Posts tagged ‘social issues’
151. The Ant Bully by John Nickle
Retell: Lucas constantly gets picked on by the neighborhood bully. He takes out his frustration on the ants in front of his house. The ants decide to take revenge and teach Lucas a lesson.
Topics: bullying, revenge, ants
Units of Study: Fantasy
Tribes: mutual respect
Reading Skills: analyzing character motivation, interpretation
Writing Skills: experimenting with sentence structure
Thoughts: Apparently this story was made into an animated movie back in 2006. I guess I’ve been out of the loop.
This is a great read aloud for teaching about karma, the Golden Rule and the basic concept of treating others (even non-humans) with respect. It’s also a great mentor text for students writing fantasy stories. The structure is short and simple enough to mirror the fantasy stories that upper grade students may be writing. It’s also great for demonstrating how stories can be structured around teaching the reader a lesson.
Unfortunately, it looks like this book is out of print. Definitely worth a trip to your local library.
145. The Lorax by Dr. Seuss
Retell: A boy visits the home of the Once-ler who, for a fee, tells him the story of how he destroyed the pristine Truffula Forest and its inhabitants.
Topics: trees, deforestation, environment, environmentalists, pollution, consumption, greed, factories, habitat, animals, Earth Day
Units of Study: Social Issues, Content Area, Talking and Writing About Texts
Tribes: Mutual Respect
Reading Skills: inference, interpretation
Writing Skills: incorporating rhyme and rhythm, connecting the beginning with its ending
My Thoughts: I recently read this book to my class to celebrate Earth Day. There were misty eyes when the last truffula tree was cut down; I have never heard the room so quiet. Upon rereading I noticed how well the illustrations supported inferential thinking throughout the story. Specifically, the color of the illustrations helps support the idea that without trees the world is a dark, miserable place. In the beginning of the story, the pages are illustrated in dark tones: navy, burgundy, and gray. When the Once-ler flashes back to the first days of his Thneed venture, the illustrations are painted in bright, cheerful hues: magenta, yellow, green and turquoise. One student pointed out toward the beginning of the story, while the illustrations were still bright and cheery, the Once-ler’s materials were painted in dark tones, a premonition that the environment was going to change for the worse.
141. Coming On Home Soon by Jacqueline Woodson
Retell: Ada Ruth can’t wait for her mom to return home from Chicago. The story takes place during World War II. Ada Ruth’s mother has gone North to seek jobs on the railroad. With help from her grandmother and her new feline friend, Ada Ruth is able to wait patiently for her mom to come on home.
Topics: goodbyes, World War II, Chicago, family, pets, cats, poverty, hunger
Units of Study: Historical Fiction, Talking and Writing About Texts, Social Issues
Tribes: personal best
Reading Skills: inference, prediction, interpretation
Writing Skills: tucking in details about setting, zooming in on small moments
My Thoughts: This is a great text to read aloud during an Historical Fiction unit. It’s a useful text for modeling how readers think about symbolism (or alternatively how writers incorporate symbolism). For example, it would be helpful to point out the meaning of the kitten in the story. One could read the story without giving much thought about the kitten’s importance. However, upon closer reading, one could read into the kitten’s significance. Perhaps the kitten is a symbol that represents Ada Ruth’s hope that her mother will write soon. Perhaps the kitten symbolizes her loneliness.
138. Jose! Born to Dance by Susanna Reich
Retell: This is the story of Jose Limon, who left his family to move to New York. Frustrated by his poor artistic talent he fell in love with dance and worked to become a famous dancer and choreographer.
Topics: dance, war, family, Mexico, immigration, art, music, English, Spanish, death, New York, California
Units of Study: Nonfiction, Social Issues
Tribes: personal best, appreciations/no put-downs, mutual respect
Habits of Mind: persisting
Reading Skills: synthesis, monitoring for sense, envisionment
Writing Skills: using sound effects, zooming in on a small moment
My Thoughts: This text has multiple teaching purposes. It’s a great text for introducing or reinforcing the habit of mind–persistence. There are many moments in the story when Jose persists. He struggles to learn English but persists despite his cruel classmates. He is determined to become a dancer and shows persistence each day during rehearsal despite sore, aching muscles. During the read aloud we can hope that students understand that successful people, no matter what their focus, work hard and persist, even when they face adversity.
136. Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez
Retell: This is the biography of Cesar Chavez, the leader of the National Farm Workers Association who worked to organize farm workers to rally together and fight for better pay and working conditions.
Topics: family, Cesar Chavez, conflict, drought, California, farming, Spanish, migrant workers, unions, La Causa, strikes, protests, boycotts, farm workers
Units of Study: Nonfiction, Social Issues
Tribes: personal best, mutual respect, appreciations/no put-downs
Habits of Mind: persisting
Reading Skills: inference, interpretation, determining importance, synthesis, empathy
My Thoughts: Back when I taught in California this was required reading–in the Bay Area Cesar Chavez’s birthday is a school holiday. This book could fit into different types of text sets. For example, you could include this book when teaching a unit on the labor unit. You could also choose to read this book as a companion text to Esperanza Rising.
133. The Well by Mildred D. Taylor
Retell: During a drought, the Logan family shares water from their well with anyone who needs it, be they white or black. Hammer, the narrator’s brother, finds it difficult to share with the Simms family who have tormented the Logans for being black. After Hammer defends his brother David and beats up Charlie Simms, he and David are forced to work on the Simms’ farm to avoid jail. Hammer, however, never quite manages to swallow his pride and gets involved in another altercation that causes Charlie to take revenge.
Topics: drought, racism, segregation, bullying, fighting, family
Units of Study: Historical Fiction, Talking and Writing About Texts, Social Issues
Tribes: mutual respect, right to pass, appreciations/no put-downs
Habits of Mind: managing impulsivity
Reading Strategies: inference, synthesis, interpretation, envisionment
My Thoughts: I’ve been trying to locate shorter chapter books to read aloud. I’m finding that some of my favorite chapter books are too long to complete before the end of a unit. The Well is short, only 92 pages and can be completed within a month-long unit. I think this could be a great book to read if a class is struggling with the issue of revenge. In this story, Hammer cannot control his temper. The situation is extremely unfair, and you empathize with Hammer for fighting with Charlie. But on the other hand, his decision to take revenge led to his family’s well getting poisoned. It raises the question whether or not it’s better to fight back with violence or fight back in other ways.
132. The First Thanksgiving by Jean Craighead George
Retell: The story of the first Thanksgiving which addresses some former misconceptions.
Topics: Thanksgiving, Cape Cod, Plymouth Rock, Pawtuxets, slavery, Squanto, Puritans, Mayflower, survival, death, cooperation, farming
Units of Study: Nonfiction, Content-Area, Social Issues
Tribes: personal best, mutual respect
Reading Skills: monitoring for sense, envisionment, determining importance, synthesis
My Thoughts: When I was a kid, I learned about how the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock. They toiled through the winter and many people died. I learned how Squanto helped the Pilgrims plant corn, beans and squash and as a gesture of peace, the Native Americans and the Pilgrims sat together to celebrate the harvest. What I didn’t learn until I read Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen is how Squanto came to learn English–he had been a slave in London. Several years before the Pilgrims arrival, Squanto had been tricked onto a boat headed for Spain. He was purchased by a merchant ship owner from London. Squanto eventually sailed back to the village that he had been stolen from only to find that his entire village had died from smallpox!
This book attempts to tell the story of the first Thanksgiving without glossing over the contributions of the Wampanoag and of Squanto. I plan on reading this during the few days leading up to the Thanksgiving holiday. I also think I want to reread it during our Social Issues unit.
125. Under the Lemon Moon by Edith Hope Fine
Retell: One evening Rosalinda awakes to find a man stealing lemons from her lemon tree. During the theft, a branch is broken and the tree becomes sick. Rosalinda searches her village for a cure. A mysterious woman helps her cure her sick tree and help a family in need.
Topics: theft, family, community, trees, kindness
Units of Study: Realistic Fiction, Social Issues, Talking and Writing About Texts
Tribes: personal best, mutual respect
Habits of Mind: thinking flexibly
Reading Skills: empathy, interpretation, inference, monitoring for sense
Writing Skills: using words to describe sound, using interesting verbs, incorporating foreign languages
My Thoughts: This is a text that can be useful for many units and for many purposes. As I was reading this text I immediately noticed the beautiful verbs the author uses. A reader who is unfamiliar with the vocabulary in the text can easily figure out the meaning of the words by thinking about the context. It’s a great text for teaching the strategy of playing ‘fill in the bank’ when solving tricky words.
124. A Picnic in October by Eve Bunting
Retell: Each year Tony’s family boards the ferry to Liberty Island at grandma’s insistence. They brave the crowds and the cold to celebrate a special birthday.
Topics: New York, family, Statue of Liberty, grandparents, immigration
Units of Study: Social Issues, Talking and Writing About Texts
Tribes: mutual respect
Reading Skills: prediction, envisionment, inference, questioning
My Thoughts: This book is typically read during an Immigration unit. However I don’t think I can wait that long to read this book. A scene that stuck out for me was the part when Tony helps a young woman who pulls on his jacket, worried that the last boat has left. Apparently no one has been able to help her because she doesn’t speak English. Tony is patient with her and through gestures explains that another boat is on the way. When reading this aloud, I plan on emphasizing this moment and hope it will spark a meaningful discussion about how we can help students who have limited English skills.
This is a great text for modeling expression. Each character has a distinctive personality which may come out best if the reader creates voices for each character. For example, Rosa talks in “a reading kind of way” and should sound official (or as we say in conferences “like a teacher”). Mike seems a bit mischievous and should sound like it.
118. Hawk, I’m Your Brother by Byrd Baylor
Retell: Rudy Soto yearns to fly. He climbs up a cliff and captures a young hawk in the hope that he will be able to become brothers with the hawk and thus have a sense of what it means to fly. Eventually he sets the hawk free and is forever changed.
Topics: hawks, dreams, flying, keeping pets, freedom
Units of Study: Talking and Writing About Texts, Social Issues
Tribes: mutual respect
Reading Skills: questioning, inference, interpretation, synthesis
Writing Skills: using alliteration
My Thoughts: Each year the issue of whether or not to get a class pet comes up. I have mixed feelings about class pets. I think they can be very useful for studying life cycles and animal habitats, but I don’t like the idea of animals in cages. I may read this book the next time the issue arises in my classroom. It will be an essential text during the interpretation unit and could also be an interesting one to read or reread during Social Issues.
When I was looking for images of this book I came across a website with a fantastic resource. Through the Magic Door is an online bookstore that has put together some fabulous lists of books that may be very useful when making text sets. Hawk, I’m Your Brother can be found under the list of books that are all about Flying.
Teachable Texts 