One skill I've been working on with my Social Studies students this year is how to make inferences by employing close observation and prior knowledge. My students really struggle with this at the beginning of the year. With consistent practice, my students are getting results.

One strategy that worked with my students is to scaffold the skill with think-alouds (I project a political cartoon on my smartboard and together we "take it apart," bit by bit. For example, I ask students to share what they see (people, objects, symbols, labels, captions, etc.) We look for historical clues and discuss them. We talk about the use of symbols, exaggeration, and irony. If my students get stuck, I share my thinking process. This takes time. But the time and effort are worth it. As I mentioned earlier, the more practice, the better the results. 

Here are a couple examples of cartoons I used in my last lesson on the history of voting rights. (Notice how I make it very clear what parts of the cartoon I want my students to focus on.) This is another example of how I scaffold this skill. By the end of the year, I won't need to "magnify" the parts of a cartoon I want my students to zero in on. They will know how to do this.