Juggling Your Curriculum
For a World of Learning
Geography Standards
Reading and
Writing Standards
21st Century Skills
Lorrie Stockwell
National Geographic Society Teacher Consultant
Colorado Geographic Alliance Teacher Consultant
Finding time for all of the things we need to teach is not an easy task. That makes it
even more important to use each teachable moment to give students the geographic
framework and literacy skills they need to understand their world and be effective 21 st
Century learners.
Colorado Model Content Standards for Geography
Colorado Department of Education
1. Students know how to use and construct maps, globes, and other geographic
tools to locate and derive information about people, places, and environments.
2. Students know the physical and human characteristics of places, and use this
knowledge to define and study regions and their patterns of change.
3. Students understand how physical processes shape Earth’s surface patterns and
systems.
4. Students understand how economic, political, cultural, and social processes
interact to shape patterns of human populations, interdependence, cooperation,
and conflict.
5. Students understand the effects of interactions between human and physical
systems and the changes in meaning, use, distribution, and importance of
resources.
6. Students apply knowledge of people, places, and environments to understand
the past and present and to plan for the future.
Colorado Model Content Standards for Reading and Writing
Colorado Department of Education
1. Students read and understand a variety of materials.
2. Students write and speak for a variety of purposes and audiences.
3. Students write and speak using conventional grammar, usage, sentence
structure, punctuation, capitalization, and spelling.
4. Students apply thinking skills to their reading, writing, speaking, listening, and
viewing.
5. Students read to locate, select, and make use of relevant information from a
variety of media, reference, and technological sources.
6. Students read and recognize literature as a record of human experience.
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Standards for the 21st Century Learner
American Association for School Librarians
Inquire, think critically, and gain knowledge;
Draw conclusions, make informed decisions, apply knowledge to new situations,
and create new knowledge;
Share knowledge and participate ethically and productively as members of our
democratic society;
Pursue personal and aesthetic growth.
How to choose a good book for literacy and geography:
Purpose
Geography
Standard 1
Title
Me on the Map
Author
Joan Sweeney
Illustrator
Annette Cable
Geography
Standard 2
The House on
Maple Street
Bonnie Pryor
Beth Peck
Geography
Standard 3
Paddle to the Sea
Holling Clancy
Holling
Holling Clancy
Holling
Geography
Standard 4
The Village of
Round and Square
Houses
Ann Grifalconi
Ann Grifalconi
Geography
Standard 5
This Is the Way We
Go to School
Edith Baer
Steve Bjorkman
Geography
Standard 6
Window
Jeannie Baker
Jeannie Baker
Connection to
literacy program
Grandfather’s
Journey
Allen Say
Allen Say
Format
A My Name Is Alice
Carol Bayer
Steven Kellogg
Genre
C is for Centennial:
A Colorado
Alphabet
Ben’s Dream
Louise Doak
Whitney
Helle Urban
Chris Van
Allsburg
Chris Van
Allsburg
Connection to
curriculum
A Drop Around the
World
Barbara Shaw
McKinney
Michael S.
Maydak
Multi-cultural
This Is My House
Arthur Dorros
Arthur Dorros
Author or
illustrator
Synopsis
*A child describes how her
room, her house, her town,
her state, and her country
become part of a map of
her world.
*During the course of three
hundred years, many
people have passed by or
lived on the spot now
occupied by a house
numbered 107 Maple
Street.
*A young Indian boy
carves a canoe and travels
through the Great Lakes to
the Atlantic Ocean.
*A grandmother explains to
her listeners why in their
village on the side of a
volcano the men live in
square houses and the
women in round ones.
*Describes, in text and
illustrations, the many
different modes of
transportation children all
over the world use to get to
school.
*Chronicles the events and
changes in a young boy's
life and in his environment,
from babyhood to
grownup, through wordless
scenes observed from the
window of his room.
A Japanese American man
recounts his grandfather's
journey to America which
he later also undertakes,
and the feelings of being
torn by a love for two
different countries.
The well-known jump rope
ditty which is built on
letters of the alphabet is
illustrated with animals
from all over the world.
Presents information about
the state of Colorado in an
alphabetical arrangement.
A boy travels around the
world in his dreams.
*Presents the water cycle
through the journey of a
raindrop around the world,
in sky, on land,
underground, and in the
sea, in its liquid, solid, and
vapor forms.
Shows houses all around
the world.
Big question
How do we
represent places on
a map?
How does a place
change over time?
How were the Great
Lakes formed?
How can an event
be the precipitating
event that brings
about a custom?
Why do children in
different places use
different kinds of
transportation to get
to school?
How do places
change over time?
How do people feel
when they move to
another country?
What is the
difference between
a city, state, and
country?
What is important
about Colorado?
What makes a
structure become a
landmark?
How does water
travel around the
world?
Why are houses
different in different
places?
A book you love
(* from Barnes and Nobel website)