(b) With a friend,
read at least two high-interest texts related to your content area that you
might recommend to your students. These must be texts that you have not read
before, and they must each be a minimum of 100 pages. For example,
social studies majors might read engaging young adult historical fiction; science
majors might read books about interesting or controversial subjects relevant to
science (e.g., Dolly; the spread of infectious disease); and so forth. Hold a
“book club” discussion with your partner in which you discuss (a) what you
liked and did not like about the books; (b) how you might use these books as
part of your classroom instruction; (c) what you thought about reading for
pleasure in your content area; and (d) how you might integrate similar types of
student-selected reading experiences in your classrooms. Please write a blog
post in which you summarize your book club discussion and your experience with
reading the book.
Ken Lym:
Book: Equine Safety by Steven Mackenzie 110 pgs
Summary: It talks about safety and handling of horses and focuses on the main purpose of being safe around horses all the time.
Things he liked: It addresses seven different strategies to keep you and the horse safe. It's very applicable to everyone, no matter your previous knowledge. There are lots of pictures and descriptions and it's an easy read.
Things he didn't like: No further references. Talks about systems, but doesn't explain them well. Need more background knowledge. Slightly out-dated, should change name to Equine Management.
Use in Classroom: Can teach horse handling. Can teach some anatomy and judging. Teach horses dispositions with it. This book could be used for pleasure, if a student was interested.
Jimmy Lotspeich:
Book: Thinking in Pictures by Temple Grandon 201 pgs
Summary: Talks about her life growing up with autism. The point of the book is awareness of autism and how she used it to become a specialist in animal behavior. She also talks about how autistic people think (in pictures) and that they are people too. She has associative thinking instead of common sense thinking, she can't generalize. She's also an animal welfare activist and an autism has changed activist. She used her autism to think how animals think and then used that to figure out why they do what they do.
Things he liked: Pictures of her life and ideas, great references in the back. It's written on a level that high school kids can read it. It has great descriptions and lots of good stories.
Things he didn't like: Some of it is too personal for the class to read. A teacher will have to pick and choose what to read.
Use in Classroom: She is big name in agriculture. It's great for animal handling unit. It can relate to some kids well.
Stephanie Whipple:
Book: The Man Who Fed the World by Leon Hesser 213 pgs
Summary: It's about the life of Norman Borlaug. He literally fed the world with his techniques and crop science. He went to Mexico and taught them how to farm more efficiently. When that worked so well, he then went to Pakistan and India and taught them how to farm more efficiently and gave them a wheat genetically altered to grow better in their conditions. He won the Nobel Peace Prize for all his efforts. At the end of this book (2005) he was in sub-Saharan Africa, helping them. He was always helping people to feed themselves until the day he died.
Things I liked: I love the message of this book. It tells kids that even if you don't think you're the smartest kid in school, doesn't mean you can't do amazing things. I also liked that it has references, an index and an appendix.
Things I didn't like: It seemed to be a bit long and I think that will be hard to have kids read it. It also doesn't have pictures to show exactly what he did.
Use in Classroom: This could definitely be used in the classroom in units about plant science. But, the teacher will have to go through and highlight parts they want the class to read.
We all thought that these could all be used for pleasure reading in our content areas. They are all well-written books the students will enjoy. We figured we could have students read these when they're bored, or make in an assignment.
Stephanie--I know that the book that you chose won a lot of awards from the American Farm Bureau.
ReplyDeleteJust brainstorming here...but another way you might use these books is to split your students into groups of four, and to let each group choose a book that they want to read. Some of them might read a book about horses, another group might read a biography of a farmer, another group might read a book about cows, and so forth. You could give students time in class to discuss what they read at home, using different discussion prompts to help guide what your students say.
Thanks for your posting.