I’ve begun summer, sort of. My summer will consist of a series of cool trainings and hanging out with my children.  My favorite thing about summer, though, is the chance to read, read, read.  I read a book this past weekend, and it was a joy to completely lose myself in it.  The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly is a book that completely stole my heart.  I simultaneously wanted to be Calpurnia and save her from history.  Calpurnia is a young girl in 1899, trying to figure out how she can grow up to be a scientist while dealing with the educational demands of young ladies at the time…In school, she is graded for her posture, hand-sewing, and lace making. Her mother is trying to teach her house-keeping and cooking.  Meanwhile, Calpurnia slinks away any chance she gets to spend time with her naturalist grandfather, digging in the mud for worms, collecting and logging specimens, classifying new plants, reading Darwin and trying her best to avoid becoming a debutante. Even though I don’t really like bugs and plants, I identified with Calpurnia.  She is a girl trying to make a place for herself in the world, even though she is kind of different from all the other girls.    I won’t spoil the book for you, but highly recommend it!

When I told my marine biologist co-teacher about how much I liked the book, she passed me Emma and Charles: The Darwin’s Leap of Faith by Deborah Heiligman.  I’m about halfway through, and I am learning so much!  I never knew all of the scientists that were getting close to figuring out the same theory (or pieces of it) as Darwin.  I also never knew how religious Darwin’s wife was.  How incredible.  I can’t wait to find out how they deal with their differences of perspectives on the world.

I say I have  ”sort of”  begun summer because I’ve been in class for the last four days, ten hours a day.  No breaks. (Not even for lunch!)  I've learned a lot about what not  to do.  I also learned some great strategies for teaching reading skills.  We’ve got a great text, Literacy and Learning in the Content Areas by Sharon Kane.  It is a thick book with tons of wonderful activities that I think (hope) we will enjoy.  Some of the important things to help support struggling (and even non-struggling) readers include building background and vocabulary, teaching comprehension monitoring skills and teaching how to boil things down to the relevant information and summarize.  Here is an interesting podcast from the author of another book I've recently read:

Janet Allen Podcast

Cast a Vote: Should We Enter the War of 1812

I've been exploring the use of games in the classroom.  This website is cool.  In a short, 90 minute period, students learn multiple perspectives of people living in the United States in 1812.  After analyzing their different viewpoints, they debate, in small groups, whether or not the United States should enter the war.  I'm always up for an interactive activity that gets my students considering many different ways of thinking about issues.  I don't think this will come up for next year when we explore world history, but just for fun, some students might like to explore it.

Political Cartoons

As the elections come upon us, I wonder the best ways to help students think about the role they can play, not only someday but also right now,  in electing people to office who understand and will address issues important to them.  The challenge is not finding material.  It is everywhere around.  If anything, it is narrowing down the field and taking care not to introduce so much that it overwhelms.  An overloaded mind shuts down.   

I try, as often as possible, to keep my political thoughts to myself.  I don't really care to influence the way my students think about issues.   I just want them to be interested, to have their minds open to other points of views, to think critically.  I want them to compare their thoughts and listen thoughtfully to each other.  But let's face it.  Most writing writing and even television about politics is pretty boring for the average adolescent.  It's not like Alex P. Keaton is normally sitting in my middle school classroom.  

This is an interesting resource for teachers using political cartoons.  I'm not sure where I'll plug it in, but as we move into elections, I will be keeping my eye open for good political cartoons, both left and right.