Celebrate Earth Day By Reading Kid Lit Books As An Ecocritic

¡Feliz viernes a todos!

Happy Earth Day!! This week, I am reblogging an excellent post by Marianne Snow Campbell. Her idea to read any book about the environment through a critical lens is a great way to introduce critical thinking outside the classroom context. She includes examples from books for different age groups and even includes activity ideas for the classroom! Check it out!

With warmest wishes,

Charla

Latinxs in Kid Lit

By Marianne Snow Campbell

Earth Day is here again!  It’s a time to honor the natural world that surrounds us, consider how we can take better care of the environment, and take action keep our planet healthy and beautiful. In schools, many teachers and students will join together to read and discuss books with environmentalist lessons – The Lorax, The Great Kapok Tree, a variety of picture books about recycling and picking up litter. Last year, Lila Quintero Weaver shared a beautiful post about books celebrating “Latin@ Heroes of the Planet” and other “Earth Day-friendly books with Latin@ connections.” I love the strong messages that these texts carry and believe that they should play a prominent role in educating children about conservation and ecology.

However, reading literature with overt lessons about the earth isn’t the only method for learning about environmentalism. There’s another, somewhat subtler, approach – ecocriticism. Ecocriticism…

View original post 1,132 more words

Advertisement

WWW: Lost in Immigrationlandia

¡Feliz viernes a todos!

I hope you all enjoyed the documentary I featured on WWW last week!  This week, in keeping with the themes of immigration and resources to honor and understand Latin American cultural influences and experiences, I am featuring an online source that will serve as a good supplement to the documentary, The Dream is Now.  The website is called Lost in Immigrationlandia and it highlights the stories of two young men, Alex and Cristhian, who migrated to the United States from Guatemala and Honduras, respectively.  Their stories illustrate the many reasons they left their countries in the first place and tell of the obstacles they faced in getting to the United States.  Once they arrived, the stories illustrate how the boys were received in the States and taken to holding cells or detention centers nicknamed “The Freezers.”

WWW: The Dream is Now

 ¡Feliz viernes a todos!

I hope everyone has enjoyed their first few weeks of classes!  If your weeks were anything like the normal first few weeks of the school year, it’s probably safe to say they have been busy as ever.  Is anyone ready for a movie break?  I know I am.  This week, I introduce a short documentary that is available as an online resource.  It’s just thirty minutes long, but it packs a powerful message.  The film is called The Dream is Now and it is about how the broken immigration system in the United States affects the lives of those with the “undocumented” status living in this country.  With this resource, I’m building on the themes that Keira elaborated on earlier this week: resources to honor and understand Latin American cultural influences and experiences. 

En la Clase: Textbook Detectives

This week’s En la Clase continues the conversation we began last week about how to reconsider the ways we teach about Christopher Columbus in the classroom.  Today’s post looks at one of my favorite activities: Textbook Detectives.  A number of articles in the teaching guide Rethinking Columbus discuss ways to use Textbook Detectives in the classroom.  You can find these articles on the following pages of Rethinking Columbus: pp 19-21; 38-40; 47-55; 62-8.  (Side note: If you’re a local Albuquerque teacher and don’t have a copy of Rethinking Columbus yet, come to our professional development workshop on September 18th–the first 20 teachers will get a free copy of the book!)  These articles all offer references, ideas, and/or resources helpful for this activity.  One of the reasons I love this activity so much is because it’s easily adapted both for grade level and content.  It can be used with any topic, and certainly isn’t limited just to teaching about Christopher Columbus.  It’s great for any unit where you want to encourage your students to develop critical thinking skills and analyze the way a subject is portrayed in various literature.