Research, Citation, & Class Guides: Social Studies Education Resources: Structured Academic Controversy Assignment

Resources for Structured Academic Controversy Assignments

(created for SECNDED 430/630 Methods of Teaching Social Studies)

CQ Researcher
In-depth, authoritative, informative & persuasive reports on a full range of political and social-policy issues extending back to 1923.
Each report is footnoted and includes an overview, background section, chronology, bibliography, and debate-style pro-con feature, plus tools to study the evolution of the topic over time.
Opposing Viewpoints in Context (Gale)
Contextual topic overviews and opinions on hundreds of today's hottest social issues. Links to content from magazines, academic journals, news, primary sources, multimedia, and vetted websites.

C-SPAN Classroom Deliberations
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Designed to engage students in classroom deliberations about current issues being debated in the United States. Teachers will find handouts, current events, lesson plans, and deliberation strategies that make it easy to engage students in the issues.
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Find a set of C-SPAN primary source video clips and newspaper articles that concisely present the leading positions on each issue.
ProCon.org (Britannica)
Mission: "To promote civility, critical thinking, education, and informed citizenship by presenting the pro and con arguments to debatable issues in a straightforward, nonpartisan, freely accessible way.”
Both Sides of the Issue
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Produced by Stossel in the Classroom, the online video series helps educators present balanced lessons on today’s topics. Each online package presents opposing arguments with discussion questions, providing different viewpoints and encouraging open discussion and critical thinking. 80+ video pairings available and more added every month.
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Videos are paired, side-by-side, from an array of sources such as CBS, CNN, NBC, Fox News, Al Jazeera, Democracy at Work, HuffPost, MTV and many more.
AllSides
Displays the day’s top news stories from the Left, Center, and Right of the political spectrum — side-by-side. The stated goal is to expose people to information and ideas from all sides of the political spectrum so they can better understand the world — and each other. Includes media bias ratings.