One Candle

Amidst the food and festivities of Hanukah adorning a comfortable modern holiday table, two elderly women - Grandma and Great Aunt Rose - begin to tell a story explaining their non-traditional choice for commemorative Hanukah menorahs (candles).  When these women were but girls - 12 years old - they were confined to a brutal Nazi concentration camp, Buchenwald.  Here, they worked in the kitchen.  Risking great danger, they carefully smuggled out some butter and a potato.  Though literally starving, they did not eat these items, but rather, used them along with a string from their skirt, to improvise a candle to commemorate Hanukkah.

Asked why they took this huge risk, grandmother replies,

"That Hanukkah candle lifted us.  It lifted us to the stars.  In our minds, sweetheart.  In our hearts."

As they retell this story year after year, lighting their potato candle, we readers are also lifted to the stars.  With these two small girls, Bunting gives a powerful story of defiant triumph over evil, of brave clinging to hope in the midst of despair.  Tellingly, Bunting ends her story with a repetition of those powerful lines,"And in that moment we are lifted to the stars."

Theme: Remember - renarrate - history's stories of defiant triumphs of unassuming weakness over evil, of brave clinging to hope in the midst of despair.

                               ______________________________________________

My extension: comparing Bunting's story to (an even more beautiful) story I heard once several years ago:

Perhaps Bunting borrowed this story from the real life story of Rabbi Hugo Gryn.  I researched it and could find no intentional connection.  

At any rate, when Hugo Gryn was a child in Auschwitz with his father, they saved their meager daily ration of margarine.  They were slowly starving to death and young Hugo argued with his father, demanding that they eat this, their only source of nourishment.  His father was already sick and weak, and a hungry young Hugo was appalled when he got the answer from his father.  They wouldn't eat the margarine.  They would make a Hanukah candle from it.

Hugo  just couldn’t comprehend his father's logic.  He told his father that it seemed foolish to do so, but his father melted the precious margarine ration to light a Hanukkah candle. Hugo protested. His father said, 

“My child, we know you can live three days without water. You can live three weeks without food. But you cannot live for three minutes without hope.” Live in hope. 

His father died when the liberation took place.  Not having enough physical food he starved to death.  But he starved to death living in hope.  He fed his spirit rather than his stomach, planting a seed of hope in his son who later became a world renown rabbi and advocate of peace and, despite the grave injustices that he had personally suffered, forgiveness.  


Links:
http://www.hugogryn.com/about-hugo-gryn/

So Far from the Sea

This story is told through the eyes of nine year old Laura Iwasaki who is going to visit her grandfather's barren grave one last time before the family moves out of the area.  This grave is located in the abandoned Manzanar Relocation Camp, one of ten relocation camps scattered across the West Coast to confine (or intern) Japanese Americans during WWII.   Here, the children's grandfather, a devoted tuna fisherman, was robbed of his boat, home and dignity, and sent to a land "so far from the sea."  There he died, burial marked only by a small ring of stones.  The family leaves silk flowers.  Laura leaves a poignantly tragic memorial, the neckerchief from her father's Cub Scout uniform, an article which the grandfather insisted his son wear if the soldiers were to come to their house, "that way they will know that you are a true American and they will not take you."

This neckerchief, a sign of the grandfather's sense of American patriotism that was ignored through misguided fear, symbolizes the general patriotism that filled the Japanese American community in the 1940's.

Before I continue, I acknowledge that this - like many of Buntings' stories - was a difficult story, touching on raw nerves in our country's long and murky blurring between justified "security" response and outright victimizing.  However, I firmly believe that preparation for voting citizenry comes through exposure to debates and opposing sides of an issue, looking at history in all its murkiness and, sometimes ugliness.  Bunting helps us to do just this.

To help put this weighing of the issue into action, students explored both sides - the official stance adopted by the U.S. government following Japan’s unprovoked bombing of Pearl Harbor and the Japanese American perspective and pain felt by many innocent civilian confined to interment camps.  We explored reasons why the Japanese might have been resented.  Granted, Pearl Harbor lay on the immediate backdrop and many feared that those of Japanese ancestry, second or third generation immigrants, might be traitorous.  Interestingly, these same fears were not in place for those of German or Italian ancestry.   Consider, too, the following quote:

• "Most of the 110,000 persons removed for reasons of 'national security' were school-age children, infants and young adults not yet of voting age." 
• "Years of Infamy", Michi Weglyn

    

Internment was popular among many white farmers who resented the Japanese American farmers and saw imprisonment as a convenient way of getting rid of unwanted competition.

Austin E. Anson, managing secretary of the Salinas Vegetable Grower-Shipper Association, told the Saturday Evening Post in 1942:

• "We're charged with wanting to get rid of the Japs for selfish reasons. We do. It's a question of whether the white man lives on the Pacific Coast or the brown men. They came into this valley to work, and they stayed to take over... If all the Japs were removed tomorrow, we'd never miss them in two weeks, because the white farmers can take over and produce everything the Jap grows. And we do not want them back when the war ends, either."

WRA Relocation Centers

Name	State	Opened	Max. Pop'n
Manzanar	California	March 1942	10,046
Tule Lake	California	May 1942	18,789
Poston	Arizona	May 1942	17,814
Gila River	Arizona	July 1942	13,348
Granada	Colorado	August 1942	7,318
Heart Mountain	Wyoming	August 1942	10,767
Minidoka	Idaho	August 1942	9,397
Topaz	Utah	September 1942	8,130
Rohwer	Arkansas	September 1942	8,475
Jerome	Arkansas	October 1942	8,497

To heighten students' historical empathy I asked them to imagine that they were all Japanese-Americans and that they have found out they are going to be relocated.  The government is going to house everyone, but they cannot leave their possessions; they must sell or rent everything they have.  Only a few clothes and precious things can be kept. What would you take?


Links:
https://www.teachervision.com/tv/printables/beyondblame21_27.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans
http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist8/evac16.html
http://www.pbs.org/childofcamp/history/timeline.html

http://www.pbs.org/childofcamp/history/index.html

http://www.pbs.org/childofcamp/history/civilact.html

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/vhp/story/loc.natlib.afc2001001.02153/

My Life as a Turkey

Some of you might be wondering why your children have sworn off turkey for the rest of their lives.  It's my fault.

As part of our Thanksgiving festivities, we watched this delightful, award-winning video about how wildlife aficionado, Joe Hutto raised a group of wild turkeys from hatchlings to adulthood.


Hutto obtained a bowl of unhatched turkey eggs and carefully "imprinted" the young birds.  As they incubated they heard the loving clucks of their unusual but dedicated "mother."  Finally, upon emerging from their shells, they locked eyes with this man who would sacrifice all vestiges of a human life to life as a turkey for the next year.  He reflects on his learnings - both practical and even philosophical - as he led these birds through walks in the Florida woods.  We come to know and love the various birds as characters in a movie.

Links:

http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/wyoming-naturalist-reflects-on-experience-as-a-parent-to-wild/article_ed01418a-ee9c-5e72-8399-120d460ad9fd.html

Watch:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/my-life-as-a-turkey-full-episode/7378/

How Many Days to America? A Thanksgiving Story

After soldiers come, a family is forced to flee their Caribbean island home and sail across dangerous waters to America in a small fishing boat.  They faced hunger, were robbed by opportunistic pirates, and nearly capsized, all because they were drawn forward by the freedom they sensed could be found in America.

As they approach land, they spot soldiers.  In fear, they worry that the soldiers will capture them and deport them.  However, rather than following standard protocol, the soldiers bring the needy, hungry immigrants food and they allow them to stay rather than be deported.  The narrative key: it is Thanksgiving Day.

Bunting is doing something special here.  Rather than presenting readers with a realistic story of how immigrants are now treated by our "justice" system, Bunting uses fiction to expose our nation's inconsistencies of immigration narratives.  America's quintessential immigrants - the Pilgrims - serve as the unstated archetype for these immigrants.  They, like these Latin American immigrants, fled their homelands because of persecution.  Risking grave danger, both groups pressed forward to the perceived shores of freedom.




Instead of deporting the Latin American pilgrims (imagine the jarring element if the original custodians of our land - the Native Americans - had attempted to deport us!), the soldiers strangely live the logic of "America's" founding narrative.  They offer hospitality, shelter, and food to those coming onto their shores.


This book served as a valuable reference point, not only as we reexamined our nation's Thanksgiving narrative, but as we explored how we can better live this out.  Whether our families came to America ten days ago, ten months ago, ten years ago, or much longer than that, they, like most Americans, are either immigrants or descendants of immigrants.  They deserve the same hospitality that we celebrate this Thanksgiving.







                  

However, there are inconsistencies.  And this story helps us to explore this.  We used this opportunity to talk about one of the hot issues in today's political sphere - immigration reform.

               _     _________________________________________________________

As students listened to the story they made Venn Diagrams comparing these "Thanksgiving" immigrants with those of Pilgrim lore.

We examined:

• What prompted both groups to flee their homelands?
• Where they able to take many things with them?
• How did both groups view America?
• Compare and contrast their voyages.  Were they dangerous?  How so?  What other hardships were faced?
• How does food - its lack and the sharing of what is available - figure into both stories?
• How did the original Pilgrims react when they first saw land?  How did the "pilgrims" from Latin America react?
• Do you think Bunting's suggestion that the family can stay even after they are captured by soldiers is realistic? 

As further extensions we explored Nativism, looking at historical photos over the course of American history that depict this exclusionary sentiment.  We also read the immigration narratives of several immigrants - Russians, Scandinavians, and Hispanics.  Finally, we looked briefly at the rich variety of foods that immigrants have introduced to our diet.  This added richness is symbolic of the many new "flavors" that diversity brings to life.

You, whoever you are!...
All you continentals of Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia, indifferent of place!
All you on the numberless islands of the archipelagoes of the sea!
All you of centuries hence when you listen to me!
All you each and everywhere whom I specify not, but include just the same!
Health to you! good will to you all, from me and America sent!
Each of us is inevitable,
Each of us is limitless—each of us with his or her right upon the earth,
Each of us allow'd the eternal purports of the earth,
Each of us here as divinely as any is here.

• Walt Whitman

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nativism_(politics)

http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/immigration/ckbk/recipes_by_region.php

http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/immigration/interv/interviews.php?immigid=126

http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/immigration/interv/interviews.php?immigid=74

• 
  

We Shall Remain: After the Mayflower

Part of PBS’s award winning documentary series – American Experience – we watched this video to learn the true contours of the relationship between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag, the “Indian” tribe that offered them early assistance.  In many ways, this video took the myth we’ve often heard of the First Thanksgiving and turned it upside down, suggesting instead a history of cruelty and power that both Native and Colonist participated in.

                             In 1621, Wampanoag leader Massasoit negotiates to provide help to the ailing Pilgrims from the Mayflower.  Hungry, dirty and sick, the pale-skinned foreigners were struggling to stay alive; they were in desperate need of Native help. Massasoit faced problems of his own. His people had lately been decimated by unexplained sickness, leaving them vulnerable to their native enemies, the Narragansett to the west.  Massasoit negotiates, forming an alliance, because he thinks this alliance will ensure protection for his tribe from their enemies. Over the next fifty years, it becomes more and more clear that Massasoit was wrong.  The English continue to immigrate in greater and greater numbers, demanding more of the land, overusing and altering its bounty, forcibly converting Natives to Christianity, and threatening to swallow up Native identity.    

These pressures finally push the Wampanoag and the Pilgrims to war lead by Metacomet, Massoit’s son.  Known to the English as "King Philip," this war, King Philip's War, was the deadliest war, per capita, that America has ever seen.  Within little more than a year, twelve of the region's Colonial towns were utterly destroyed, many more damaged.  One tenth of all Colonial men were killed.  Many more Indians were killed.


 

A Day's Work

In this wonderful book which so adeptly integrates moral truth with a believable and thought provoking story, a young Fransisco waits expectantly with his grandfather, Abuelo, and other day laborers, hoping for a day's work.  Abuelo does not speak English so Fransisco serves as an interpreter.  Desperately needing money to attend to daily needs like food, Fransisco tells a potential employer that his grandfather is a gardener, even though he's actually a carpenter.   What harm could come from this little white lie?  They're still willing to put in a hard day's work for very little return. Lacking this claimed expertise, though, Fransisco and his grandfather inadvertently pull out the plantings rather than the weeds.  After Fransisco's lie is discovered, Abuelo takes ownership for it, showing Fransisco the value of integrity at all costs.  "We do not lie for work."  Abuelo insists on correcting their mistake for no extra pay.

Grandfather's deeply guarded sense of honor illustrates that even the "lowest" labor carries dignity and honor when pursued with a good moral compass.  In fact no job can be viewed with respect unless it is carried out honestly.  While some jobs may yield different salaries, if carried out honestly, all yield the same ultimate good - self respect.

The story served as a valuable conversation partner as we discussed "intrinsic" and "extrinsic" motivations that lay behind all our decisions, whether in the classroom, at home, or in our communities.  Do we pursue our daily tasks - learning, for example - simply because of external factors (grades, not getting in trouble, allowances, etc.) or do we pursue learning and chores because of how they will improve us internally?  Do we make the right decisions even when those decisions hurt, or do we take the easy way out?  As in this story, though it may sometimes require sacrifice, creating habits of consistently acting honestly eventually yields good results. Because Abuelo insisted on being honest, they lost a day's wage, but earned the respect of their employer as well as an ongoing contract.
                               
For extensions we looked at the true stories and challenges facing  many day laborers in our country.

Links:
http://nfwm.org/farm-worker-stories/
http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/calcultures/ethnic_groups/subtopic3b.html

http://www.opb.org/programs/oregonstory/ag_workers/pop_gallery_bunk.html

http://www.extension.org/pages/9960/migrant-farm-workers:-our-nations-invisible-population#.VGdhSnPnbqA
http://nfwm.org/education-center/farm-worker-issues/timeline-of-agricultural-labor/

Rudi's Pond

In this book, Bunting takes on the difficult topic of sickness and eventual loss of a loved one.  Like many of her books, this tale is based on a true story.  In it, the young narrator's best friend, Rudi, is very ill.  He loves to paint and draw and, though sick, he summons the strength to help the narrator paint her garden gate green with yellow tulips on it.  Most of the time, though, Rudi and is confined to his bed; he can't go on nature walk with his friend and spends a lot of time in the hospital.  Very understandably the narrator struggles with this.  Eventually, Rudi dies and the narrator and her classmates respond by creating a pond on the school grounds under a big knobby oak tree to remember him by.  Rudi loved hummingbirds and left behind a feeder he made.  His friends hang this by the pond in memory of him.  One day, a hummingbird comes to visit.  The bird returns over and over.  Then summer vacation comes.  The little girl takes the hummingbird feeder home with her.  She wonders if the hummingbird will be able to find her house.  (It's never seen it before.)  But as she places the feeder by her green gate - the one Rudi adorned with yellow tulips - gate, the story closes with the line "I think the hummingbird will remember."  The implication is that Rudi's spirit and memory lives on in the hummingbird.


Theme: Death and loss; death is not the end.
Symbolism: Rudi's memory lives on in the happiness and color of the tiny hummingbird.

Some Frog

As we have come to expect from this versatile author, Bunting tackles another important social issue with this text - separation/ divorce and the ensuing toll that this often has on children.  In the story, a young boy who lives with his mother and grandparents waits for his father who has promised to come and help him catch a frog for a jumping contest being held at school.  The boy waits and waits, eventually coming to the disappointing realization that his father is not coming.  Mom and grandparents step in and catch the frog.  Though the boy is disappointed, he learns that with the love gathered around him life is "very good the way it is."

Going Home

Here, a versatile Bunting explores the tough decisions that accompany a family's decision to migrate, showing that even though many wish to immigrate for greater opportunities, there is much left behind and much sacrificed so that new generations can have opportunities.  Families, culture, and a sense of place are valuable things that many leave behind.  Bunting also explores the deeper philosophical question, "What is home?"

In the book, an immigrant family goes back home to Mexico to celebrate Christmas with their wider family.  They originally made the difficult decision to immigrate to the United States, leaving behind loved ones and their sense of place, because they felt that it would give their children greater opportunities.  As the children watch their parents dance in the streets of their hometown, they come to realize that Mexico is part of who they are and who their parents are.  They realize the sacrifices their parents have made to carve out an opportunity at a better life for them.
"They love it here because it's home.  They have left home for us."

We discussed whether home could be in two places.  We also discussed sacrifices that our parents have made for us.

To give another perspective on home, we read Grandfather's Journey alongside this text, discussing similarities and differences between the two depicted ideas of "home."

Each student made a Venn Diagram with two circles that overlap. In one circle, they described the concept of home described in Going Home. In the second circle, they put the concept of home described in Grandfather’s Journey. The circles should be overlapped, with the overlap including attributes of home that are shared in common by both books.

Sunshine Home

Eve Bunting displays her wide repertoire of themes with this text, using her perceptive honesty and sensitivity to explore a family's transition to nursing home care for their aging mother/ grandmother.  Here a seven year old boy, Timmie, visits his grandmother in this home, the "Sunshine Home," for the first time.  He is scared but won't admit it outright.  Instead he goes in with a too cool attitude, describing the paint color as "barf green," and saying his stomach hurt as he entered.  He is embarrassed to bring in a balloon with the word "love" on it.

With this sensitive text, Bunting forces readers to puzzle over what truly constitutes love.  Is it interacting with someone who has it all together in a setting that is to our liking, or is it being with someone "in sickness and in health," "in good times and in bad?"




By the end of the story, Timmie has revealed his real feelings and his fears to his parents.  This honesty paves
the way for him accepting the true burden of love - cherishing someone, caring for them and sticking by them, even when it's not in your own self interest.

Theme: Love is... present in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad.

To extend this, we brainstormed how much care little babies need - they are helpless.  Students read a short article about caring for little babies.  We explored how this was much the same as caring for an old person.  They have already given that care to their children.  Now the gift of caring love is coming full circle.

Gleam and Glow

Set in the midst of 1990 Bosnia-Herzegovinan conflict, Bunting borrows not only a context but also loosely borrows a story of a family forced to flee their home who leave behind some valued fish.  In her take, eight year old Viktor watches as his father leaves to join the Liberation Army.  As refugees are displaced, many pass through Viktor's small village.  One man, who has been carrying some beautiful gold fish, decides to leave them with Viktor rather than carry them further.  Their beauty- "like all the light of the world  was trapped in that glass bowl" - afforded a needed glimmer of hope in an otherwise dark world.  Eventually, Viktor, his sister, Marina, and his mother are forced to join the stream of refugees, fleeing the danger of approaching enemy forces.  Viktor releases the fish into the family's pond.  After weeks of difficult and dangerous flight from their home to the safety of the border, Viktor and family are reunited with their father.  Years pass and the land has been ravaged by war, pockmarked by bombs.  Eventually, the family journeys back home and are surprised to see that the fish have not only survived, but thrived.  They and their offspring glitter in the pond, juxtaposing the ugliness of the bomb pockmarked landscape with an image of hope and renewal.


During the Bosnian War, cellist Vedran Smailovic plays Strauss inside the bombed-out National Library in Sarajevo, on September 12, 1992.

Theme: Look for beauty amidst the pain of life.  In time, this beauty will blossom into signs of hope and renewal.




We spoke briefly about the historical backdrop of the Bosnian conflict, but rather than reading about this violent episode in our history, students had the opportunity to read about modern day refugee children.

Students read about problems of refugee populations around the world and human rights issues related to refugees.






Then students brainstormed a list of rights that they think all human beings should have.  After conducting this brainstorm, we compared student lists to the list created under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

I distributed a list of refugees by continent.  We saw that refugees exist on all populated continents, enabling learners to have a wider understanding of the basic human need for dignity that all refugees feel.




Finally, we talked briefly about South Africa's model for dealing with past wrongs - the celebrated Truth and Reconciliation Commission.




Links:
Bosnian conflict:

• http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012/04/20-years-since-the-bosnian-war/100278//

Refugees:

• http://learningtogive.org/lessons/unit189/lesson4_attachments/3.html
• http://learningtogive.org/lessons/unit189/lesson4_attachments/1.html
• http://learningtogive.org/lessons/unit189/lesson4_attachments/2.html
• http://www.viewsoftheworld.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/RefugeesMap2011-12.jpg

Truth and Reconciliation Commission:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_and_Reconciliation_Commission_%28South_Africa%29

Scarlet Stocking Spy

dfd

http://www.pbs.org/benfranklin/l3_world_spies.html
http://www.ushistory.org/march/bio/andre.htm

http://www.randomhouse.com/features/spybook/spy/961128.html

http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/revwartimeline.htm

http://www.surveillance-video.com/revolution-march-2009.html

Dandelions

In this story, a pioneer father moves pregnant wife and family west from Minnesota, hoping for new opportunities and ready land.  Loneliness and isolation set in right away.  There are no trees and the grass closes behind them as they roll through miles upon miles in this sea of prairie.  "It's as if we'd never been here", said Mama, forlornly.  Their homestead site has no water, no flowers, no birds' song, and the nearest neighbors are three hours away.  Papa reassures, "It will be different soon.  Other settlers will come."

But as beetles and snakes plunge from the roof of their "soddie" onto their table, this far off hope was hard to imagine, especially for Mama and Zoe, the eldest daughter and narrator.  Then one day as Papa and Zoe set off for supplies, they stumble upon a symbolic clump of dandelions, probably brought west by other settlers.  They dig up a dandelion and transplant it on the roof of their sod house.  Though the story ends with this transplanted clump looking dry and lifeless there is the expectant hope that like the seeds that lie latent, the family's life will soon bloom into color and happiness.  But to get to this point it will take time.  "Can you wait?" Zoe asked her mother... "I can wait," Mama said.

Though the closing words end in waiting hope, the last picture shows a hazy, dreamlike view of their farm in the future, dandelions covering the roof and the fields plowed and fertile.

Discussion:

Good things are worth waiting for and working for.   Student writing focused on the ways that we wait and work patiently for the goods we pursue.  Improving your reading, writing, math fluency, athletic skills, etc. all take a lot of work and patience.  As we wait, we can find symbols of beauty and hope in simple, common things.

This was a great introduction to the challenges of the western movement and the lives of pioneers.  To extend this learning, students read about life in sod houses.

Links:

http://amhistory.si.edu/ourstory/activities/sodhouse/more.html
http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0500/frameset_reset.html?http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0500/stories/0501_0109.html
http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0500/frameset_reset.html?http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0500/stories/0501_0109.html

The Sparrow Girl

In 1958, China’s Chairman Mao declared war on sparrows.  This was part of his "Four Pests" campaign.  He blamed them for devouring the nation’s wheat crop, and he required all citizens, armed with pots and pans and firecrackers, to take to the streets and literally scare the birds to death.  The “war” was a success insofar as the sparrows were eradicated.  However, Mao did not think through the ecological ramifications of his actions.  Having disrupted the food chain, these actions brought on a plague of locusts and a three-year famine that resulted in the deaths of almost 40 million Chinese. 

In this story, Sara Pennypacker uses these events as the backdrop for her fictional story about Ming-Li.  This small, seemingly “insignificant” girl feel badly for the sparrows under attack.  She secretly decides to disobey her leader, and rescues seven birds as they fall from the sky.  She nurses them back to health for several months, hiding them in a barn.   Finally, she finds the bravery to show these illegal birds to the farmers, whose crops are now suffering.  The book shows how one person, no matter how small, can make a difference.

In class discussion, we talked about cause and effect.  This story is the perfect example of C/E.

Social Studies connections

 Watch:

Students gave examples of peer pressure in their lives.  We discussed:

• why many people conform to certain behaviors
• how conformity or peer pressure among adults differs from peer pressure among children
• whether it's human nature to conform
• how television and advertisements try to encourage certain behavior

Watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4srwSkD05ws&safe=active

 Discuss:  What were the Chinese government's strategies to promote conformity among young people?


Science connections

• Students researched and drew the food chain of a sparrow. Then they researched the food chain of another animal of their choosing
• After researching this second animal, students tried to imagine it taken out of the environment.  What could the impact be?
• Their findings culminate in the writing of a letter to the government.  They were to imagine our government declaring war on a perceived pest.  Students wrote to advise the government to be careful and consider the food chain – cause and effect
• Some examples included:
• Bees: they pollinate almost all vegetables and fruits.  Just because they sting does not mean they are undesirable.  Without them, we might not have food!
• Bats: they fly around and some people are scared of them, but they eat huge amounts of insects.  Without them, they would be lots of insects and probably disease as well!
• Flies: their larvae (maggots) eat dead things.  Without them, disease could spread because dead bodies would be left lying around, not decomposing.

Crow Call

Lizzie's father has just returned home after fighting overseas in WWII for longer than she can remember.  This story shows the beginning steps in rekindling their strained relationship.  Though Lizzie is excited to spend the day with her father, she's shy: "I practice saying his name to myself, whispering it under my breath.  Daddy.  Daddy.  Saying it feels new."

Probably feeling a little unsure himself Daddy selects a gift that is symbolic - something his young daughter will never outgrow.  His concrete, outward gift is a man's flannel shirt that Lizzie can wear through the years as she goes out into the wilderness, building memories with her dad.  The deeper gift, though, is his explicit commitment that he will be present there with her, taking special outings as she continues to grow.

As they head through the gray green hills of the Pennsylvania farmlands to call crows from the silent sky, intending to shoot them, a poignant conversation bubbles up.  The gun, and the thought of her veteran father being both a hunter of men and hunted by men, awaken many of the fears in young Lizzie.  She shyly but honestly initiates a conversation about their shared fears, fear imparted through the legacy of war.  Realizing Lizzie is still scared of guns and has a soft heart for the crows, Daddy elects not to shoot any.  Instead they just call them up and watch them fly peacefully away as they walk peacefully away, hand in hand.

To extend the themes of this book, we watched a short video showing real life reunions between veterans and those they've left behind.  We also read historical documents - letters written from those on the front lines - to their loved ones at home.  These letters and the video revealed the deep love, longing, and fears that transcended the distance separating loved ones during war.       



Links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEecPOyKGKc&app=desktop
http://veterans.heraldtribune.com/2014/07/10/world-war-ii-childs-eyes/
http://dearmotheranddad.typepad.com/
http://www.thejucketts.com/civilwar/december271861.htm
http://www.thejucketts.com/civilwar/june111861.htm

The Wall

On November 11, we honor the wartime sacrifices of men and women in our armed forces.  Originally termed Armistice Day to commemorate the Armistice that brought an end to WWI, it was renamed Veteran's Day to honor the veterans of all American wars.

In this sobering story, a young boy visits "grandfather's wall," the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, with his father to look for his grandfather's name.  This monument chronologically lists the names of more than 58,000 Americans who gave their lives in this controversial war.  Seen through the eyes of a child, this touching story is an age-appropriate introduction to new generations about the sacrifices that military veterans have made and the impact these sacrifices have had on families.  The book invites us to share the boy's curiosity, prompting questions of readers about the wheelchair bound soldier with no legs, the grandma and grandpa tearfully embracing, the many flowers and mementoes left behind, and the teacher 's suggestion that the wall belongs to all of us.

As extensions, we looked at the Library of Congress archives where the memories of thousands of veterans have been recorded through correspondence, photographs, diaries, and memoirs.




Finally, as a way to honor our veterans who have protected and sacrificed for us, we educated ourselves about the plights that many veterans are still facing.  Sadly, after sacrificing so much overseas, many veterans return either visibly injured or with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).  Resultantly, close to 40% of our nation's homeless are veterans, and those numbers are expected to rise.  We read about efforts such as Stand Down and the VA's plan to end veteran homelessness.  Honoring our veterans is more than feeling a swelling of patriotic pride as we safely salute the flag or attend a parade as we see veterans marching by in military pomp.  Just as veterans fought for us, so too, many now need us to fight for them.  Our veterans are worthy of nothing less.


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Links:
http://www.nps.gov/vive/index.htm
http://www.loc.gov/vets/stories/wwi-diaries-memoirs.html
http://www.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3755254
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Coalition_for_Homeless_Veterans
http://vvsd.net/success.htm

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/sep/18/vietnam-unexploded-landmines-bombs
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/32236846/ns/world_news-asia_pacific/t/vietnam-land-mines-still-line-million-acres/#.VHykVIeLYug

Uncle Jed's Barber Shop

Testing the Ice

Written by the daughter of baseball legend, Jackie Robinson, Testing the Ice tells the story of how Jackie Robinson routinely put himself in danger to "test the ice" for others, making sure that they could safely go about their lives.  He did this most famously by breaking the race barrier, integrating Major League Baseball.

This famous story is retold in part.  One day, Dodgers General Manager, Branch Rickey, approached Robinson, with an offer to join the team.  Rickey warned Jackie that integrating into MLB would require a lot of determination, long suffering, and courage.  These things he had.  Sharon Robinson rehearses the well known manifestation of these virtues (his MLB career), but then tells a heartwarming true story of how Jackie displayed these same character traits as a watchful father.

This story is set, decades removed from Jackie's early baseball career.  Jackie's children gather with friends (both black and white) at their comfortable lake house, listening wide eyed to stories of this walking legend.  The children regularly bounce from Jackie's trophy room to playing in the lake.  Jackie never joins them because he doesn't know how to swim and is scared of the water.  One winter day, the children beg to go out and skate on the ice.  Wanting to ensure that they are safe, a much heavier Jackie ventures out carefully onto the ice, testing its strength, putting himself in danger to make sure that others are safe.

Not only does Sharon Robinson share a beautiful childhood memory, but she creates a wonderful metaphor for breaking the color barrier. As she said in an interview on National Public Radio, "[This story] so perfectly defines Jackie Robinson the athlete, Jackie Robinson the husband, the father, the loving, the courageous, the caring... I wanted children to understand the totality of this man and how consistent he was in both his public persona and his personal one."


Links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=related&v=hCBoskYx3Is&app=desktop
http://atyourlibrary.org/sports/author-sharon-robinson-champions-legacy-her-father-jackie
http://www.sharonrobinsonink.com/books/
http://www.sharonrobinsonink.com/media/

Freedom School, Yes!

Today we read a fictionalized account of events that took place during the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project.  During this time, Freedom Schools were set up as temporary, alternative free schools.  Part of Civil Rights efforts, they were meant to help African Americans achieve social, political, and economic equality.  More than 600 volunteers risked their lives to teach black children in the deep South "'bout people and places, 'bout who you are." 

In our story, Annie, a 19-year-old white teacher from up North, came to stay with Jolie and her family. When racist vandals throw a brick through Jolie’s bedroom window, she wishes the teacher would head home. Later arsonists burn down the church that had housed the Freedom School. Annie refuses to give up and holds the Freedom School under an old hickory tree.

 

Through Jolie's young eyes, we were able to glimpse the frightening violence of the 1960s South and sense the need for rejecting all inherited ideas that might cause us to value any one person over another.

Just as this school affords Jolie the opportunity to learn about Jacob Lawrence, Countee Cullen, and Benjamin Banneker, students in our class had the opportunity to read about these figures.  During M.I.L time, students also had the opportunity to read about the history of Freedom Schools in the South and to read about a “Freedom School” still operating right here in the Twin Cities.

 

In addition to talking about the historical/ social/ and political implications of this story, we followed our routine practice of charting out the story structure and discussing the author's unique language.  Here we explored

• ways the author build up suspense in the story.   
• how the author made us feel as Jolie was searching for Annie

We also situated the implications of our reading in the context of our specific class.  How are we similar to or different from the students in this story?

• How can we help each other in class?  We talked about what it means to be brave and how it's sometimes scary to stand up to those who are mean.  In the words of Jolie’s uncle: “You gonna learn ‘bout people and places ‘bout who you are.  Once you learn that, you ain’t gonna let bein’ scared get in your way.”
• We talked about how there were many brave whites in this story and throughout the South during the Civil Rights movement.  Color does not determine whether or not you will be prejudiced or whether or not you will be kind.  We each have the choice to determine whether we will love or whether we will treat others poorly, regardless of our color or other parts of our background.

After looking at some historical pictures of Freedom Schools we also listened to some of the original folk songs that were sung in this freedom movement:

http://www.folkways.si.edu/we-shall-overcome-songs-of-the-freedom-riders-and-the-sit-ins/african-american-music-american-history-historical-song-struggle-protest/album/smithsonian

                      “We Shall Overcome,” We Shall Not Be Moved,” “Oh Freedom.”

Other links:
http://www.childrensdefense.org/programs-campaigns/freedom-schools/
http://www.crmvet.org/images/imgfs.htm#imgschool

Student learning about this topic culminated in the following:  
Write: Remember all the background history you learned about Freedom Schools.  Use this and then use the characters and structure of this book to write newspaper articles explaining the events in this story as they occur.  Include interviews of some of the characters and other important background information.