The need for new social studies curriculum

District 68 began its social studies curriculum review with a clear and practical goal. The social studies resource teachers were using would be discontinued, and the district needed to replace it with something current, aligned, and sustainable.

“Several years ago, it was time to do a curriculum review for social studies, for kindergarten through 8th grade,” Christie Samojedny, Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services, explained. “We were previously using a curriculum resource that was so out of date that it was no longer printed. It was very old, and our teachers were doing the best that they could with what they had.”

As leaders evaluated new options, they were looking for more than alignment to Illinois standards. They wanted instructional materials designed to support the full range of learners in their classrooms and to remove unnecessary barriers to engaging with grade-level content.

“Part of our curriculum review process is looking at many different resources,” Samojedny said, “and identifying things that are not only aligned to standards, but that give all of our students easy access to the content. For our large, second-language population, we wanted to be sure that the materials had an easy access point for them.” 

That focus on access was paired with an equally strong commitment to rigor. Leaders were clear that accessibility needed to be built into the curriculum without limiting the complexity of the learning.

Low floors, high ceilings

Through their adoption process, District 68 came across Inquiry Journeys (inquirED’s K-5 social studies curriculum) and decided to pilot the curriculum. Leaders were looking for materials that could support a meaningful instructional shift without asking teachers or students to start from scratch. “Through our investigations, we came across Inquiry Journeys,” Christie Samojedny said. “And, chose to pilot the curriculum, and it was pretty clear right away that it ticked all of the boxes. Our teachers really fell in love with it.” 

While the curriculum represented a shift toward deeper inquiry, leaders saw that its structure made that shift feel attainable. “Our teachers have really dabbled in inquiry before, but never really fully immersed themselves in inquiry the way Inquiry Journeys has them do that.” What resonated with teachers was not only the emphasis on inquiry, but the way tasks were designed to support participation and thinking across a wide range of learners within the same lesson. Diana Schmidt explained why this mattered instructionally. “We’re constantly, as teachers, looking for tasks that we put in front of our students that naturally differentiate.” 

"Our teachers really fell in love with it."

“A low floor, high ceiling would allow all of our students to access it in some way, to share their thinking, to exercise their problem-solving skills, but also allows students to expand their thinking and go beyond just the standard.” Schmidt emphasized that this approach also made instruction more sustainable. “The more that’s built into a curriculum, the more responsive a curriculum is naturally for our students, and it’s a little less lift on teachers.”

Vocabulary is a high bang for the buck

Over time, vocabulary development became one of the indicators that the curriculum’s design was working. As students accessed content through multiple modalities and engaged in inquiry-based tasks, academic language development followed.

“We heavily look at our vocabulary data,” Schmidt said, explaining how district leaders evaluate impact. “With our high multilingual population, we know that vocabulary access is a high bang for the buck.” 

Rather than treating vocabulary as a separate instructional initiative, district leaders noticed that Inquiry Journeys supported vocabulary growth in ways that felt integrated into daily instruction and sustainable for teachers. “One thing that we did is we sat with all of our curricula across content areas and created lists to look for commonality between them,” Schmidt said. “And the beauty is that Inquiry Journeys really calls out a lot of those Tier 2 and Tier 3 words on its own, so it felt natural to the teachers.”

Because students were encountering vocabulary in meaningful contexts, supported by visuals, discussion, and inquiry tasks, language development went beyond memorization and toward true conceptual understanding. “I think the multifaceted ways in which they provide instruction through images, through videos – it supports that true understanding for our students to be able to use multimodal learning and really get further in their vocabulary instruction,” Schmidt said. 

What is multimodal learning? 

Multimodal learning uses multiple formats to help students build understanding of complex ideas. In Inquiry Journeys, a lesson might include a short video to introduce a concept, images or primary sources to prompt observation, a text to develop academic language, and discussion or movement to help students process and apply their thinking.

Over time, vocabulary instruction became a visible indicator of how low floors and high ceilings worked together in practice: students had accessible entry points into complex ideas, and repeated opportunities to use academic language in ways that deepened understanding rather than simplified content.

Elementary students are ready for what comes next

Leaders have begun to see compounding effects on student capacity. “As students move into the next grade level, they’ve had that year under their belt,” Samojedny said. “They’re kind of used to those structures and frameworks, and they’re able to jump into it a little bit more easily.” 

By year three, that familiarity translated into confidence. “The capacity in kids is also growing, because there’s common language,” Samojedny said. “They understand kind of the rhythm of what an inquiry unit may look like.”

Schmidt noted that middle school teachers were seeing the effects as students transitioned. “I’ve heard that very much from the junior high teachers of, wow, they’re coming in with this ability to think differently about social studies content in that way.” Schmidt also highlighted a specific skill shift. “The other pieces are small little things that Inquiry Journeys builds in note-taking skills. The students are more prepared to look at a text and critically read it using that particular process.”

“The capacity in kids is also growing, because there’s common language,” Samojedny said. “They understand kind of the rhythm of what an inquiry unit may look like.”

For District 68, the adoption of Inquiry Journeys accomplished what they set out to do and more. The district modernized its social studies curriculum. Teachers gained structure and confidence. Students gained access to grade-level content through low floors, extended their thinking through high ceilings, and developed academic vocabulary through multimodal learning that prepared them for the demands of what comes next.

Curious how an inquiry-based approach could support your district’s goals? Inquiry Journeys, our K-5 social studies curriculum, could be the right fit for your district.

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