonna say that when you mention Socratic seminars, we think that's for the secondary level—and even secondary, not our middle school, but just strictly for high school. And that is really a technique that can be used in elementary schools. 

And again, it goes just back to supporting students' ability to develop an argument to be able to disagree with each other. But even if we're gonna go back to the text. Students need to be able to support their answers through the text that they are—

Amy Rosenkrans

Absolutely, citing their sources. Yes. 

Ebony McKiver

Yeah. Yes, yes!

Amy Rosenkrans

And then when we talk about that, another hugely important skill is for kids, students, no matter what age, and adults, to be able to look at a text, a source or something, and be able to decide if that is a reliable source or not. That's what social studies does for you.

Ebony McKiver

And this is why social studies is my favorite content area. [laughs]

Amy Rosenkrans

Yes!

Ebony McKiver

And I say it unabashedly, but you know, we go back to all the studies and the reports and they show those exact same things. You know, the misconception that spending more time in ELA is going to increase students' reading comprehension skills and abilities. 

When really, because social studies is so rich in background knowledge, because we get the ability for students to be engaged in the topics and the—you know, the materials that they're encountering. This is one of the few subject areas where they'll be able to encounter a visual text as well as a chart and a graph and timelines. And you said it before—yeah, I come to the same, that social studies is the best content because we provide all of that for students.

So Amy, much of your work extends beyond the classroom into local history and public history. In the context of this conversation, why do you think connecting students to the stories of their own communities matters?  

Amy Rosenkrans 

I think local history is really important for a number of reasons. And it's really important to bring it to our kids because that's where they start making the connections. So, for example, my school is Graceland Park O'Donnell Heights Elementary Middle School. O'Donnell is the name of a really important American Revolutionary War hero from the Baltimore area. 

If we connect The American Revolution to our community, to the names on the street signs, to the parks in our community, to the names on our buildings, our school buildings, kids can start making those connections. 

And maybe, maybe they never had any feeling of importance before. Maybe they thought: Oh the American Revolution is not anything important to me. But suddenly when they see that their school is named after this guy—or there's, I go to Patterson Park and I see these cannons. And those cannons were there from the War of 1812 and the defense of Baltimore. Oh my gosh, it's right here in my neighborhood! 

And I'm—again, it's making the content connections. It's making things more important to me. And that makes me want to find out more—which brings us to that inquiry, right? So the content to the inquiry. And then more inquiry. Oh my gosh! So Federal Hill, which way are the cannons pointing? Oh, I need to know why. I need to know why!

Ebony McKiver

And our last question. If you could leave elementary educators with one big idea around reading, knowledge building, and/or history instruction, what would you want them to remember?

Amy Rosenkrans

I want them to remember that social studies is exciting. And by providing students with the right sources and the right context, it can be exciting for them, for students, but also exciting for teachers.

And that excitement, I think, is one of the first things and the best things that any teacher of any subject can give to kids. So excitement about the topic, excitement about learning. And then providing students with that background knowledge of different history topics that will give them the basic understanding that they're going to need for the rest of their education, as well as just being informed citizens.  

Kristen McQuillan

This podcast is produced by Knowledge Matters. You can learn more about our work at www.knowledgematters.org. 

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