ABSTRACT
At the start of the Fall 2002 semester, the co-editors of this volume stood before a new cohort of pre-service teachers attending the first meeting of their “Teaching Elementary Social Studies” course and asked three simple questions: does anyone remember what happened in New York City on September 11, 2001?; what do you think became the most important, new part of every social studies curriculum in America on September 12th?; and, how do you think all those social studies (and other) teachers became more familiar with issues such as international terrorism, the history of the Middle East and U.S.-Arab relations, and the religion of Islam? Suddenly recognizing the ongoing need that educators have to be able to learn new things and to distinguish between fact, opinion, and rhetoric across a wide variety of topics, these pre-ser-
vice teachers were now ready to learn about how they could become more information literate.
