Sunday, August 12, 2007

Getting My Head Back In The Game

Even though 60 Minutes was a rerun tonight, it made me think of a zillion things for lesson plans.

I always talk about the genocide in Sudan when we read Night. I used to tell the kids about it, now they bring it up. It's quite the lesson in tough answers to talk about how society hasn't learned the lesson of the Holocaust, but I think I want to drive it home more. I've started hunting something short for the kids to read that will outline the conflict and springboard into a writing assignment about how society might finally learn that lesson.

Next up was Anderson Cooper's story about snitching that I blogged earlier this year. All of the sudden, this connection became clear also. Could this mindset of distrust foster more tragedy of this nature? I think we'll discuss this as well next time we read Night.

I'd love any stuff you have on connecting these ideas. I'd like to use magazine articles or book excerpts. Connections to the third story on Larry, The Cable Guy might would also be welcome (not for educational merit, just entertainment).

It must be Back to School, everything becomes a lesson plan.

2 comments:

Scott Jones said...

Read the sermon I posted tonight. The opening story will connect how the world abandoned the victims of both genocides.

jdenslow said...

The November/December 2005 issue of Mental Floss magazine had the first of a two part article about global conflicts and includes background on the Darfur cataclysm. I used both articles in my debate class last year and have copies of the magazines if you have any trouble finding them!