My world history students often do not see the point of reading anything but the textbook and a few primary source documents. I would like to not just change that, but to use a couple highly-engaging, readable Bill Bryson books to hook them into the endless nooks and crannies of the story of the world.
My kids are awesome and I love them.
We live in a small town, and yet my students are future world-shapers. I believe they can be the kinds of teens who grow up into impactful parents, spouses, thinkers, and creators. Yet, for many of them, this small town is all they have ever known -- and there is both a beauty to that reality, and a limitation to it.
My Project
Imagine a world history classroom that had a shelf full of books on any topic that caught kids' fancy. What if, when a few students became intrigued by the Renaissance, they could walk two feet to the bookshelf in our classroom and pick up an engaging biography on Shakespeare's life? What if the same was possible when they became interested in learning more about the scientific revolution (Seeing Further)? In this kind of classroom, history would not need to stop with the lesson!
That is what you are providing with this project a chance to dig deeper into history; a chance to do what few history students get to do in this country: explore deeply and richly the many stories that the textbooks cannot contain.
If you have fallen in love with history, help my students do the same. Thank you so much!
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