New Term, New Topic!

We are starting a new term and that means new reading topics. Last term I focused on teaching materials without a specific content area. It was a great way to clean out my TBR pile (To Be Read). I couldn't believe how many books I had purchased, but hadn't read. This term I am working on building background knowledge and lesson ideas for new units in my English 10 class. Because so many of the standardized tests my students will be taking are heavily based on nonfiction reading (traditionally it was more fiction), I am building more nonfiction reading into our classroom. These new units are based on materials I can access - not the best way to build a curriculum, but life is what it is and trying to build a curriculum on materials we don't have doesn't make sense.  Our new units are focused on the history of plagues, the Dust Bowl, and the Great Depression.

I started a plague unit last year when Ebola was ravaging countries in Africa. I wanted my students to know how the people suffered - even those who managed to avoid the disease. My students seemed genuinely interested so I added some information on bubonic plague using James Cross Giblin's When Plague Strikes. They seemed to appreciate the content. I also added "The Masque of the Red Death" - they did not appreciate that short story. Clearly I need to make some adjustments.
(More infromation on Ebloa and the Black Death: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/02/science/new-theories-link-black-death-to-ebola-like-virus.html)

In preparing for our last piece of literature this term, To Kill a Mockingbird, we will build some background knowledge regarding the Great Depression. I don't think anyone can understand the Great Depression with also considering the effects of the Dust Bowl. Those materials will read this term.

My first book for this term was Terrible Typhoid Mary: A True Story of the Deadliest Cook in America by Susan Campbell Bartoletti. This is a YA biography on Mary Mallon, the woman who became the first healthy carrier case of Typhoid in America. Bartoletti successfully presents the idea that Mallon's rights were violated over and over again, but those rights were weighed against the health of the families she worked for. So much of this thinking applies to situations today: when do the rights of individuals get shoved aside for the safety of the general population? I found the book to be a quick read, and a solid piece for middle school students. I appreciated the amount of research and documentation Bartoletti provided, though none of my students would probably notice this.

(More infromation on Mary Mallon at http://www.history.com/news/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-typhoid-mary)

Next week: The Cure by Sonia Levitin. A young man from the year 2407 travels back to 1348 - the height of the Great Plague.