The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne FrankThe Diary of a Young Girl is an autobiography intended for grades 6-12. The book is the diary of Anne Frank, as she and her family fled their home in Amsterdam to live in the annex of an office building, in fear of the Nazis. The family lived there for two full years, where they suffered from hunger, illness, boredom and much more. The family is eventually betrayed, and sent to Nazi concentration camps, where Anne dies at the age of 15. The book tells an incredible, personal tale about the Nazi invasion and the horrific experience of the many Jews that fled from cruelty of Hitler and his Nazi army. As an activity for this book, students could learn how to write in the autobiographical format. They would do this by keeping daily journals in the classroom, and would be given ten minutes at the end of each day to wrote about anything that they want. After 3 weeks, the students could read their journal entries from start to finish, and create an autobiography based off of those few weeks, documenting what happened and how it affected them. This would not only highlight the format of this book, but also provide practice in writing in the autobiographical format as well.
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Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon NorthupTwelve Years a Slave is a salve narrative and biography intended for grades 4-6. The book recounts the life of Solomon Northup, a man who was born in the free state of New York, yet was captured and forced into slavery in the South. Solomon was kept enslaved for 12 years, but was then able to be freed with the help of the state and his friends. This book is extremely powerful based on the fact that it tells of slavery and its cruelty through a first-hand perspective of a man who went from freedom, to slavery and back again and fought for his freedom for twelve, toilsome years. This book could be used to emphasize the effectiveness of first-hand, narrative accounts of one's life. An activity could be used in which the students interview one another, and tell a story to a classmate, who takes notes and then writes the person's story themselves. This is exactly how Twelve Years a Slave was written, as Solomon Northup told his story to David Wilson who then wrote and edited it. This activity would therefore explore the format of the work and how it was written, and allow the students to experiment how different writers with different perspectives are still able to capture the intense details of stories that they hear.
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Lincoln: A Photobiography by Russell FreedmanLincoln: A Photobiography is a biographical work that won the Newbery medal and is intended for grades 3-5. This book details the life of Abraham Lincoln, from his childhood, education, occupation as a lawyer, marriage, his journey from a Congressman to the President of the United States, and finally his assassination. The book is also filled with many drawings and photographs, taken from archives and galleries throughout the world. Because the book is a photo biography, it allows the reader to look at the pictures and gain even more knowledge than they would have from the words alone. This serves as a great lesson on how pictures and illustrations can greatly enhance a story or a timeline of events. An activity could be created in the content area of history, in which the students would create a timeline of a president's life events, and include a picture with every event on their timeline. This picture could be of the person, of the place or time that in which they lived, of their family or hobbies, ect. This would serve as a great lesson in how pictures can sometimes greatly enhance a story, and are often necessary in order to give the reader context and deeper understanding of the material.
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Invisible Louisa by Cornelia MeigsInvincible Louisa is a biography which won the Newbery Award and is intended for grades 6-8. This work is a biography of Louisa May Alcott, who was born in Pennsylvania but moved several times during her life with her family. Her father, Bronson, struggled to support his family financially, and Louisa began to write in order to help support them. Louisa later leaves her family to nurse soldiers in the Civil War, and the book tells of her later return home and writing of the book Little Women. It also tells of her friendships with renown authors such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, and her success as one of the greatest female authors of the 19th century. An activity could be conducted based off of this book in the subject of history. After reading this great depiction of Louisa Alcott, students would be asked to practice writing in the biographical format. They would begin by exploring the different women on this interactive website. http://farr-integratingit.net/Integration/General/Women/, and after choosing a woman based on her short biography, they would create a Glogster about one particular woman, including her name, her picture, when she lived, and 5 additional facts about her. These Glogsters would then be shared with the class, thus creating a great lesson on women's history.
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Claudette Colvin: Twice Towards Justice by Phillip HooseThis book is a biography that won the Newbery medal and is intended for grades 6-8. It tells the life of Claudette Colvin, a woman who refused to give up her seat on a bus in Alabama, but instead of being praised like Rosa Parks, she was ostracized by her friends and family. She continued to fight for justice and made great leaps in the fight to end racism, as she was a plaintiff and gave testimony in the Browder vs. Gayle case which conquered segregation laws in Motgomery. A great activity for this book would be studying leaders like Claudette who may not have been as well known as Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, but who made a great impact on our nation and the rights of those within it. This could be used for a book report or interactive assignment and serve as a history lesson.
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The Voice that Challenged a Nation by Russell FreedmanThis is a Newbery Honor book that is intended for grades 6-8. It is a biography of Marian Anderson, a woman with a beautiful voice but with limited rights, as she lived during the time of segregation. Marian's voice was heard, however, during an incredible performance in 1939 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, celebrating the day when segregation ended in the United States. The biography not only tells Marian's beautiful, courageous tale, but it also includes many pictures that make the book all the more effective. An as activity after reading this book, I would have my students watch this video (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/class-divided/), which shows a teacher who conducted an experiment in her classroom by treating her students with blue eyes superior to those with brown eyes. Because segregation has ended and many white students do not fully understand its effects, watching this video could give them a taste for what many African Americans felt for so many years. The class could then be opened up for discussion, and a writing piece could be assigned in which they discuss the effects of segregation and why it is harmful to a school, workplace, society, ect.
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El Deafo by Cece BellEl Deafo is an autobiographical work that won the Newbery Medal and is intended for grades 4-9. This book tells the story of Cece and her struggle with needing a hearing aid as a child and thus being bullied by her classmates. Cece later learns to view her disability as a superpower, as she can often hear conversations between teachers when they forget to turn off their microphone connected to Cece's hearing aid. Eventually Cece finds a friend to share this superpower with, and sees her hard of hearing as something unique and special rather than something to be embarrassed about. As an interdisciplinary activity, a teacher could encourage the students to learn more about the deaf community and the ASL language by using this website, https://www.verywell.com/hearing-4014710. The students would be asked to explore the numerous tabs on the website. They could then be asked to turn in a “fact sheet” including ten facts that they did not know before exploring this website. At least 4 of the facts should be ones that deal with what happens in the body to cause hearing loss. This would serve not only as a lesson in science and the human body, but also on the culture of the deaf community as well. As a final assignment, the students would learn how to sign one their chosen facts in ASL using this website: http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/browser.htm. These would be demonstrated to the class for a lesson in language and in deaf culture.
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