Emily's Book Club Response

The book chosen to read was Reading History by Janet Allen. This book speaks a lot about having the student's be connected to their subject, in this case history. A lot of the techniques that Allen writes about can be seen in most classrooms, at least I feel I have seen them throughout my school days, and in the CPD. One part of the reading was when Allen started mentioning specific activities to be used within the classroom, it was easy enough to read through, much like the 125 Strategies book and within Teach 430, the Bring Learning Alive book.

One of the activities that caught my eye would have to be the box of the primary source documents. I thought that this might be a great way for students to also learn what a primary source is, how to tell that a source is a primary source, and how to search for a complete picture of an event. Another activity that I thought could be used in any adolescent grade would be the List-Group-Label. This pushes the students to think critically, and could also be a great way to wrap up a unit because the students would have previous knowledge (Vygotsky scaffolding) to integrate. This is a simple, resourceful activity that could be applied to any unit, and teaches the students that they should not have simple answers, but to have a reason for why they each believe in certain perspectives.

The Concept Ladder struck home with me, especially with the example being about the atomic bomb. If I had this book last semester, I could have integrated it into my unit plan. This was a great way to get the students to think outside of the box and to have them look up the information themselves. Students would have a chance to get interested because there could be one or two questions (at least) that would spark something within them.