My Kindle notified me last night that Tom Bober, a Network member, has a new book coming out.  “Literature and Primary Sources”.  I can’t wait!

Tom has written extensively about pairing children’s literature with primary sources.  You can find his work here on the Network as well as Knowledge Quest.  Here is an example of his pairing the book “Jack Knight’s Brave Flight:  How One Gutsy Pilot Saved the U.S. Air Mail Service” by Jill Esbaum and Stacy Innerst.  https://knowledgequest.aasl.org/pairing-picture-books-and-primary-sources-jack-knights-brave-flight-how-one-gutsy-pilot-saved-the-u-s-air-mail-service-by-jill-esbaum-and-stacy-innerst/ 

  Tom Bober  

Tags   Pairing Picture Books and Primary Sources    Tom Bober  

  Teaching Strategies  

K-12 teachers will share how they are using primary sources in their curriculum.  Join us on June 12, 2023 from 5:00-7:00pm EST

The event is free, but registration is required.  See attached flyer.

Greetings, fellow LOC nerds! I’m so excited to share my students’ work with all of you.  This year, my sixth graders have been creating their own dictionaries of The 100 Words Every Middle Schooler Should Know   on BookCreator, and the results are remarkable.    

For each word, students have been tasked with recording the definition, finding an image from the LOC (or another historic, artistic, or current event-related source), tell the story of the image that incorporates the word, and write one sentence with a personal connection to the term.  As we practice various sentence structures, the opportunity to incorporate these skills into their descriptions is abundant.  Mostly, they are navigating the LOC website like pros, and that’s pretty thrilling to witness.   This is a no-brainer…I can’t believe it took me 20 years to figure this out! If I ever need plans for a sub, or I just need a catch-up day, we work on our 100 words.  These are a work in progress, but a thrill to explore.  When you open the link, tap the arrow in the upper-right hand corner to read this as a 2-page spread book.  Enjoy!

CLARA’S 100 WORDS          MUYI’S 100 WORDS     ADVIK'S 100 WORDS

  6 - 8    English/Language Arts  

While I do not claim to be an expert on literacy, I am surrounded by conversations about literacy on a daily basis. I am inspired by educators that are implementing exceptional literacy programming every day and, therefore, I have been actively trying to understand different approaches to teaching literacy for diverse learners. 

I have engaged in many conversations where people have expressed that they learned to read or write through the power of song. This method - teaching through song - has been shown to be immensely effective in teaching grammar, vocabulary, syllable recognition, etc. 

The Library of Congress has an entire collection dedicated to song sheets, which are described as: "...before the advent of phonograph and radio technologies, Americans learned the latest songs from printed song sheets. Not to be confused with sheet music, song sheets are single printed sheets, usually six by eight inches, with lyrics but no music."

Many of these song sheets provide a glimpse into the events happening in the nineteenth century. From war, to freedom songs, to love, and patriotism, many subjects are covered in this song sheet collection.

Can you use these song sheets in your classroom to engage students in reading and writing skills? Comment below!

  song    learning    literacy    reading    writing  

Seeing that it's the start of the school year, I figured this would be the best time to ask:

What books are you reading with your students this year?

Sometimes there are books we must read with our students that we're excited about and have many creative and engaging lesson plan ideas; but, sometimes certain books have us stumped. Do you have a lesson you're excited about and have ideas of which primary sources to use? What about one you may need some ideas for? 

Tell us in the comments below!

  literacy    primary sources    books    teaching   

  Elizabeth Cutter , a former teaching colleague of mine and a teacher educator today, kindly agreed to let me share her recent reflection about a 7th/8th grade literacy classroom she observed last week. She offers it as evidence that "Good teaching about the Constitution is still happening in public schools," even in the face of Orwellian threats of cameras in classrooms to monitor teachers and similar concerns about student privacy. If you read all the way to the end, as I hope you will, I'll also share what the Library of Congress holds related to 12 Angry Men - the play these middle school students were reading.

Elizabeth Cutter's Reflection: 

I keep puzzling over all the accounts of legislation proposed (in other states) about installing cameras in classrooms to monitor what teachers are teaching and/or about requiring teachers to post each upcoming year’s unit plans, lesson plans, and instructional materials online. Didn’t any of these legislators read 1984? Besides all the safety, student privacy, legal, logistical, budgetary, and efficacy concerns that seem to have been overlooked, these camera proposals seem Orwellian.

Of course teachers should be accountable for their actions and lessons, but they already are. In a local-control state like Colorado, school districts approve their curriculum, and policy rules govern the teaching of controversial subjects. The old-school way for parents to find out what their children are learning is to ask them. Or peek over their shoulders when they’re doing their homework. Or attend back-to-school nights and parent-teacher conferences. Or read classroom newsletters. Or volunteer in their kids’ schools. Or set up a friendly, genuinely curious, non-adversarial meeting with their teachers early in the year just to get to know them. As we used to say at back-to-school nights, “If you promise not to believe everything your child tells you about me, I promise not to believe everything I hear about what happens at home.”

But if non-parents would like a glimpse of what is happening in schools today, I offer a lesson I observed in a 7th/8th grade literacy classroom last week. It was based on the following Colorado Academic Standards for Reading, Writing, and Communicating:

• Analyze how particular elements of a story or drama interact (for example: how setting shapes the characters or plot).
• Analyze how an author develops and contrasts the points of view of different characters or narrators in a text.
• By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, in the grades 6-8 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.
• Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to the characters, setting, and plot; provide an objective summary of the text.
• Analyze how particular lines of dialogue or incidents in a story or drama propel the action, reveal aspects of a character, or provoke a decision.

These middle-school students had finished reading the play 12 Angry Men, by Reginald Rose. (They will get to watch the Sidney Lumet movie linked here, with Henry Fonda as Juror No. 8, when they’re done.) The teacher broke them into smaller groups, each assigned to analyze the development of a single juror and prepare a presentation to the whole class. Students were engaged virtually bell-to-bell in developing their presentations. They analyzed their juror’s dialogue, voting history, and the ultimate reason he gave for changing his vote from guilty to not guilty. They also, indirectly, got a lesson about critical thinking and the power of one individual, acting conscientiously, to influence his peers.

When the students watch the movie next week, they will be reminded that 12 Angry Men never states whether the defendant is innocent or guilty. All it does is show how one man, holding out for the defendant’s Constitutional right to a fair trial, calmly defends his position about reasonable doubt. If you have never watched 12 Angry Men, or if it has been a while, I highly recommend it. And take heart! Good teaching about the Constitution is still happening in public schools.

__________________________

Beth Cutter included a link to Sidney Lumet's 1957 film interpretation of 12 Angry Men on YouTube. 

After reading Beth's thoughts, I searched for related resources at the Library of Congress and discovered that former Librarian of Congress, James F. Billington, named the film to the National Film Registry in 2007. The announcement described the film as follows:

12 Angry Men (1957) In the 1950s, several television dramas acted live over the airways won such critical acclaim that they were also produced as motion pictures; among those already honored by the National Film Registry is “Marty” (1955). Reginald Rose had adapted his original stage play “12 Angry Men” for Studio One in 1954, and Henry Fonda decided to produce a screen version, taking the lead role and hiring director Sidney Lumet, who had been directing for television since 1950. The result is a classic. Filmed in a spare, claustrophobic style—largely set in one jury room—the play relates a single juror’s refusal to conform to peer pressure in a murder trial and follows his conversion of one juror after another to his point of view. The story is viewed a commentary on McCarthyism, Fascism, or Communism. 

Among other prominent films, it joined Bullitt (1968), Oklahoma (1955), Back to the Future (1985), Wuthering Heights (1939), and twenty other titles added to the Registry in 2007. 

I think students might be surprised to learn that Sidney Lumet was a child actor. This portrait by Carl Van Vechten shows him in 1939 in My Heart's in the Highlands. I wonder if he is about the same age in this photograph as the students in the classroom described above. The summary states, "Photograph shows Sidney Lumet, a white, male, Jewish, Polish American child actor, who would grow up to be a film director, producer, and screenwriter."

Sidney Lumet, 1939

The Library also has an excellent program essay on 12 Angry Men written by Joanna E. Rapf. 

The final paragraph is worth copying here:

Although it did not win, “Twelve Angry Men” was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Direction, and Best Screenplay based on material from another medium. It did win first prize at the Berlin International Film Festival, and in this country, Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, and Sidney Lumet were all nominated for Golden Globes. But it is the content of the movie that is its lasting legacy, allowing it to speak across generations and economic and racial divides. It reflects Lumet's ongoing concern with justice within the legal system, with the importance of moral responsibility, and with the necessity in a bureaucratic and mechanized world for personal authenticity. Lumet himself has said that the theme of this film is simply: "listen."

I am so grateful to Beth Cutter for giving her permission to share her remarkable observations with the entire TPS Teachers Network. I hope others will express their thanks, too, and let us know if you also teach 12 Angry Men. 

  9 - 12    English/Language Arts    Social Studies/History    Art/Music    National Film Registry    teaching strategies    literacy    film  

Many ideas have been shared about integrating literacy education with writing post cards. I was sent this story map today and thought it would be a great addition. The Art of Correspondence from the Veterans History Project evaluates drawings that were found on veteran post cards. While envelopes and letters aren't the most common canvas, they certainly hold a lot of stories.

A couple guiding questions:

- Have students examine some of these drawings. What can we infer about this person's life? What can we infer about the person they are sending this letter to?

- What feeling does this picture emote? How can you tell?

Next:

- Encourage students to write a story based on the drawing they see. Afterward, read the actual letter (if it's available)

- Have students write they own post card with their own drawings! Who are they sending it to? What feelings or emotions can you convey through a drawing to match you letter?

  postcard    veterans history project    drawing    writing    literacy  

Join us for a conversation with some of our fantastic 2021 Literacy Award Winners on successful practices for growing literacy programs and services in unique places and spaces. This webinar will take place on February 10th from 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM EST. This session will be facilitated by LOC Literacy Awards Advisory Board Member, Allister Chang.

This will mark the third installment of the Literacy Awards Four-Part webinar series where we will recognize groups and organizations that promote literacy and reading around the world. 

Register here for this week's upcoming webinar and make sure to check out more information from our 2021 Press Release for more information on the series! Hope to see you there! 

  Literacy Awards Program    Webinar    Register  

When thinking about literacy and how to engage students in literacy-rich lessons, it is oftentimes difficult to conceptualize how to integrate these practices with primary sources. However, as many of you know, primary sources help to enrich lessons and promote a more skilled and literate classroom. I found this article, Using Primary Sources in Content Areas to Increase Disciplinary Literacy Instruction. I especially recommend you look at pages 7&8, which gives some great suggestions on new activities you can use with students! Over the next couple of weeks, I hope to incorporate many of these activities into my posts, as it's important that while primary sources are excellent resources for learning about history, they are also helping to contribute to a more literate world!

Do You Love Me?

This poem Do you Love Me creates a beautiful picture of a little girl and her dog that would really inspire kids to write with a picture in mind. After reading the poem students could create a picture of what this poem evokes in their mind.

I would then ask them to create “picture poem” about their pet or a toy that they feel especially close to that they talk to. Maybe even a pretend playmate or any object that they would like to ask questions of ie. their gaming console or iPad to think in more modern terms. Remember poetry comes from the heart. It doesn’t always have to rhyme. I always tried to help students understand that they should write what they know, and this poem does that. Check it out!

Gottlieb, William P. Portrait of Lilyann Carol, New York, N.Y., ca. Oct. United States, 1946. , Monographic. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/resource/gottlieb.01111.0/ 

In The Free to Use and Reuse https://www.loc.gov/free-to-use/dogs/ there are some great sources that you could have students choose a photo and write a conversation that the person in the photo maybe having with their pooches as well as what the pooch may be barking back.