Supplementary Reading: Apartheid in South Africa

I took the following information directly off of a webpage operated by Boston University:

1. BOOKS FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG ADULTS All of these books are
available for loan from the Boston University African Outreach Program.

Elinor Sisulu, The Day Gogo Went to Vote.

Sheila Gordon, Waiting for Rain [winner of several children's book awards (ages 12 & up)
_________, Middle of Somewhere: A Story of South Africa (elem/middle)

Beverly Naidoo, Journey to Jo'burg A South African Storv [winner of several children's book awards]

_________, Chain of Fire, (ages 11 & up)

Hazel Rochman, ea., Somehow Tenderness Survives: Stories of Southern Africa [an ALA Best Book for Young Adults]

The Open School, Two Dogs and Freedom - drawings and observations about life in South Africa by black South African children

Mary Benson, Nelson Mandela: The Man and the Movement (advanced high school) [Mary Benson has also done a middle school level biography of Mandela]

Apartheid: Calibrations of Color (Icarus/Rosen Publishing Group). [winner of African Studies Assoc. award for children's book]short stories, plays, photos and personal essays by South Africans. [middle & high school]


Sarah Harris, Timeline: South Africa (Weighing Up the Evidence)

Gail Stewart, South Africa (Places in the News)

Hugh Lewin, The Day the Picture Came Alive [about the excitement of Nelson Mandela visiting children in a village soon after his release from prison]; [elementary school]

D. Stanley, Shaka: King of the Zulus
S. Harris, Timeline: South Africa. [middle school]
G. Stewart, South Africa: Places in the News. [middle school]
S. Otfinoski, Nelson Mandela [middle school]
Floyd Cooper, Mandela. [elementary school]
Rebecca Stefoff, Nelson Mandela A Voice Set Free
Jack Roberts, Nelson Mandela. [elementary school]
John Vail, Nelson and Winnie Mandela

N. Silver, No Tigers in Africa [a coming of age story about a white boy who is pushed to unlearn the prejudice he grew up withl; [middle school and higher]

M. Williams, The Genuine Half Moon Kid [a coming of age story about a white boy]; [middle school and higher]

Peter Lowis, South Africa: Free at Last ("Topics in the News" series)

In addition, the B.U. African Outreach Program has a series of short biographies, w/ photos, of key leaders in the anti-apartheid struggle. [grades 5-8]; [published in South Africa]

The following fine picture books take place in South Africa. They offer stories which vividly
depict the lives and culture of black South Africans.
Isadora, Over the Green Hills
_________, At the Crossroads
I. Mennen and N. Daly, Somewhere in Africa
N. Daly, Not So Fast Songololo
N. Daly, The Day of the Rainbow
C. Stock, Armien's Fishing Trip
H. Lewin, Jafta (series)
R. Schermbrucker and N. Daly, Charlie's House
J. Seed, Ntombi's Song

Research-based Article Indicates Parental Involvement in Middle School Students' Academic Achievement

Check out the article below (in PDF form):


http://www.nmsa.org/portals/0/pdf/publications/RMLE/rmle_vol31_no10.pdf

Q2 Midterm Update

Hello!

A few items of business:

1) Please remember to check your child's midterm grades over Thanksgiving Break.

2) Please remember to send a signed permission slip for pen-pals from Thailand; I will accept notice via email. We will begin writing after Thanksgiving.


This week in 8th grade Social Studies, we finished watching the movie Gandhi, and looked at my photographs of India from my trip there over Fall Break; when we get back from Thanksgiving Break we will discuss South Africa's Apartheid system, and Nelson Mandela as a leader; then we will move on to a more in-depth study of the Cold War; we will begin reading the Core Knowledge novel, Animal Farm, by George Orwell!


7th graders began working on a (hopefully) fun project as we study WW1-- they will be practicing and performing (live or recorded versions) of songs from the WW1 era!

Students can choose to work alone, in pairs, or in small groups; groups of more than two students are required to perform one song for every two people in a group (e.g. 1 student= 1 song, 2 students= 1 song, 3 students= 1 song, 4 students =2 songs, 5 students= 2 songs, 6 students= 3 songs...) Students may choose to perform more than the required number of songs, if they want to!

WW1 sheet music can be found at the following site:

http://dl.lib.brown.edu/sheetmusic/ww1/

(If you have trouble accessing this website, just do a Google search for "WW1 Sheet Music", and it should be the first link that the search produces. Also, students have information about how to access our class gmail (email) account, and the link can be found in our collective Inbox, as well.)

Students can perform the song live in class, or record a version at home to play for us in class; some ideas have been to make a music video, video record yourself while singing/playing the song, record your performance onto your computer/laptop and upload it onto your iPod to play in class, etc.

Students can perform a vocal rendition of the tune, an instrumental version, or a combination of the two; it is acceptable for one student to sing while the other plays an instrument.

This will be due at the end of Q2.


On the Legislative Draft front, all 7th and 8th graders should begin searching for legislative committees that focus on the environment, and recording the names of the legislators that comprise those committees. We will attempt to contact relevant legislators when we return next week from break. Some states are still in the process of forming committees, so depending on the states your child is following, s/he may or may not be able to find this information.


Have a nice Thanksgiving!

Leah Hood

Amazon's Top 10 History books of 2010

Thought of some of you might be interested in this list; many of these supplement the units of study in my classes, as well as other levels of the Core Knowledge sequence; please bear in mind that I have not yet read any of these...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000628091

#1) The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
by Isabel Wilkerson

#2) Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History
by S. C. Gwynne

#3) Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory
by Ben Macintyre

#4) Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address Illustrated
by Abraham Lincoln

#5) Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood with Britain in Its Darkest, Finest Hour
by Lynne Olson

#6) The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn
by Nathaniel Philbrick

#7) Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin
by Hampton Sides

#8) Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition
by Daniel Okrent

#9) The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York by Deborah Blum

#10) The Fall of the House of Walworth: A Tale of Madness and Murder in Gilded Age America by Geoffrey O'Brien

In a globalized world, look to global examples...

Very interesting articles about, perhaps, where we should be looking for guidance....

http://www.learningfirst.org/teachers-we-trust-interview-finnish-education-expert-reijo-laukkanen

http://www.iptv.org/iowajournal/story.cfm/447

http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/148771.html

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/1995/10/18/07finkel.h15.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/4031805.stm

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sharon-higgins/why-do-the-education-refo_1_b_775087.html

From The National Council for the Social Studies

Check out the links below to find out more about how I view my role as your child's Social Studies teacher:

http://www.socialstudies.org/standards/teacherstandards

http://www.socialstudies.org/standards

http://www.socialstudies.org/standards/strands

http://www.socialstudies.org/category/topic/21st-century-skills


Hope you are either A) Feeling better, B) Getting rest, or C) Enjoying your unexpected long weekend!

Take care,
Leah Hood

Q2 Update

Hard to believe, but Q2 is well under way!

In 7th grade, we continue to study WW1; this week so far we have read about the Fleet Acts, and played a board game about "militarism." I have been reading aloud to the students from The Kitchen Boy, as they draw what they hear; it is a During Reading activity aimed at A) visualization, and B) visual summaries. Some students are enjoying the novel more than others, of course, but most agree that the plot is starting to pick up the pace...

7th graders were just tested over the Canadian provinces, and will next be tested over countries in South America.

Early next week, we'll be using the laptop cart to explore the following website, which contains sheet music from the WW1 era:

http://dl.lib.brown.edu/sheetmusic/ww1/


In 8th grade, we started learning about the Indian independence movement, including historic figures such as Gandhi and Nehru, and historic events such as the Amritsar Massacre, The Salt March (aka The March to the Sea), and Partition; we will be watching the movie, Gandhi, starring Ben Kingsley. We will also be covering Apartheid in South Africa, paying special attention to the life and work of Nelson Mandela.

Here are a few of the online resources we used today in 8th grade:

Amritsar Massacre: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6687085

Salt March Reenactment: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/in_pictures/4343307.stm

8th graders were tested over countries in central Africa, and are about to be tested over countries in southern Africa.


Since the midterm elections are behind us, next week (in both grade levels) we'll be moving forward a bit in our Legislative Draft project.

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Thanks for reading, and take care,
Leah Hood

Cool supplements!

There are so many cool things going on in the Twin Cities metro area!

Check out the current and upcoming events at the Science Museum of Minnesota:

http://www.smm.org/

(Including "Celebrate Girls & Science on Saturday, November 13", and "Coming February 2011: Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs" !)

And through the MN Historical Society:

http://www.mnhs.org/events/

Or at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts:

http://www.artsmia.org/

(Particularly for the 8th graders, who have been studying African geography: http://www.artsmia.org/index.php?section_id=2&exh_id=4031)

Homework Assignments

All 7th and 8th graders have two assignments, as of today:

1) Go to the websites of Mark Dayton, Tom Emmer, and Tom Horner; in Social Studies Notebook, list 1 idea from each candidate's website that you agree with, and 1 idea that you disagree with; 6 ideas in total (3 that you think are good ideas, 3 that you think are not-so-good/bad ideas); tomorrow we will have a class vote!

http://markdayton.org/mainsite/

http://www.emmerforgovernor.com/

http://www.horner2010.com/


2) Study for the next map quiz; 7th=Canadian provinces; 8th=Central African countries; quiz next week (exact date TBD).