Encyclopedia Brown meets the Science Teacher

Einstein Anderson Science Geek
The Impossible Shrinking Machine
Seymour Simon
Illustrator Kevin O'Mally

Science loving Adam "Einstein" Anderson is back - and more contemporary than ever! Einstein and his best friend Paloma try to stump each other and foil the ever-scheming Stanley as they solve science mysteries. Not only have the characters, stories, dialog, and devices been updated, every story now includes a fun science experiment for readers to try. Great stories and hands-on science!

It often amazes me how well modern kids take to the Encyclopedia Brown series by Donald Sobol. Encylopedia, Sally, and the vile Bugs Meany live in an idealized beach-side suburbia without traffic, a mall, or cell phones. But the formula works, a few pages of interplay between the principles, a clue or two, and the announcement that the reader has everything they need to solve the mystery. My students eat it up.

That’s why I was so glad to find this series of books. They are targeted at fourth to sixth graders. The mysteries work in a modern setting with the kids not hamstrung by taking their tech away. Seymour Simon, a former science teacher, has added science to the formula. The stories revolve around scientific principles, but the information is included in the stories so it doesn’t require outside information to solve. I never had to disallow internet searching for my students. They can’t really look up the answer, and their eagerness to investigate on their own pays dividends in their reading. 

There are also ‘do at home’ experiments between chapters for the daring. I’ve never used the experiments, so proceed at your own risk.

In an interview with the author in The Nerdy Bookclub explains the origins of the series. To my surprise, he didn’t sit down to update the solve-it-yourself mystery genre. He invented the stories to focus his class in that brutal period after state testing and before the summer break.

I’ve used the books successfully with boys and girls. They are eager to show off by solving the mystery and often investigate on their own outside of the book. I enjoy using it for a Scheherazade item: read the clues at the end of a session, ask for a written sentence or two for the answer. At the beginning of the next session, review the student’s writing, and read the answer to start the next session.

Recommended.

Luck

My name is A.J.

Miss Daisy is Crazy
Dan Gutman
Illustrator Jim Paillot

In the first My Weird School book ever, second-grade teacher Miss Daisy is in over her head at Ella Mentary School. She doesn't even know how to add or subtract!

But the students, like A.J. and his friends, have other things on their minds. Principal Klutz has promised their class that if they read a million pages in books, they can turn the school into a video-game arcade for one whole night!

Perfect for reluctant readers and word lovers alike, Dan Gutman’s insanely popular My Weird School series has something for everyone. Don’t miss the hilarious adventures of A.J. and the gang!

OK, let’s pretend you have a primary student uninterested in reading. If this is the result of less stimulation than they want, try this book. Students who want more story than they can read? Try this book. If you need to establish a relationship with a new student who is showing their parents resistance? Try this book.

Can you tell I like using the book for breaking the ice with my students? Do you know why? It has worked repeatedly for me. I had an ELL student whose parents called me in because they were tired of fighting with their child about reading. After an evaluation of their reading skills, I tried this book. 

They read those magic words “My name is A.J. I like football and video games, and I hate school.” They folded the book in their lap, looked at me with big eyes, and peeked over their shoulder to see if they would be reprimanded for even uttering such words. When I asked them to go on, they burst into a ferocious giggle and read straight through the book. They read with me, continued on their own, and asked their parents for more.

Fortunately, the book is the first in a series long enough to keep your student engaged for a good long time. The series includes seasonal offerings to pique the interest of students. There are several non-fiction books associated with the series. I’ve used two with mixed success:

• My Weird Writing Tips. A delightful, straight-forward defense of writing well. I liked the emphasis on not having to know everything about English to tell a good story that people will understand. A few of my more authorial inclined students responded. It won’t take long to see if your student responds. Mine either liked it or hated it immediately.
  
  
• My Weird School Fast Facts: Space, Humans, and Farts. None of my students responded. I think it’s because it takes the characters and style of books about THEM to make a book about astronauts and space. I’m tempted to try other titles in the non-fiction run whose subject closely matches my student's interest.

The publisher, Harper Collins offers activity tie-ins. They are written for classrooms, but some of them can be re-purposed for individual assignments.

Lexile score: 700L

Interest Level: Primary school, and by fifth grade, most students will find the stories childish..

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2021

 

A Time to Break Silence: The Essential Works of Martin Luther King, Jr

A quick thank you to the folks over at We Need Diverse Books. They recently donated some volumes to our library as part of their Diversity in the Classroom program. As I write this, we are under shelter at home orders due to Covid-19, and not circulating books. That gave me a chance to crack open this volume and appreciate again the writings of Dr. King.

Today is the annual Martin Luther King day of service in the United States. I’d like to use today’s article to recommend this book and give some suggestions for tutoring with Dr. King’s writings. I’ve used it with middle-school and high-school students.

A Time to Break Silence is part of The King Legacy series and has an informative introduction from Walter Dean Myers.  The King Institute at Stanford created the book for teachers to lead their students through the writings. I’d advise against asking students to read it on their own. Each of the works by King has a context-setting introduction and a set of “Reflection Questions”. The questions are designed to get students to go beyond a superficial reading and understand the deeper themes. The writings are organized into sections by theme.

The King Institute and Beacon press also created a study guide with activities and additional material. They are built for classrooms, but you can convert many of them to individual instruction.

I recommend the book.

I’ve used The Time for Freedom has Come with students because it directly addresses students working in the non-violent civil rights movement. The book reproduces the original article from the New York Times in 1961 under the Young People Working for Justice theme. Dr. King pens a stirring call for students to involve themselves in improving civil rights.

Some guidelines, not rules, for using King’s work in tutoring:

- I believe Dr. King’s moral message is universal, but he delivers it in an explicitly Christian manner. I ask parents about this before I teach his writings to avoid any problems.

- You may be tempted to emulate King’s oratorical style to explain to your students the power of his speeches. Don’t. Your impression is a pale imitation. There are plenty of videos around that allow your students to experience it directly.

- You will have to set a historical context for most students. Establish the reality of Jim Crow and Institutional restrictions in the United States. There are many examples of large movements and transgressions, but try to include the realities of history at a personal level. The Montgomery bus boycott is a great advance in civil rights, but don’t forget to include the individual realities of walking miles to work each day.

- Dr. King wrote at a high level, you’ll have to help your students break down the passages.

- Sometimes, we demand our students be sober and serious at all times. Especially, about something as serious as civil rights. Dr. King called for civil disobedience and non-violence. That does not mean the only solution is for people to throw their bodies on the state machinery until it clogs the gears. You can also use mockery. From "The Time for Freedom has Come" :

"Another weapon which Negro students have employed creatively in their nonviolent struggle is satire. It has enabled them to avoid corrosive anger while pressing the cutting edge of ridicule against the opponent. When they have been admonished to “go slow,” patiently to wait for gradual change, with a straight face they will assure you that they are diligently searching for the happy medium between the two extremes of moderation and gradualism." 

- So often we see calls for civil rights dismissed as anti-American. King calls not for a replacement of America, but its improvement. A quote from this essay among the many in King’s writing:

"They are taking our whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the Founding Fathers in the formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. In sitting down at the lunch counters, they are in reality standing up for the best in the American dream." 

Luck

Need to get more fruit in your student's reading?

 

James and the Giant Peach

After James Henry Trotter's parents are tragically eaten by a rhinoceros, he goes to live with his two horrible aunts, Spiker and Sponge. Life there is no fun until James accidentally drops some magic crystals by the old peach tree and strange things start to happen. The peach at the top of the tree begins to grow, and before long it's as big as a house. Inside, James meets a bunch of oversized friends—Grasshopper, Centipede, Ladybug, and more. With a snip of the stem, the peach starts rolling away, and the great adventure begins! 

I’ve always loved this book and it has worked well for some of my students as well. The book depends on sarcasm and mockery for its humor. Take that into account when assigning it. 

It worked particularly well for my squirmy students who need a high-interest story to hold their attention. Like a rollercoaster, give your students an opt-out early in the process to avoid setting back students who don’t like the mordent humor. I read the first four or five pages together to gauge the students' reactions.

The book includes cruel aunts, a plethora of insects, and a road trip that begins by squashing a pair of loathsome aunts beneath the fuzzy skin of the titular peach. It’s no wonder why it appeals to children

One extra note, Roald Dahl was a fabulous writer who can cast a magic spell over children. He was also an anti-semite and his estate recently (2020) issued an apology for his statements in life. I don’t detect those excesses here like in some of his other books (cf. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). Consider this before assigning any kind of biographical research as a lesson plan.

The Dahl estate does have lesson plans for the books. They are geared towards classrooms but could be tailored to tutoring. 

When tutoring the book, buy into the program to wheedle your student into joining the fun. I like funny voices for the insects on James’s journey. Physical humor of rolling down the hill, or bobbing along as the peach drifts upon the sea to draw my students into the story.

Lexile score 790L

Guided, third graders can understand and follow.

Good Luck

Educators, please in the year of our Lord 2021, stop assigning this book.

 

Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep South—and the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatred

One of the most cherished stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century by librarians across the country. A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father—a crusading local lawyer—risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.

Whatever value the theme had in the 1930s, whatever value it had when published in 1960, it fails to deliver in the twenty-first century. Allow me to enumerate the problems I have with this book when a well-meaning district requires students to read it.

• Atticus Finch does not crusade for racial justice. Judge Taylor assigns the task of defending Tom Robinson to Atticus. He does not step forward. We could assign every action he takes to professionalism as easily as we do to nobility.
• Magical white children Scout, Jem, and Dill break up a lynch mob by speaking to a classmate’s father. Couldn’t Judge Taylor simply order the children to stop all lynch mobs by talking to their members?
• The Black characters act as props for the white cast’s story. Tom Robinson, the disabled victim, testifies under the direction of the brilliant, noble, Atticus. Calipurnia serves the Finches, acts as a substitute mother, and introduces the children to the African-American townspeople. Reverend Sykes allows the children to sit in the segregated balcony saves seats for them displacing Black observers.
• Boo Radley, the local recluse, is the object of scorn, and the children heap abuse on him. In spite of this, he reaches out to Scout and Jem, gifting them with handmade trinkets. He’s there to collect the pity of Scout and miraculously save the Finch children on Halloween.
• The sentimental portrayal of the Southern caste system. The assignment of personal behavior to genetics or genealogy as it’s called in the book. The idea could come straight out of The Bell Curve.
• 6. The setting and vocabulary have little meaning for a modern high-schooler. How many students understand entailment and how it drives the story of the Cunningham family? How many Americans are in poverty because they can’t sell real property? 
• 7. In the end, it treats a failure to protect Tom Robinson as a victory.

I have no problem with the good intentions of assigning the book, it just doesn’t measure up to those intentions. 

If you need a classic that deals with racism in America, may I suggest Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison? It introduces a broader swath of the African-American experience in the 20th century: Black Nationalism, suppression of individual identity, the expectations of ideologies, and the problem of fighting racism with model stereotypes. Tell me your students won't appreciate a novel that has a protagonist who feels ignored by the world, uses irony to make its point, and deals with a growing understanding of life?

For the daring, pick something modern. The Hate U Give was on the National Book Award long-list and gets good reviews from teachers.

To tutor the book:

Work with your student on the vocabulary of chapters before they read them. It’s not enough to give them the meaning of the words, but explain how it fits into the context.

Be patient. It may take a student a bit to suspend modern expectations and get in the swing of a pre-electronics world.

For below grade level readers, viewing the movie or the graphic novels helps cement the plot in place before trying to integrate the deeper themes and ideas.

Make a map of the characters and their relationships with your student. When they encounter a name it’s a quick lookup to see their place in the local caste system. Include primary family trait per genealogy as part of the map.

Review major plot points and thematic ideas after each chapter. Ask your students to keep notes on the theme and review with them.

Good Luck

Honorary Cat Crosby shows us the true meaning

 Honorary cat, our daughter's Havanese Crosby, shows us the true meaning of Boxing Day. 

Afternoon naps.

Cincy has claimed the plastic poinsettias

 One member of the household, Cincy, has claimed all of the plastic poinsettias. As if you had to ask.

I'd love to tell you Cincy will contribute material to our blog, but he's just here for his good looks.