Balanced Literacy List

Tom Meyers

EDU 742: Content-Area Literacy

December 4, 2011

For this list, I chose a topic the class is currently addressing in social studies. The overall focus this year is American history. The story begins with the caveman and progresses to now. A lot of time is devoted to the European conquest of the continent, so a suitable subject for the assignment naturally seemed to be Christopher Columbus. An additional reason to select this topic is the fact that a national holiday is observed each year in this mans honor, and it is entirely appropriate for the children to know exactly who and what is being honored. It was not much of a surprise to find a great number of resources available on this mans life. It is a fascinating tale. The first place examined was Youtube for some short videos. Simply typing Christopher Columbus into the search box will result in numerous options; I chose to select the following three. A brief entry from the Biography channel (listed as Biography.com in the clip) describes Columbuss initial reaction to the natives-that they will make good slaves and Christians. In fact, many of the natives who came to trade were captured and not released. There is some narration from a couple of experts and some cool old paintings depicting some of the early encounters. There was an old cartoon from 1960 that the students would enjoy on several levels. From Mel-O-Toons, it provides an animated, textbook-like account of the voyages and presents the material in a very positive, sanitized version. Finally, Christopher Columbus Life in a Nutshell, featured a lot of factual knowledge narrated against a backdrop of archival paintings of the adventures. There were some thought provoking questions at the end. It was produced either for or by a

sixth grade class using Internet resources. The Doors, Riders on the Storm, was playing in the background the whole time, for any of you Jim Morrison fans. Of course, the inclusion of art connected to this topic is easily attainable. By selecting Google images, you can pick and choose from a large variety of scenes. Paintings and woodcuts of the man himself, his ships, planting the Spanish flag, Columbus in chains, and natives losing hands are but a few examples of the images available to connect to a unit. Likewise, there are numerous printed text resources to be considered. Where Do You Think Youre Going, Christopher Columbus?, is a biography from Jean Fritz written in 1980. It is written in the form of a long narrative and features a lot of factual knowledge concerning the expeditions. It goes into some detail of his early life, contains some maps of the world as it was perceived in the fifteenth century, and discusses some of the difficulties Columbus had convincing anyone to finance his voyage. It does not contain any of the rich illustrations seen in some of the video or image searches. The drawings in the book are very simplistic, perhaps alluding to the lower reading level of the book. Columbus and the World Around Him a 1990 biography by Milton Meltzer, is a more academic treatment of the subject. This more challenging text is organized into chapters, contains loads of fascinating archival images, and describes one of the broadest perspectives of all the resources, including what was going on in different places of the globe during this same time period. Meltzer goes into some detail concerning some of the darker details of the Columbus saga.

There is also a nice little piece of fiction, Pedros Journal, written by Pam Conrad in 1991. It represents the story from the viewpoint of a boy traveling on the Santa Maria with Columbus. It is written as this boy, Pedro, makes journal entries during the voyage. Conrad sprinkles in plenty of historical fact while still keeping the story very readable for most fourth or fifth graders. It gives the tale a palpable first person feel and will appeal to many students. Of course, translations of pieces of the actual log of Columbus can be found at www. Franciscan-archive.org/Columbus/opera/excerpt.html. These may be a bit heavy for the fifth grade, but there are some who may be willing to persevere and glean some information from them. A more kid friendly website would be apples4theteacher.com. There are numerous links available here to further engage the students with. One link provided a three-act skit that would be wonderful for readers theater. One of the scenes includes school children taunting Columbus with cries of loco, as word has gotten out of his plans to sail west to go east. Another link featured here, recommends additional reading that could serve the classroom. Included in this list is an audiobook, Christopher Columbus: A Concise Biography, which may prove useful. It was written by Peter Riviere, a professor at Oxford. Yet another link at this site makes a complete chapter book available. Written by Elbridge Brooks in 1892, The True Story of Christopher Columbus could be used to provide some interesting contrasts to modern interpretations of the voyages.

Another site including numerous links students could explore to further their awareness of this subject is www. socialstudies for kids.com/subjects/Columbus.htm. One interesting link here was the Library of Congresss online exhibit on Columbuss voyage. It is a little dense, but fact-packed. The Microsoft Encarta version of the story can be found at http://columbusday.123holiday.net/christopher_columbus.html. This is very accurate and filled with rich detail. The reading difficulty would be moderate, by for the most part, it is accessible for fifth grade. Finally, thinkquest has a number of entries available on Columbus that have been created by students from multiple age groups and locales. If still more exposure is desired, there was a six-hour documentary entitled, Columbus and the Age of Discovery. The WGBH Educational Foundation of Boston produced it for PBS. It can either be purchased or watched for free on Youtube. Most of the work coming from this studio is pretty reputable. This process was enlightening. During the course of exploring resources, I learned facts about Columbus I had never heard of. Obviously, the more I know, the better equipped to deal with a subject I become. It reminded me a bit of the search we did earlier in the course. Every site Id visit would provide more links to more resources. It is clear that resources exist to meet practically any students needs. I cannot repeat that assertion with the use of a single textbook. The process is time consuming, but it does not have to be done with every topic all at once. If even several were done a month, learning would benefit, both the students and mine. The tools are out there. Now all we have to do is use them to help construct more and deeper understanding at any level.