Social Studies and what is it?

In Teaching Social Studies A Literacy- Based Approach by Emily Schell and Douglas Fisher Social Studies is identified in teacher terms.  On page 11, "What is Social Studies?"  history, geography, economics, and civics and government.  I was enlightened as I read this because it does seem a bit confusing when we talk about teaching Social Studies.  We can us all these parts to try to help our students become a good citizen and practice civic roles and responsibilities.  Our history is so important and our geography is a weakness of our students of our nation.  Economics helps with our students understandings of wants and needs.  Civics to understand our political and civic principles and the understanding of our government.  Social Studies seems a bit clearer with this definition and I think I see the integration of this subject better then I did before reading this section of the book.  It was a good read.

Integration of LA and SS/ May 17th Best Practices

        Best Practices showed me alot that I already knew but, needed to revisit.  I enjoyed the examples they gave in the book.  I really learned alot about the integration of curriculum.  I learned about this at Chowan in 1991-95 and we had to make a thematic unit which made alot of this make sense to me.  How do you know if you are integrating correctly?