The Lightning Thief in the Elementary Classroom: Some Ideas and Resources

Last year I read The Lightning Thief with my 5th grade classroom, and they enjoyed the entire experience so much that I am currently about half way done reading it aloud to my 4th graders. Literacy instruction in my building is taught using a guided reading format, with time for read aloud, guided reading, and silent time. My guided reading centers have been based around activities based either on the events of The Lightning Thief or on Greek Mythology.

My class has been enjoying this book immensely, and I have literally seen dozens of students move on to the other books in the series after reading this first one, which is full of monsters, epic quests, and modern twists on Greek myths.

I have thrown in a few items of interest for those of you out there thinking about reading this book. I am having great success reading this to a fairly advanced group of 4th graders, and found it to be a comfortable read aloud for 5th graders. I don't honestly think I would suggest it for 3rd grade, but I'm sure many teachers have read it, I just think some of the more challenging aspects of the book will be lost on that age group. I would recommend it for second semester 4th grade up through maybe 7th or 8th grade, but for read aloud up through 6th.

The links I am specifically including here are a great teacher's guide (this will open as a Word document) that I have pulled from and a link to Rick Riordan's (the author of the series) personal website that includes great teacher resources.

Also, check out this Wordle of The Lightning Thief. This was created using the entire text of the book, which I found on wattpad and pasted into the Wordle site.

Teaching a Unit on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

First off, let's get one thing pretty straight. Teaching your students about Martin Luther King Jr. is more than something you do in January when his birthday is near. Of course, it's a great thing that we have a day set aside to commemorate the life of Dr. King, but he's more than just a day of coloring pages and a quick read aloud.

Many of us spend weeks and weeks teaching about presidents, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Thomas Jefferson. Marting Luther King Jr. is easily one of the most important figures in American history that we can teach our students. The man stood for so many good things, he stood for pride, peace, justice, equality, and respect for everyone.

I actually teach a civil rights unit, with the impetus of the entire thing being the life and teachings of Dr. King. There are many ways to approach such a unit, so I'll simply provide the example of what I do, and some of the resources I use when teaching about King, and hopefully some of it will be helpful for you. Just remember, making the decision to focus an extended period of teaching on men of integrity like King is the right decision, don't question it.

I always start my civil rights unit with a letter home to parents asking them for permission to teach their students through visual means. What I mean by this is that I do show them images of the struggle of civil rights, they hear and read accounts of the struggle, of the blood, the humiliation, and the death. It's important not to shock students, but to make the reality shine clearly. Civil rights was not simply a list of non-violent struggles to help African Americans gain equal rights, it was a bloody time. They were humiliated, beaten, and killed, and while we must be careful with what we show our students, we must also focus on the truth and the reality.

My school always shows the one-hour-long cartoon Our Friend, Martinright before the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in January. This video is appropriate for kindergartners to watch, but even the older students, as old as 8th or 9th grade, sit and watch this video and always seem to retain quite a bit of what is presented, the life and historical importance of Reverend King. I recommend this video as an introduction to your unit if you can get ahold of it.

From there, we move into some literature on King, and begin the unit itself. First, let me explain some of the activities, and then I'll end by providing a list of some good picture, chapter, and reference books about Dr. King.

One overall activity that I have my students do is a biography of King. Each student is responsible for making a timeline of his life, and a list of the important events of his life. We do a bulletin board in the hallway with the letters KING in the middle, with short blurbs about King's life and importance around the name on the bulletin board. The students make the short blurbs from their biographies.

Obviously there are many approaches to the unit, I just gave a brief overview of a quick idea how to begin. You could also have your class make a video, which is something I'm doing right now with my class. Students will each record a 2 minute video where they discuss why King is important to them, and then, by mixing their clips with pictures, audio, and clips of King, make a video to show to the school. These are just a few ideas, now for the literature:

Here are some great picture books to use in your unit:

• My Dream of Martin Luther King (Dragonfly Books),by Faith Ringgold - Ringgold tells the events of a dream she had about King. This book shows children the struggles that King faced, as well as how truly remarkable his life really was.
• I've Seen the Promised Land: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.by Walter Dean Myers - This is a good introduction to the life of King. It's very timeline oriented, with great visuals. Many students would benefit from reading this book early on in your unit.
• . . . If You Lived at the Time of Martin Luther Kingby Ellen Levine - The question and answer format of this book makes it absolutely perfect for read aloud. I used this book just last week and the class had a very deep and appropriate discussion about King during the reading of the book.

And here's some great chapter books and reference style books to add to your library or read with your class:

• King: A Comics Biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. (The Complete Edition), by Ho Che Anderson - This 228 page graphic comic book is a masterpiece among masterpieces. It's a stunning visual and written account of the life of King. I don't know that I could recommend this book for students younger than say 7th or 8th grade, but as far as books about Dr. King goes, this one is stunning in every way.
• Children of the Dream: Our Own Stories Growing Up Black in America by Laurel Holliday - This 450 page book presents individual stories, diary excerpts, and essays of African Americans during and after King's "I Have A Dream" speech. It's a good book, you can definitely use bits and pieces of it, although probably not the whole thing.
• My Life with Martin Luther King, Jr. by Coretta Scott King - This book is unique because it's partly a retelling of King's own autobiography, but also shows you the extraordinary life of Dr. King's wife.

Teaching A Unit on Slavery: Part 2 (Literature Selections)

I hope the first part of my discussion on teaching a slavery unit in school was helpful. CLICK HERE TO GO DIRECTLY TO THAT POST. As I previously stated, the biggest mistake a lot of teachers make is following the text book that their school or school district has given them, it just doesn't tell the whole story and move students in the direction of anti-slavery teachings.

Now that I've talked a little about how to get started and have given a few picture book selections in that first post, I wanted to focus on some literature you can read with your students, have them read in groups, or whatever you decide to do with them. Let's get started:

• My Jim: A Novelby Nancy Rawles: Feel free to go back to my post on this book by clicking HERE. It's definitely one of the better books I've read on the issue of slavery. It's a re-telling of the story of Jim, the runaway slave of Huckleberry Finn fame, told from the perspective of his wife. It's a book of heartache, terror, more heartache, and of the total shame that came with being a slave. It does have scenes that involve sex, but is done in a way that it's not inappropriate, but it is themed more towards older students, possibly 7th grade and beyond.
• Day of Tearsby Julius Lester: A powerful short novel in dialogue that begins with the largest slave auction in United States history in 1859. The book follows a some of the people involved, both slaves, slave traders, buyers, and their families. It's told more like a dialogue, in a play format, and does take some getting used to. Wow though, it's a very strong book, a good read aloud, or a good book to have students read in small groups.
• Elijah Of Buxton, by Christopher Paul Curtis: I recently got this book through the Scholastic Book Clubs, and found it to be a very insightful, powerful book that would be appropriate for my 5th graders. It's the story of Elijah, the first freeborn child in Buxton, Canada. His family, who is free, living north of the slavery line, is saving money to free family in the south, until they are robbed of the money. Elijah embarks on a journey behind slavery lines to free his family, and sees firsthand the horrors of slavery. What makes this book so powerful is the way the mind of a child tries to come to grips with such a sobering reality. It's a long book (352 pages), so it could be a read aloud, or something a few of your students read together.

I realize that I'm starting small here, I'm trying to focus more on what I've found to be great books. There's obviously many more out there, I've thought a few times about adding to the picture book post, but decided to leave it as is. Hopefully in time, through comments and other things, these lists can grow larger. Part 3 of the unit on slavery will discuss a few activities you can do with your students.

Teaching a Unit on Slavery in Intermediate or Middle School (Part 1: Picture Books)

If you want to teach a unit on slavery, my first and only no-no is a textbook, stay away from the stupid things. The conventional social studies textbook will give you a few token pages about the history of slavery, might even show a pair of shackles, talk about Nat Turner and Frederick Douglas, then mention how not all slaves were treated very bad. Well, that's not what students need to know, so stay away from that.

Like when planning any unit, you want to have the end results in mind. What do you want to teach your students with this unit? If you want them to work on reading skills and get through the next chapter in the book, then by all means, use the social studies textbook. If you want them to learn about the horrors of slavery, why it happened, how it stopped, and the reality of slave life, then forget the textbook, it's only a resource at this point.

I like to start each unit in social studies with a video that shows a lot of pictures, facts, and video clips of the unit. What I tell my students is that the things they see on the video are things that they will know all about by the time we're done, then I show it. I show the video again as the last thing we do in that unit. So unless you're skilled at pre-planning and with some form of video making software, either Microsoft Movie Maker or ProShow or something like that, I wouldn't go this route.

The hard part about teaching slavery is, if you teach social studies in a chronological manner the way I do, you can't do the unit in one shot. You'll probably want to start out talking about the slave ships and routes that began back in the 1500's when talking about the rest of the 1500's and even into the late 1400's. It brings an edge of controversy to the discussions about the travels to the West Indies and places like that.

As you get to the main part of the unit, you'll be talking about slaves in the United States, probably mainly during the 1700's and 1800's. I have a picture book that I read to my 5th grade students called From Slave Ship to Freedom Road, by Julius Lester and Rod Brown, which is an honest look at slavery, its brutality, and the Underground Railroad.



Some other great PICTURE BOOKS ABOUT SLAVERY include:

• Under the Quilt of Nightby Deborah Hopkinson: This book is actually appropriate for any grade level, but was received well by my 10-12 year old students. It's the story of a young runaway slave girl and her family on the Underground Railroad. You hear the horrors of slavery and the dangers runaways faced through the eyes of a child. The pictures are beautiful as well, this is a great book.
• To Be A Slaveby Julius Lester: This book takes you inside what it feels like to be a slave. It's a picture book more appropriate for kids ages 9 and up, but very very telling with strong images.
• Almost to Freedom (Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book), by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson: This book could be appropriate for even primary grades, but it's a good one to include. It's the story of a young girl on the Underground Railroad and her rag doll. The story is told by the rag doll, and is an excellent tale.