Review of Developing Quantitative Literacy Skills in History and the Social Sciences: A Web-Based Common Core Approach by Kathleen W. Craver

Victor J Ricchezza, H L Vacher

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Kathleen W. Craver. Developing Quantitative Literacy Skills in History and Social Sciences: A Web-Based Common Core Standards Approach (Lantham MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc., 2014). 191 pp.
ISBN 978-1-4758-1050-9 (cloth); ISBN …-1051-6 (pbk); ISBN…-1052-3 (electronic).

This book could be a breakthrough for teachers in the trenches who are interested in or need to know about quantitative literacy (QL). It is a resource providing 85 topical pieces, averaging 1.5 pages, in which a featured Web site is presented, described, and accompanied by 2-4 critical-thinking questions purposefully drawing on data from the Web site. The featured Web sites range from primary documents (e.g., All about California and the Inducements to Settle There , 1870) to modern databases (e.g., city-data.com). The 85 pieces are organized under three headings (Social Science Sites; U.S. History Sites; World History Sites) following three chapters introducing QL, quantitative sources, and communicating with data. The QL skills in the questions are the usual suspects such as making comparisons, graph reading, table reading, and calculating and thinking about ratios. The author, the Head Librarian at the National Cathedral School (Washington DC), clearly aims the book at high school teachers who wish to comply with the Common Core Standards, which call for making communication with data a part of English Language Arts. The authors of this review believe the book will be of great value for college-level teachers too, whether they be interested in finding context (e.g., history and social science topics) for their QL-math courses, or adding QL-type questions to their in-discipline courses. Moreover, we fervently wish that this book will inspire others to create and compile similar resources in such a way that, in the future, there will be a vast open-access library of such collections of QL questions coupled to data sources – with updated links – available on the Internet.

Original languageAmerican English
JournalDefault journal
DOIs
StatePublished - 1800

Keywords

  • Common Core Standards
  • Quantitative Literacy
  • English Language Arts Standards

Disciplines

  • American Politics
  • Applied Statistics
  • Archival Science
  • Demography, Population, and Ecology
  • Economic History
  • Economics
  • Environmental Studies
  • Geography
  • History
  • Information Literacy
  • International and Area Studies
  • International Relations
  • Library and Information Science
  • Mathematics
  • Other Political Science
  • Physical Sciences and Mathematics
  • Political Science
  • Politics and Social Change
  • Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration
  • Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies
  • Social Statistics
  • Sociology
  • United States History

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