{"content":{"sharePage":{"page":0,"digests":[{"id":"52172298","dateCreated":"1332794805","smartDate":"Mar 26, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"JillianGutman","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/JillianGutman","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/integratingculture-at-nyu.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/52172298"},"dateDigested":1532760359,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"Non-Fiction text: You Wouldn't Want to Work on the Brooklyn Bridge","description":"Here is a link to the book. http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Wouldnt-Want-Work-Brooklyn-Bridge\/dp\/0531205193<\/a>
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\nThis book was enjoyable to read! It takes you and puts you into the shoes of a person working on the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. The book is both funny and informational, which will keep the students engaged. This book provides the non-fiction facts that the students need to know about the Brooklyn Bridge in a fun way. It can also serve as a way to prepare students for a field trip by teaching them all about the historic background of the Brooklyn Bridge.","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[{"id":"52178894","body":"This is a very visually exciting and engaging book for our students. Not only do the colorful images and interesting layout keep the reader intrigued, but also the captions and dialog boxes of the characters' feelings and thoughts. It is personable and gets the reader thinking by asking, "You are Washington Roebling... Are you ready for the challenge?" This text is informative and gives the step by step process, challenges, social commentary on time period and city, scientific facts, and biographies of important people involved. It can also be used to introduce students to non fiction text features with its table of contents, index, and glossary.","dateCreated":"1332804055","smartDate":"Mar 26, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"brittanyhan","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/brittanyhan","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"}},{"id":"52238858","body":"I agree, this was a very fun book and not the typical non-fiction informative text. It is a great tool for students who learn visually because of the pictures and interactive pages that will get students engaged and keep their attention throughout. It is the kind of book that is so fun to read that students won't even realized how much they're learning. Also Brittany, great point about the introduction of non-fiction text features, I didn't think about that aspect. Once students are so engaged in their fun book they will look forward to using it in other ways too, so this would be a perfect choice for that.","dateCreated":"1332901983","smartDate":"Mar 27, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"mgb333","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/mgb333","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"}},{"id":"52263916","body":"Brittany, very good point about the text features of non-fiction texts, I did not realize that either Marjorie. This even connects and helps with test prep and looking at text features. I really like this book because of the great illustrations and the interesting facts. I think this book would be a great way to introduce the Brooklyn Bridge into our unit and may even make the students wonder about the construction of the other bridges that connect Brooklyn to Manhattan. Jillian, I like you idea of using this book to prepare students for a field trip to the bridge.","dateCreated":"1332954203","smartDate":"Mar 28, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"afd257","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/afd257","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"}}],"more":0}]},{"id":"51385446","dateCreated":"1331088083","smartDate":"Mar 6, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"mgb333","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/mgb333","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/integratingculture-at-nyu.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/51385446"},"dateDigested":1532760359,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"I Live in Brooklyn: our fiction text","description":"After looking through Mari Takabayashi's "I Live in Brooklyn" I agree that it would be perfect to incorporate into our Brooklyn landmark curriculum. Though it doesn't focus solely on landmarks, the way that Michelle describes her surroundings will help our students make text to self connections, an important comprehension strategy, without even realizing it. The colorful pictures and cute activities that she describes is certain to grab the attention of many students and engage them. Maintaining interest and attention is often difficult for lower grades but this book is well-written for a young audience.","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[{"id":"51391860","body":"I enjoyed reading this book and got a realistic depiction of Michelle's life in Brooklyn. The illustrations were beautiful and detailed. Our students will enjoy having this story be read aloud and it is a great book to possibly introduce our unit. In the story, Michelle visits the Brooklyn Central Library, the Botanical Garden, Prospect Park, and Coney Island, which our students probably have visited themselves, especially if they live in Brooklyn. If they haven't visited any of those places, they may have heard about them. This provides a great entry point to the research project on Brooklyn Landmarks they will do. Not only does it tell a story about what she sees, does, eats, and likes about living in Brooklyn, but also it has a little bit of geography and information incorporated in the book. This is also another engaging entry point if we decide to explore geography and maps. Since we plan on during our unit for a younger grade, this book is relatable, approachable and aesthetically pleasing, which will make our students engaged and interested in the unit.","dateCreated":"1331105892","smartDate":"Mar 6, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"brittanyhan","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/brittanyhan","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"}},{"id":"51395976","body":"I live in Brooklyn is about a young girl named Michelle. The book talks about Michelle's life in Brooklyn, Carrol Gardens to be specific. The book follows what Michelle does every morning to get to school, what she does at school, after school, and on her weekends. While telling this story, Michelle tells of some of the landmarks of Brooklyn that she interacts with in her life day to day. Those include Prospect Park and Coney Island. These are some of the landmarks we will be exploring through our unit. This book will serve as a great introductory text into Brooklyn. The way in which the book is written allows for students to feel connections right away. Every child in the class will be emotionally drawn to this story through their own connection. I also think this could be a good book to revisit after our unit so that students would be able to identify the newly learned about landmarks in the book and see how other people view them and what they think about them.","dateCreated":"1331124384","smartDate":"Mar 7, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"JillianGutman","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/JillianGutman","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"}},{"id":"51417256","body":"I definitely agree with Jillian that this text, "I Live in Brooklyn," will be a great text to introduce our Brooklyn Landmark Unit with the students. The places that were mentioned in the text are great landmarks to begin with because most students may have already had experiences with these place and, as Jillian said, students will be emotionally drawn to this story through their own connection. Students will be able to connect to the story's main character Michelle and to the places she describes, Carol Gardens, Prospect Park and Coney Island. This book will be a great way for students to start wondering about other local landmarks and their wondering will help the unit move along.","dateCreated":"1331148688","smartDate":"Mar 7, 2012","userCreated":{"username":"afd257","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/afd257","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"}}],"more":0}]},{"id":"46710772","dateCreated":"1321845193","smartDate":"Nov 20, 2011","userCreated":{"username":"JillianGutman","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/JillianGutman","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/integratingculture-at-nyu.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/46710772"},"dateDigested":1532760359,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"Chapter 7: The Land of Opportunity ","description":"Hey Guys!
\nAs I was reading Lowen this week a chapter that really struck me was chapter 7. The chapter talks about social class and structure, and what it means in our society. This is something we NEVER talked about in my schooling. Issues of class status were always discussed as something that happened in a different time or place, but was never brought into the context of today's society. Did you have similar experiences?
\nI think this is such an interesting topic and I wonder how you might go about teaching about social classes, and the challenges we face in moving from one to another. Also, as Lowen clearly points out this is not covered in the textbooks. How could we get this idea across to our students??
\nI was thinking an interesting way could be through simulating our social classes within the classroom via classroom jobs. Students could be given jobs that would be defined as high, middle, and lower class jobs and paid wages that reflected that. This would have to be a "lesson" that stretched over a period of time, but this way students would be able to experience and see the challenges that are faced when one tries to move between classes.","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[],"more":0}]},{"id":"46209866","dateCreated":"1321230956","smartDate":"Nov 13, 2011","userCreated":{"username":"mgb333","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/mgb333","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"},"monitored":false,"locked":false,"links":{"self":"https:\/\/integratingculture-at-nyu.wikispaces.com\/share\/view\/46209866"},"dateDigested":1532760359,"startDate":null,"sharedType":"discussion","title":"Loewen: 1493 Discussion","description":"In the chapter regarding the typical textbook coverage of Columbus, Loewen proposes that history is "not a set of facts but a series of arguments, issues, and controversies" (41). He then goes on to explain that most textbooks present history as answers rather than questions. I think this is an important distinction to make and epitomizes Loewen's arguments. If students were presented with multiple sides of the story they would not only be better informed but also would develop different skills. These could include questioning\/inquiry, interpretation, and decision making and could contribute to creative writing and other projects. The way textbooks are typically created now leave only room for memorization and the recalling of "facts" in rigid testing or writing. How would the knowledge of a high school history buff using the current form of textbooks compare to that of a student who was taught since elementary school to hear multiple sides of a story, personally interpret the information, and develop an opinion\/argument of their own? Is learning in one way more useful than the other or is it just more "politically correct"?","replyPages":[{"page":0,"digests":[{"id":"46220348","body":"In my opinion, I do not believe that learning in just one way is beneficial to anyone. Learning in one way does not allow for the development of questions. As Lowen stated, social studies is about questions, not answers. I feel that the idea of social studies being about questioning was not the backbone of my social studies education. I remember reading the textbook, reading the questions in the back of the chapter, and then going back into the chapter to search for the answers. This only amplified the idea of social studies being about the answers, the memorization of facts, and the idea of no questioning or debate. This created an atmosphere where there was just one side of the story presented. When you think about it in school we are constantly teaching children about fairness. One of the ways we teach children about fairness is through the idea of there being more than one side to a story, especially when playground drama is involved. So why is it that we are not giving our students all the sides to the story of our history? Why are we not presenting students with all the information and allowing them to think critically and form their own ideas and opinions? Unfortunately, I do believe that part of the reason we do not teach in a way that presents all sides, the good and not so good, is because it is not always politically correct. Presenting all of the sides causes certain groups of people to not always be presented in the best light, but then again aren\u2019t we suppose to use this history to learn and not repeat the bad? And just because it is bad does that mean we pretend it didn\u2019t happen? What kind of example are we setting for our students? Why is it that we are teaching in these ways where we are stressing answers and not questions and all sides of the story? It is possible that teachers and administrators fear resistance or problems that could be faced if they were to present one side of a story that might not be so desirable or accepted. However, just blocking these truths from students does not give them opportunities to grow.","dateCreated":"1321241358","smartDate":"Nov 13, 2011","userCreated":{"username":"JillianGutman","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/JillianGutman","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"}},{"id":"46248040","body":"Lowen presents the argument that history textbooks provide answers and not questions to students, is definitely a case that is true. In chapter 2, Lowen gives the actual history about explores and the differences among them, and at the very end of the chapter he mentions Las Casas, a Spanish adventurer who opposed slavery and forced labor that Columbus had once introduced to Haiti. Growing up I thought of Christopher Columbus as a hero for discovering our land, and I am sure many can agree. In my current studies at a university level, I have learned otherwise. For the first time in all my years of learning about explorers and Columbus, I have only learned as Lowen would say the \u201cfeel-good history,\u201d and not all the actual accounts. In one of my classes this semester, On Liberation, we are focusing one different points of view in moments of liberation and freedom in world history, we got to read Las Casas\u2019s A Short Account on the Destruction of the Indies. I was finally able to learn about the other side of many stories in our world\u2019s history in this class. But why so late in my education is this happening? As educators we should be able to give our students these opportunities to learn all sides of the story. In my recitation for this On Liberation course, our opening question last week was What is History? And we were supposed to define and discuss this broad word. As a class we came up with the idea that history, ideally, is events that have happened in the past. We also decided to add onto that definition where history is in fact events of the past, however, depending one who is telling the story then there is only one point of view being portrayed and to be able to see history from different points of view is what makes it interesting. I believe Lowen does an excellent job highlighting those points of view that were never shown to us as students in elementary through high school.","dateCreated":"1321286282","smartDate":"Nov 14, 2011","userCreated":{"username":"afd257","url":"https:\/\/www.wikispaces.com\/user\/view\/afd257","imageUrl":"https:\/\/ssl.wikicdn.com\/i\/user_none_lg.jpg"}}],"more":0}]}],"more":false},"comments":[]},"http":{"code":200,"status":"OK"},"redirectUrl":null,"javascript":null,"notices":{"warning":[],"error":[],"info":[],"success":[]}}