An Interactive History Adventure! Story Quilts! Novel Study! Fabric Markers!
My students need these historical fiction books to do a novel study on the underground railroad. The fabric markers are for the TPSP project "Story Quilts" for 5th grade, which they will create the reading.
Gifted students from low-income backgrounds, when compared to more advantaged peers, are twice as likely to drop out of school. This then triples the likelihood of going to prison later in life and, according to Marylou Kelly Streznewski, 20% of the incarcerated population is gifted. It was statistics like these that made me realize just how important the job I had signed up for really is.
As a gifted and talented teacher at an elementary that has been on the improvement required list by the state for 5 years, I will be helping students who come to school with a plethora of problems.
The problems are so heavy that the local newspaper did a story on the newly closed school--which was deemed the worst school in the city. According to the article, nearly all of the students are poor and black and live in public housing and many struggle with trauma, neglect, depression, or PTSD.
Students from a nearby school that was just closed-due to its unfavorable rankings (first in the district for intensity of poverty and last in the district for how much kids learned) will be merged with the current students on this campus.
My Project
My gifted 5th grade students will be reading "The Story of Juneteenth: An Interactive History Adventure" for their TPSP project on story quilts. The story quilt unit allows students to gain understanding of the relationship between history, quilting, and storytelling. The students want to learn more about the underground railroad so I selected this novel for our novel study. After a close reading of the novel, the students will design a quilt that represents different aspects of the story.
This project will help my students develop the essential skills of logical thinking, creative problem solving, intellectual risk taking and communicating.
More than three‑quarters of students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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