Pink and Say

Polacco, Patricia, Pink and Say, 1994, Philomel Books, New York.

Interest level: 3-5 Reading level: 5 Lexile: 590

Keywords: Civil War, friendship, prejudice, slavery, Abraham Lincoln, marauders, family history, biography

This book is about two young union soldiers, Pinkus Aylee (Pink) and Sheldon Curtis (Say). Say is injured in battle and left for dead. Pink finds Say and carries him home to be nursed back to health by Pink's mother. After Pink's mother is killed by marauders, Pink and Say try to return to the Union Army. Unfortunately, they are captured and Pink is killed. Say survives the war and the story is told by Patricia Polacco, Say's great-granddaughter.

This is an amazing story. It will require some practice to read it aloud without crying. I have not mastered it yet, even though I've read it several times. Patrica Polacco is my favorite children's author because she is able to draw you into a story and help you feel the feelings of the characters. You feel like you know the characters; you cry when Pink's mother is killed and feel Say's sadness when he is separated from his friend. You mean it when you vow to never forget Pinkus Aylee. In some tiny way you feel some of the feelings of those who experienced the sadness and injustices of the Civil War. You feel changed because of reading this book. It is unusual for a picture book to carry this kind of weight but Polacco is able to weave her magic in just 47 pages.

In addition to the obvious use of this book to introduce and study the Civil War, it would be great to incorporate it's use into language arts. A great example would be for students to research a family story about an event in their family history. Or they could talk to an older person about where they were during a historical event. Some ideas may be JFK's assassination, going to the moon, September 11th, etc. Any of these memories would make great writing material. This book is also a good example of the biography genre.

One concern some may have with this book is it is sad. The subjects of war, death, prejudice etc. are all very heavy and a teacher would need to be careful when using this book. Lots of discussion and support for the students as they process would be necessary as they process this book. It is probably best used for upper elementary though I found examples on the web of teachers using it in third grade. I also think this book could be used for middle school grades. Read it before you decide not to use it because Patricia does a great job introducing these topics without too much emotion or drama.

This is a great book, written by a great author.

Geography Web-site

This is my third web-site. I just couldn't narrow it down to two. :) This web-site is about learning Geography. This web-site made my perceived IQ score drop considerably. I think that part of cultural literacy is knowing where in the world a place is located. I think the first step to understanding another culture is to know where they live. I am book marking this site because I was so unhappy with my score in world geography. Hope you do better than I did. :0 Brenda

http://www.mentalfloss.com/geographyzone/

Website

I think a lot of youth today do not understand how business works. I was really excited to find this game on disney's website called "Hot Shot Business". The kids can play a game that takes them through the steps of opening and operating a business. It would be great for 5th grades on up. It wasn't as easy as you would expect. My business failed miserably. I could see kids playing this at home as well as school. Give it a try! Brenda

http://disney.go.com/dxd/index.html?channel=108602#/disneygroup/hotshotbusiness/

Social Studies Blogs

I have spent some time this morning looking at my classmate's blogs. I am totally impressed and have enjoyed reading many posts. I wish I didn't have homework calling me so I could read all of the posts. I had commented on a couple of them earlier in the semester but today I commented on 5 more (Ryan, Neva, Jason, Mike, and Sherry). I wanted to leave comments on all of them but don't have time. The thought occurred to me that I couldn't find A.J.'s blog. Would love to read his too. :) Great work colleagues! Loved your blogs. Brenda

What I did with my time....

Here is my accounting of how I used my time Tuesday night. After tutoring for my reading diagnosis and intervention class I decided to return to campus to work on my lit. analysis and presentation. I decided I would get more done if I went back to the campus instead of going home. However, first I took a detour to Barnes and Noble and bought a new book to write about. I just wasn't happy with the ones I'd found in the BSU library. The book I bought is beautiful and I'm excited to write about it. Then I went to the Ada Community library (my favorite library, yes, I am nerdy enough to have a favorite library) to pick up a book I'd requested by Patricia Polacco. She is my favorite children's author so I wanted to write about a book she had written. My book finding adventures killed quite a bit of time but I LOVE children's literature and wouldn't have been happy writing about books I didn't connect with. Next I headed back to campus. I spent the rest of my evening researching for my part of our presentation and my lit. analysis. After not finding much information on the book I was going to write about, I am re-thinking it and might write about one of the books I found last night. Feeling a little panicked about changing plans mid-stream so hopefully it will work out.

Respect for our profession

I thought this article was interesting after our discussion last week. This is the kind of lack of professionalism that shoots teachers in the foot. More interesting than the article were the comments posted by people at the bottom. Check it out. Brenda

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100412/ap_on_re_us/us_nj_governor_union_memo

School Funding

On the way home from my daughter-in-laws graduation I heard a commercial on the radio. This commercial was about a movement in Idaho called "raise your hand". They feel that no cut backs should be made in education. They are angry that the legislature cut funding from schools. I went to their web-site. Every one of their ideas was to increase taxes. I especially liked the one to do away with the grocery tax credit. (the one that helps low income families?) Or how about increasing sales tax by a penny? Both of these will hurt Idaho families who are already struggling. Did you know that 51% of the state budget goes to paying for Idaho schools? Where do people think the state revenues come from? To get income taxes people have to be employed. We need to put our energy into attracting jobs to the state and keeping the jobs we have. The other thing we need to remember is other important state organizations have been impacted by the budget cuts, education isn't the only place that is suffering. I have a good friend who worked for the juvenile detention system. He is highly educated (Phd.), had a very important job, worked hard, had been with the state for about 10 years, etc. His job was cut last year. I think we can all agree that juvenile detention is pretty important. This man was highly qualified for the job and had done a great job for the state. However, because of budget cuts his job was eliminated. These are the realities of our times. The reality is that a lot of people are suffering right now. Though my husband doesn't work for the state, his company has let go 50% of their work force in the last 2 years. He currently does the work that was done by three people in the past. My point is that everyone is struggling; private and public sector.

Instead of acting like these terrible people are trying to hurt kids, we need to be working with them to find ways to cut costs, avoid waste, and generate more income for the state. There is too much finger pointing and blame. Educators are smart people and we need to join the discussion; find innovative ways to help children. Show we are aware of where state revenues come from, volunteer ways to save money, encourage efforts to create jobs in Idaho.

I am not exempt from the stress of cutting spending to education. I don't think it should be the first thing legislators do. However, if they have exhausted other avenues then I know they will have to pull some funds from education. I don't like this and am sickened that it will probably keep me from getting a job. The thought of working at Walmart or McDonalds to pay my student loans off makes me literally sick to my stomach. I have wanted to be a teacher for so long and it breaks my heart that there is a good possibility that I will graduate and not be able to get a job.