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A fan applauds a growing genre of YA sports novels
As a fifth grader at Conlee Elementary School in Las Cruces, NM, in the 1960s, I was too young for real sports and too old for playground games. Little League Baseball offered opportunities for live athletic competition in the summer, but that was about it. And in the days before ESPN and 24-hour cable TV, kids like me, athletic but young, passionate about sports but unable to participate in them, had […]
If we want boys to love books, it’s important to recognize what they want
Houston, we have a problem! No, I'm not talking about the Apollo 13 space mission. I'm referring to earthbound boys whose career choices are significantly limited because of a well-documented problem. The problem is poor literacy, and we've known about it for a long time.
It is the recent emphasis on testing that has brought life to this issue once again and has spawned the "New Boys Movement," […]
An archaeology unit can make scientific research inviting and fun
Are your students fearful of scientific information and data? Then take advantage of the recent craze over popular TV series such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Crossing Jordan. I did so last semester by devising a unit to increase my sixth-grade students' knowledge of specialized words and to ensure that they'd be comfortable researching unfamiliar text.
Since archaeology is a branch of science that interests so many kids, I based my […]
There’s nothing like an eternal puzzle to pique kids’ curiosity
When I was a kid growing up on the prairie in Walnut Grove, MN, a group of nuns came down from the Twin Cities every summer to teach the children the basics of Catholicism. To us, the sisters were exotic creatures. One of them made a lifelong impression on me when she declared that upon our arrival in heaven, God would answer all of our questions.
I had a long list for […]
