On September 8, the UCSS Book Club held its inaugural meeting at South Jordan Middle School. We discussed the book, The Long Walk by Slawomir Rawicz. The book is a ghostwritten memoir by a Polish man who escaped a Russian labor camp along with a group of others. Together they trekked across much of Asia, losing some in their party along the way, finally reaching aid and safety in India. Its a little bit history and a lot adventure.
As a book club, we discussed how we might apply the information and story into our classrooms. One idea that was brought up was how history is all about perspective--and how perspectives can change as time passes and history moves further into the past. There's a lot of discussion out there about this book, mainly questioning how true it actually is. We debated this question for a while and there was still no consensus when we left. As for me--I like to think Rawicz himself told as true a story as he could and his ghostwriter added other information, perhaps from other escaped prisoners, to make it a better seller. Coming up in October we will be discussing Candice Millard's The River of Doubt. It is a historical nonfiction book that details the thrilling story of Theodore Roosevelt's post-presidency trek into the Amazon rainforest to explore a river that had never before been charted. Millard is an excellent author who brings real excitement and depth into everything she researches and writes on. We hope you'll take the opportunity to give this one a try and we'll check in after the October meeting to report what everyone thought. Have you read The Long Walk? Please give us your review in the comments below!
0 Comments
If you are interested in publishing an article about historical research, a great lesson or unit plan, a pedagogy skill, a book review on a historical book, or a strategy for some other social studies content area please submit here on the form below. Submissions are due on December 1, 2016.
This year we will be awarding three amazing educators at our conference on October 15, 2016. Our Elementary Teacher of the Year is Melissa Anderson. She teaches 5th grade at Maple Ridge Elementary in Nebo School District. She is passionate about bringing history alive to her students and she uses many different strategies to integrate social studies into her other curriculum. Melissa teaches her students to collaborate and to be engaged citizens, for example she held a mock caucus as Utah was holding its primary elections. She teaches her students to have inquiry skills and has many examples of how she uses primary sources in her classroom. Melissa also strive to be a part of the social studies community. She is currently an inaugural member of the Wheatley Initiative for Civic Virtue. Congratulations, Melissa! Our secondary winner is Jennifer Kesler. She teaches 8th grade at Eisenhower Jr High in Granite District. She engages her students in a spirit of inquiry through examining primary sources and participating in the National History Day Competition. She teaches her students to examine historical events from multiple perspectives. She teaches her students the skill of respecting opinions of each other. She engages students through activities like solving history mysteries. She becomes a part of the social studies community by participating in programs like Driven 2 Teach, National Endowment for the Humanities Landmark Seminars and many other workshops to improve her own historical knowledge. Congratulations, Jennifer! Our University Level award goes to Paul Reeve from the University of Utah. In his classroom he sees himself as a facilitator of a discussion based teaching to help promote student inquiry and enthusiasm. He helps students to find their own meaning and conclusions of both primary and secondary sources. In his time at the U, Paul has resurrected the department's public history internship program. Through this program he has been able to help students actually "do" history and not just learn about it. He is a regular presenter for UCSS and he is committed to help Utah secondary and elementary teachers learn and develop better pedagogy skills and historical knowledge. He recently received a grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities to bring educators from all over the United States to learn about the role of Utah in Manifest Destiny. This week long seminar will also be done a second time just for Utah educators. Congratulations, Paul!
|
AuthorsKaye Rizzuto Archives
September 2017
Categories |