Eleanor by Barbara Cooney. New York: Viking, 1996.

 

ISBN: 0-670-86159-6

 

 

Although Eleanor was a shy girl and endured the ridicule of her classmates, she remained kind to others and true to her ideals, skills that served her well in her career as a First Lady who came to be known as one of America’s great humanitarians.

 

 

Curricular Connections: Middle School, subject: Biography

 

 

Rating: 4Q/4P

 

Posted by LA 4/6/8

 

 

 

Lesson Plan: American History through Biography

 

 

Boy on Fairfield Street, The: How Ted Geisel Grew Up to Become Dr. Seuss by Kathleen Krull and ills. Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher. New York: Random House, 2004.

 

ISBN: 0-375-92298-9

 

 

Dizzy by Jonah Winter and Sean Qualls, ill. New York: Scholastic, 2006.

 

ISBN: 0-439-50737-5

 

 

Eleanor by Barbara Cooney. New York: Viking, 1996.

 

ISBN: 0-670-86159-6

 

 

Marvelous Mattie: How Margaret E. Knight Became an Inventor by Emily Arnold McCully. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2006.

 

ISBN: 0-374-34810-3

 

 

Only Passing Through: The Story of Sojourner Truth by Anne Rockwell and R. Gregory Christie, ill. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000.

 

ISBN: 0-679-89186-2

 

 

She’s Wearing a Dead Bird on Her Head! By Kathryn Lasky and David Catrow, ill. New York: Hyperion, 1995.           

 

ISBN: 0-7868-2052-7

 

 

Story of Ruby Bridges, The by Robert Coles and George Ford, ill. New York: Scholastic, 1995.

 

ISBN: 0-590-57281-4

 

 

Surfer of the Century: The Life of Duke Kahanamoku by Ellie Crowe and Richard Waldrep, ill. New York: Lee & Low Books, 2007.

 

 

What Charlie Heard by Mordecai Gerstein. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2002.

 

ISBN: 978-1-58430-276-6

 

 

Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Randolph Became the World’s Fastest Woman by Kathleen Krull and David Diaz, ill. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1996.

 

ISBN: 0-15-201267-2

 

 

Woman for President, A: The Story of Victoria Woodhull by Kathleen Krull and Jane Dyer, ill. New York: Walker & Company, 2004.

 

ISBN: 0-8027-8908-0

 

 

Woody Guthrie: Poet of the People by Bonnie Christensen. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001.

 

ISBN: 0-375-81113-3

 

 

Grades: Middle School

 

 

Time: Five class periods of approximately 40 minutes each

 

 

Supplies: books mentioned above, excerpts of various Terri Gross Fresh Air shows

 

 

 

Overview: This lesson plan uses picture book biographies as a window into American history. It invokes the students’ creativity by asking them to use these picture books as a jumping off point to exploring and performing for the class the life stories of these diverse characters (from athletes to authors and conservationists to composers) from American history.

 

           

 

Activity:

 

            Students will pair off into twelve groups of two (this lesson was created for a class of 24), each with two copies of one of the above books. Allow students a class period to read and discuss their book and begin brainstorming interesting ideas and questions that arose from their readings.

 

            Play for students several excerpts from Terri Gross’s Fresh Air show, and discuss with them how she interviews cultural figures, introducing them, and then drawing their stories and insights out of them. As homework, have the students conduct more research on those whose biographies they’ve just read, and tell them that their final project will be to conduct a ten-minute interview (with one student playing the interviewer and the other dressing up as the famous person) in front of the class revealing the significant details and stories of their character’s life. Encourage the students to ask a variety of interview questions that will yield both factual information and humorous stories. Also have them ask their characters, if they could come back to life today, what their reactions would be to situation (politics, the environment, the art scene) in modern-day America.

 

 

Posted by LA 4/6/8