#i just love lexil k??

[darthnaderer]

Gross and Ghastly: Human Body by Kev Payne

Category: Informational

Summary: In this informational book written and illustrated by Kev Payne, children (and adults!) can learn all sorts of fun, whacky, and gross facts about the human body and how it works. With 53 "chapters" (each is essentially a two-page spread with fun facts about each topic) as well as several pages of activities, an answer key, and an index, this book is perfect for students wondering why and how certain body parts work the way they do. Ghastly and Gross: Human Body doesn't just inform, it entertains. Each page has several fun illustrations that help reinforce the material being discussed, and information is presented in several small paragraphs scattered across the pages in their own sections.

Justification: Some students absolutely love learning about gross facts, so this book is a great way to not only give them the fun "ick" factor they're looking for but also to sneakily teach them some good information about human anatomy and how the human body works. You can bet every adult in the reader's life will learn far more about poop than they ever thought they needed to know (for example: Why do some poops float? What do the different colors mean? Why can I see corn in it?). Published by DK, which is well-known for its visually appealing education materials, the copy I borrowed from my local library was clearly well-loved and often read. This a wonderful option to get reluctant readers to check out a book since it doesn't have to be read in any particular order. In fact, the table of contents makes it very easy for students to figure out which facts they want to look up or which pages they might want to skip.

Evaluation:

Precise Vocabulary - Payne uses common words and writes at a lower Lexile level so that students will know exactly what he is talking about (ex: using "poop" and "pee" instead of bowel movement or urine). He does a good job explaining what each part of the body is and does in a way that students will easily comprehend. His use of ordinary language rather than medical terms makes the text accessible to his target demographic (grades 1-4). It's obvious he put some thought into his word choices; the book is highly educational while remaining giggle-worthy.

Illustrations Reinforce the Written Text - Every page of this book is colorfully illustrated with simple, bright cartoons that clearly depict the chapter's topic. The images are not graphic or overly detailed, which is good considering the subject matter. The text is even incorporated into illustrations at times, such as when he gives an explanation about what causes farts to stink inside an illustration of a "fart bubble" (similar to a "speech bubble" but next to a baby's diaper instead of a mouth).

Composition - Payne maintains a balance of unity and variety in his book, creating illustrations that make a visual pattern throughout the pages. Readers can expect to see illustrations of children in a simple, cartoon-like fashion on each page as well as something "gross." Incorporating text into blurbs (each chapter has about 4-5 paragraphs scattered throughout it) and moving them around the chapter's spread makes it an engaging book that is easy to pick up and put down. Because the chapters can be read in any order, it's important the book has illustrations that are similar enough to unite all the content into a cohesive unit; otherwise, it would look disjointed. However, it's equally important that each chapter features unique illustrations that make it distinct from the others. Payne makes each page look well-balanced between the text and illustrations.

Payne, K. (2021). Gross and ghastly: Human body (K. Payne, Illus.). DK Publishing.

[cat-with-a-keyboard]

Fictober Prompt #19

Fandom: Enderal

Characters: Lexil Merrayil (stupid circumflex a), Gertrude

Notes: Set after the Black Light quests

The Beacon hummed, the strange drone drowning every other sound in Gertrude's ears. She stood at the parapet, looking down at Ark with eyes that did not see, deaf to all. A lone figure bathed in the dim, moon-like glow of power that surged through the mechanical veins of the weird machine; she stood like a half-stone sentinel on the prow of Malphas' great ark of stone.

"Gertrude? Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to disturb you."

Lexil. Gertrude turned away from the city and its multitude of tiny lights.

"No, no, no, it's fine," the Prophet said wearily, passing a hand over her eyes. "What did you need?"

Lexil had the grace to look moderately abashed. "I didn't," he said. "I simply wondered what you were doing."

"Ah." Gertrude turned back to the city. "Just thinking. You're welcome to join me if you are so inclined."

Lexil correctly interpreted this invitation as a request for someone to talk to, and joined her at the prow of stone. "If it isn't too private," he asked, "What were you thinking of?"

Gertrude was quiet for a moment, tracing patterns on the back of her hand with her other thumb. "A lot," she admitted. "Mostly what I'll do after... you know, after this. If there is an after." She added this last sentence so quietly that none but an Aeterna could have heard. Lexil was quiet, simply listening. "I mean, I can't go back to what I was doing. And I cannot do this anymore. I can't keep running on crisis mode; I can't keep losing friends, I can't--" she stopped with a harsh, shaky breath, unable to finish.

"You could stay," Lexil said softly. "I... would... I mean, it would be a great loss if you were to leave us. Perhaps you can help us rebuild, rebuild an Order without the Lightborn."

Gertrude turned to him, a halting smile on her face, and a half-hearted teasing light in her eyes. "What were you going to say?"

The Archmagister dropped his eyes. "Nothing," he muttered. "It's... not important."

The halting smile became a real one. "Lexil," she said warningly.

He looked very awkward for a second, a sight both amusing and heartwarming. I should not have said that was written in across his expression in broad strokes. "I... would miss you, personally," he admitted. "I have rather enjoyed our... friendship."

The smile became a full-blown grin. "That is very kind of you, Lexil," she said, and kissed him lightly on the cheek. "Goodnight."

Lexil only managed to recover sufficiently once she was already halfway down the stairs, but he called a shaky 'goodnight' in return.

[marco42james]

This Teacher Uses Marvel Comics to Teach Government Regulation (with Great Results!)

Episode 133 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Today Kyle Stern @stern_history uses Marvel’s “Civil War” to teach Government Regulation. The test scores show it is working. Understand how a teacher can use graphic novels (a/k/a Comic Books) to meet standards, excite kids, and teach at the same time. It can be done!

Today’s sponsor is Kids Discover. They’re doing awesome things to drive inquiry based learning. The Kids Discover online platform lets students enter discovery mode. This fun, visual tool lets students explore 150 different science and social studies units for elementary and middle school learners.

And while they can explore a wide variety of topics from the US Constitution to Ecology and Ancient China, I also like that you can assign these nonfiction texts at three different lexiles to supplement what you’re doing in the classroom.

Go to coolcatteacher.com/discover and get started for free. They support single sign-on with Google and Clever.

Listen Now

//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/5667578/height/90/width/640/theme/custom/autonext/no/thumbnail/yes/autoplay/no/preload/no/no_addthis/no/direction/backward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/2d568f/

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

Below is a transcript modified for your reading pleasure. For information on the guests and items mentioned in this show, scroll down to the bottom of this post.

****

Enhanced Transcript for Episode 133 

Using Marvel Comics to Teach Government Regulation

Shownotes: www.coolcatteacher.com/e133 Download the transcript: Episode 133 Transcript

Wednesday, August 23, 2017

How Kyle Uses Comics to Teach Government Regulation

Vicki: Happy Wonderful Classroom Wednesday! Today we are talking to Kyle Stern @Stern_History, a history teacher from North Carolina, about using graphic novels to teach. So, Kyle, tell us about how you taught government regulation.

Kyle: With government regulation, especially with students, it’s not exactly the most exciting topic in the world.

Vicki: (laughs)

Kyle: (laughs) I know I love it, but they don’t. And you know, there’s tons of ways to go about it. I could drone on and on about specific topics or specific things, but I found the best way with my kids was to take advantage of, you know, popular media. Comic books kind of made this huge breakthrough a couple of years ago, and I’ve always loved them. I found that the best way for me is using Marvel Civil War, which goes into regulation, but of course it’s a fictional telling of it.

What we actually tend to do is use a dual entry log, where I will show them specific scenes from the book and actually do it Reader’s Theater style. So each kid is assigned a specific character, which gets a little bit more of student buy in and engagement, which of course is always what we’re looking for with our lesson plans.

As we go along, we stop after each scene, and we analyze it a little bit. We go over what is this? What happened? So like, for example, the first scene that we always talk about is our catalyst, our thing that causes the need for regulation. So, in the book it’s a school comes under fire, and it’s because these superheroes are not trained, and now everyone’s like, “Well we need to figure something out so this doesn’t happen again.”

And then of course I say, “Alright, what can we equate this to in current events or in recent history that it aligns with?” And of course, a lot of our kids go with something like 9/11… or I always bring up something like Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle which causes the whole regulation of the food industry. And we go into that and we analyze that, and we also do some prediction and everything. So, it’s a lot of close reading, a lot of critical analysis, which takes it a step further. It’s not just this explicit reading that we get in our elementary and middle school levels. We get more implicit. We have them draw details out themselves, which is, you know, that higher level comprehension. It always brings very positive results in my class.

How Kyle got permission to use comics in his course

Vicki: What did your administrators think when you said, “Hey, I’m going to use a graphic novel, a Marvel Civil War, to teach government regulations.” I mean, they almost don’t go together. It’s almost kind of hilarious. “I’m going to teach government regulation with a comic.” It’s basically a comic book, right?

Kyle: Oh yeah. Absolutely. I actually had a really fantastic first principal at my school. His name was Robert Beal. I brought the idea to him, and he probably had the best response that I’ve ever heard. And he was like, “Well, do you think parents are going to get upset with the fact that their kids are reading comic books in your classroom?”

Vicki: (laughs)

Kyle: And I was like, “Well, I don’t think so.” And was like, “Well, are you going to make it controversial?” And I was like, “No, that’s not my job.” And he’s just like, “Alright. Then I see no problem, as long as it gets the job done, then I don’t mind what you do.”

When he saw that my kids did actually really well with covering government regulations, then he’s like, “Well, don’t fix what isn’t broken.” So, we kept going along.

How well are the students learning government regulation?

Vicki: Yeah, cool! So, you’re teaching with this. How do the kids responding and how well are they learning it?

Kyle: It’s actually really funny. When I introduce it, like any other time when you say, “We’re going to do Readers Theater,” and everything, they all groan. And they’re all like, “I don’t want to read in front of everyone. I don’t want to be a character.” And then it’s even better when the kids are like, “I don’t like comic books. Comic books are terrible. I’d rather read something else.”

Initially, there’s a little bit of push and pull. But then once they finally really get into it, the kids start providing more information. We’re doing like standard callouts in class, and so like in the story, “We have Ironman representing this one group, and we have Captain America representing another group. What do they represent?”

And after a second of thinking the kids will go, “Oh! Ironman represents big business. Captain America represents small business.” Or, “Federal government or local government” kind of things. And they really start clicking especially as the story goes along.

And one of the main points that we try to make is, “Who does regulation really benefit? Does it really benefit big business? Does it really benefit small business?” We mostly push this during my Economics unit, so that’s how we tend to frame it.

Vicki: So, how long have you been taking this approach with this unit?

Kyle: Let’s see. At my school we do semester classes, so I’ll do Civics/Economics for half the year, and I’ve now done it about four times in my class. And it’s been honestly pretty productive. I’ve had kids come out of the North Carolina final exam for Civics/Economics, and they’re like, “Oh, Mr. Stern! There was a question about Civics/Economics, government regulation, and I definitely understood it, and it was all because of that book!”

And I was just like – and mind you, it’s kids – “I was a little worried if you were going to figure it out. I knew you had the information. I just wasn’t sure if you were going to draw on it.” And I’ve had a number of kids that do it, and now I have rising freshmen who are going to be sophomores this year. They’re like, “Oh, I heard we get to read this in your class! Is this true?” And I’m like, “Well, do you see the whole class set on the bookshelf? I don’t keep it all for myself.”

What other topics would be good for graphic novels?

Vicki: Yeah. Awesome! Now if you had your way, are there some other units you might do with graphic novels?

Kyle: There’s a number of different things that I would like to do. Some of it is just figuring out the best way to take a look at them. I always like to find, for example – I actually did this one in my thesis study, and I think I’m going to push for it this year – is discussing the Constitution, and the different parts of it, and the Amendments.

There’s actually a really great graphic novel, and it’s just, The Constitution: The Graphic Novel. It really breaks it down, and it uses the different literacies that, you know, our student have and we don’t draw on all the time. Like, we constantly have our students read, right?

And not all of our kids – I mean, we would love to say they’re all at grade level or above, but let’s face it, some kids just aren’t. And it helps give them a little more leverage to grasp the information a little bit better. That’s one of the reasons why I really like using graphic novels. I get the kid to read the Constitution, but let’s face it. Reading 18th century writing is not the easiest when you’re just kind of trying to come to grips with the way we read and write in the 21st century. So, adding those pictures, it becomes a little bit more clear. It gives them a new way of analyzing the information.

Vicki: So, teachers, we have heard an idea. You have an example to share, that this DOES work, and you CAN teach – I mean, if you can teach government regulation with graphic novels, what can you NOT teach with it? So, it can be done. I think it’s really exciting, and I love it because, I’m not even going to say “out of the box” because I don’t even like boxes.

It’s just good teaching, saying, “I can use this to teach.” It engages the kids, and it gets kids excited. And so get out there and be remarkable!

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford

Full Bio As Submitted

Kyle Stern

Kyle Stern is a high school social studies teacher at Lee County Schools in North Carolina. Originally from Webster, New York (just outside of Rochester), Stern attended the State University of New York and Fredonia. There he earned his BA in Adolescent Social Studies Education and MS in Literacy Education.

While completing his Master’s, he focused on the use of non-traditional texts on expository material. Since coming to Lee County in 2015 he has taught Civics & Economics, World History and is the lead teacher in his school’s ACT prep program.

      Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.)

The post This Teacher Uses Marvel Comics to Teach Government Regulation (with Great Results!) appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

from Cool Cat Teacher BlogCool Cat Teacher Blog http://www.coolcatteacher.com/e133/

[mermaidbookrecs]

Beautiful Music for Ugly Children

Cronn-Mills, K. (2017). Beautiful music for ugly children. Mendora Heights, MN: Flux.  Pages: 356 ISBN: 978-0-7387-3251-0 Price: $9.99 Lexile: HL600L Format: ebook Awards: Stonewall Award

              “You are you. That’s all there is to it.” (57)

              Gabe has always loved music and just started a part-time DJ gig at a community radio station with the help of his friend and neighbor John, an elderly former DJ who was the first person to play Elvis on live radio. Gabe’s show holds promise; he quickly grows a following and has one fan in particular who calls in to make requests every night his show is on. But when Gabe recognizes the girl, Mara, as the “change girl” at school from whom he always gets change for a Pepsi, he is terrified. Because what his listeners don’t know is that while his “B side,” his true self, is his DJ persona, his “A side,” the self he presents to the rest of the world, is Liz, who appears to be a high school senior. Only his family and his best friend and crush, Paige, know the truth and despite making small steps toward his transition, he isn’t ready for the rest of the world to know.

              Unfortunately for Gabe, his fears become reality when he meets his biggest fan for a date and his secret is revealed. Suddenly his fan base shrinks in size and he is under the very real threat of physical harm by two boys in masks. While Gabe continues his radio show and works on his playlist for a radio competition with a reward of a more prominent radio position, Gabe begins to transition into his “B side” more permanently, while dealing with the awkwardness of his new status in the family, threats of violence, his show’s growing popularity, and his feelings for two girls he’s crushed on for years, who both suddenly seem to be interested in him.

              Beautiful Music for Ugly Children is a realistic portrayal of the life of a transgender teen who wants to share his love of music with the world and be his real self despite his fear of society’s reaction. Written in 2012, the edition I read has a very nice afterword by the author, a cisgender woman, commenting on how she would not have written this book today because of how important it is for trans narratives to be written by actual trans people, and her acknowledgement that she is unable to convey exactly what it is like to be a transgender man, as she is not one herself. The afterword also remarks on how culture has shifted in the five years between the book’s first publishing and when this edition was written, and how certain terminology is not used as much today, as well as information on what it means to be transgender. The afterword is a very nice addition to the novel, and while it is, indeed, important for trans voices to be heard, the fact that transgender fiction for teens is still a niche category means that even books like this, written by cisgender authors who take the care and consideration to research and listen to trans voices, are still appreciated.

              There is one moment involving sexual assault, although it is not treated within the narrative as such; it is treated the same as physical violence, which also occurs several times throughout the novel. Bullying is also featured in the novel, both before Gabe is outed as transgender (when slurs are thrown at him referring to him as a lesbian) and after he is outed (when other slurs and threats of violence are used against him). Gabe’s family, while loving, is woefully inept at supporting their son and brother throughout most of the novel, although their treatment of him improves later. Even Gabe’s best friend, Paige, who is the most supportive of him throughout the entirety of the novel, wavers at a moment that seems, for me at least, uncharacteristic of her. Only John remains supportive throughout the novel.

              Because of the sexual language and references and violence, I would recommend Beautiful Music for Ugly Children to teens age 14 and older. Out of 5 stars, I would rate it a 4, because while Gabe’s character and most others were handled well and most situations were tragically more realistic than I wish they were, some other situations seemed too unrealistic for a realistic fiction novel and the ending left me feeling a bit unsatisfied.

              The following excerpt comes from pages 59 and 60 in the digital edition:

              “So tell me, listeners … are you an A side or a B side? Are you a Top Forty hit, or an equally good yet potentially undiscovered gem?” I can’t believe I’m saying this. “Some of you might be right up there in the top ten, but if you’re listening to this show, I’d bet you’re more on the funky side.” Dorky. “Then again, I think all of us have our A and B sides, even though digital music has kind of wrecked that idea.”

              Another deep breath.

              “Personally, I like my B side, which is tough, because everybody else likes my A side. But I’m sticking to it.” I feel and hear my voice shake, but hopefully it’s not noticeable on the air. “And I played my B side for someone yesterday, and he was okay with it. No complaints, nothing. Can you imagine?”

Star rating: 4/5

Here is a neat interview from the author of Beautiful Music for Ugly Children about her thought process while writing this novel. This interview was published in 2014 and she mentions how terminology has changed since the book was published...and you can see in the interview how even 4 years later things have changed even more!

[athena29stone]

This Teacher Uses Marvel Comics to Teach Government Regulation (with Great Results!)

Episode 133 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Today Kyle Stern @stern_history uses Marvel’s “Civil War” to teach Government Regulation. The test scores show it is working. Understand how a teacher can use graphic novels (a/k/a Comic Books) to meet standards, excite kids, and teach at the same time. It can be done!

Today’s sponsor is Kids Discover. They’re doing awesome things to drive inquiry based learning. The Kids Discover online platform lets students enter discovery mode. This fun, visual tool lets students explore 150 different science and social studies units for elementary and middle school learners.

And while they can explore a wide variety of topics from the US Constitution to Ecology and Ancient China, I also like that you can assign these nonfiction texts at three different lexiles to supplement what you’re doing in the classroom.

Go to coolcatteacher.com/discover and get started for free. They support single sign-on with Google and Clever.

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

Below is a transcript modified for your reading pleasure. For information on the guests and items mentioned in this show, scroll down to the bottom of this post.

****

Enhanced Transcript for Episode 133 

Using Marvel Comics to Teach Government Regulation

Shownotes: www.coolcatteacher.com/e133 Download the transcript: Episode 133 Transcript

Wednesday, August 23, 2017

How Kyle Uses Comics to Teach Government Regulation

Vicki: Happy Wonderful Classroom Wednesday! Today we are talking to Kyle Stern @Stern_History, a history teacher from North Carolina, about using graphic novels to teach. So, Kyle, tell us about how you taught government regulation.

Kyle: With government regulation, especially with students, it’s not exactly the most exciting topic in the world.

Vicki: (laughs)

Kyle: (laughs) I know I love it, but they don’t. And you know, there’s tons of ways to go about it. I could drone on and on about specific topics or specific things, but I found the best way with my kids was to take advantage of, you know, popular media. Comic books kind of made this huge breakthrough a couple of years ago, and I’ve always loved them. I found that the best way for me is using Marvel Civil War, which goes into regulation, but of course it’s a fictional telling of it.

What we actually tend to do is use a dual entry log, where I will show them specific scenes from the book and actually do it Reader’s Theater style. So each kid is assigned a specific character, which gets a little bit more of student buy in and engagement, which of course is always what we’re looking for with our lesson plans.

As we go along, we stop after each scene, and we analyze it a little bit. We go over what is this? What happened? So like, for example, the first scene that we always talk about is our catalyst, our thing that causes the need for regulation. So, in the book it’s a school comes under fire, and it’s because these superheroes are not trained, and now everyone’s like, “Well we need to figure something out so this doesn’t happen again.”

And then of course I say, “Alright, what can we equate this to in current events or in recent history that it aligns with?” And of course, a lot of our kids go with something like 9/11… or I always bring up something like Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle which causes the whole regulation of the food industry. And we go into that and we analyze that, and we also do some prediction and everything. So, it’s a lot of close reading, a lot of critical analysis, which takes it a step further. It’s not just this explicit reading that we get in our elementary and middle school levels. We get more implicit. We have them draw details out themselves, which is, you know, that higher level comprehension. It always brings very positive results in my class.

How Kyle got permission to use comics in his course

Vicki: What did your administrators think when you said, “Hey, I’m going to use a graphic novel, a Marvel Civil War, to teach government regulations.” I mean, they almost don’t go together. It’s almost kind of hilarious. “I’m going to teach government regulation with a comic.” It’s basically a comic book, right?

Kyle: Oh yeah. Absolutely. I actually had a really fantastic first principal at my school. His name was Robert Beal. I brought the idea to him, and he probably had the best response that I’ve ever heard. And he was like, “Well, do you think parents are going to get upset with the fact that their kids are reading comic books in your classroom?”

Vicki: (laughs)

Kyle: And I was like, “Well, I don’t think so.” And was like, “Well, are you going to make it controversial?” And I was like, “No, that’s not my job.” And he’s just like, “Alright. Then I see no problem, as long as it gets the job done, then I don’t mind what you do.”

When he saw that my kids did actually really well with covering government regulations, then he’s like, “Well, don’t fix what isn’t broken.” So, we kept going along.

How well are the students learning government regulation?

Vicki: Yeah, cool! So, you’re teaching with this. How do the kids responding and how well are they learning it?

Kyle: It’s actually really funny. When I introduce it, like any other time when you say, “We’re going to do Readers Theater,” and everything, they all groan. And they’re all like, “I don’t want to read in front of everyone. I don’t want to be a character.” And then it’s even better when the kids are like, “I don’t like comic books. Comic books are terrible. I’d rather read something else.”

Initially, there’s a little bit of push and pull. But then once they finally really get into it, the kids start providing more information. We’re doing like standard callouts in class, and so like in the story, “We have Ironman representing this one group, and we have Captain America representing another group. What do they represent?”

And after a second of thinking the kids will go, “Oh! Ironman represents big business. Captain America represents small business.” Or, “Federal government or local government” kind of things. And they really start clicking especially as the story goes along.

And one of the main points that we try to make is, “Who does regulation really benefit? Does it really benefit big business? Does it really benefit small business?” We mostly push this during my Economics unit, so that’s how we tend to frame it.

Vicki: So, how long have you been taking this approach with this unit?

Kyle: Let’s see. At my school we do semester classes, so I’ll do Civics/Economics for half the year, and I’ve now done it about four times in my class. And it’s been honestly pretty productive. I’ve had kids come out of the North Carolina final exam for Civics/Economics, and they’re like, “Oh, Mr. Stern! There was a question about Civics/Economics, government regulation, and I definitely understood it, and it was all because of that book!”

And I was just like – and mind you, it’s kids – “I was a little worried if you were going to figure it out. I knew you had the information. I just wasn’t sure if you were going to draw on it.” And I’ve had a number of kids that do it, and now I have rising freshmen who are going to be sophomores this year. They’re like, “Oh, I heard we get to read this in your class! Is this true?” And I’m like, “Well, do you see the whole class set on the bookshelf? I don’t keep it all for myself.”

What other topics would be good for graphic novels?

Vicki: Yeah. Awesome! Now if you had your way, are there some other units you might do with graphic novels?

Kyle: There’s a number of different things that I would like to do. Some of it is just figuring out the best way to take a look at them. I always like to find, for example – I actually did this one in my thesis study, and I think I’m going to push for it this year – is discussing the Constitution, and the different parts of it, and the Amendments.

There’s actually a really great graphic novel, and it’s just, The Constitution: The Graphic Novel. It really breaks it down, and it uses the different literacies that, you know, our student have and we don’t draw on all the time. Like, we constantly have our students read, right?

And not all of our kids – I mean, we would love to say they’re all at grade level or above, but let’s face it, some kids just aren’t. And it helps give them a little more leverage to grasp the information a little bit better. That’s one of the reasons why I really like using graphic novels. I get the kid to read the Constitution, but let’s face it. Reading 18th century writing is not the easiest when you’re just kind of trying to come to grips with the way we read and write in the 21st century. So, adding those pictures, it becomes a little bit more clear. It gives them a new way of analyzing the information.

Vicki: So, teachers, we have heard an idea. You have an example to share, that this DOES work, and you CAN teach – I mean, if you can teach government regulation with graphic novels, what can you NOT teach with it? So, it can be done. I think it’s really exciting, and I love it because, I’m not even going to say “out of the box” because I don’t even like boxes.

It’s just good teaching, saying, “I can use this to teach.” It engages the kids, and it gets kids excited. And so get out there and be remarkable!

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford

Full Bio As Submitted

Kyle Stern

Kyle Stern is a high school social studies teacher at Lee County Schools in North Carolina. Originally from Webster, New York (just outside of Rochester), Stern attended the State University of New York and Fredonia. There he earned his BA in Adolescent Social Studies Education and MS in Literacy Education.

While completing his Master’s, he focused on the use of non-traditional texts on expository material. Since coming to Lee County in 2015 he has taught Civics & Economics, World History and is the lead teacher in his school’s ACT prep program.

      Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.)

The post This Teacher Uses Marvel Comics to Teach Government Regulation (with Great Results!) appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

from Cool Cat Teacher BlogCool Cat Teacher Blog http://www.coolcatteacher.com/e133/

[aira26soonas]

This Teacher Uses Marvel Comics to Teach Government Regulation (with Great Results!)

Episode 133 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Today Kyle Stern @stern_history uses Marvel’s “Civil War” to teach Government Regulation. The test scores show it is working. Understand how a teacher can use graphic novels (a/k/a Comic Books) to meet standards, excite kids, and teach at the same time. It can be done!

Today’s sponsor is Kids Discover. They’re doing awesome things to drive inquiry based learning. The Kids Discover online platform lets students enter discovery mode. This fun, visual tool lets students explore 150 different science and social studies units for elementary and middle school learners.

And while they can explore a wide variety of topics from the US Constitution to Ecology and Ancient China, I also like that you can assign these nonfiction texts at three different lexiles to supplement what you’re doing in the classroom.

Go to coolcatteacher.com/discover and get started for free. They support single sign-on with Google and Clever.

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

Below is a transcript modified for your reading pleasure. For information on the guests and items mentioned in this show, scroll down to the bottom of this post.

****

Enhanced Transcript for Episode 133 

Using Marvel Comics to Teach Government Regulation

Shownotes: www.coolcatteacher.com/e133 Download the transcript: Episode 133 Transcript

Wednesday, August 23, 2017

How Kyle Uses Comics to Teach Government Regulation

Vicki: Happy Wonderful Classroom Wednesday! Today we are talking to Kyle Stern @Stern_History, a history teacher from North Carolina, about using graphic novels to teach. So, Kyle, tell us about how you taught government regulation.

Kyle: With government regulation, especially with students, it’s not exactly the most exciting topic in the world.

Vicki: (laughs)

Kyle: (laughs) I know I love it, but they don’t. And you know, there’s tons of ways to go about it. I could drone on and on about specific topics or specific things, but I found the best way with my kids was to take advantage of, you know, popular media. Comic books kind of made this huge breakthrough a couple of years ago, and I’ve always loved them. I found that the best way for me is using Marvel Civil War, which goes into regulation, but of course it’s a fictional telling of it.

What we actually tend to do is use a dual entry log, where I will show them specific scenes from the book and actually do it Reader’s Theater style. So each kid is assigned a specific character, which gets a little bit more of student buy in and engagement, which of course is always what we’re looking for with our lesson plans.

As we go along, we stop after each scene, and we analyze it a little bit. We go over what is this? What happened? So like, for example, the first scene that we always talk about is our catalyst, our thing that causes the need for regulation. So, in the book it’s a school comes under fire, and it’s because these superheroes are not trained, and now everyone’s like, “Well we need to figure something out so this doesn’t happen again.”

And then of course I say, “Alright, what can we equate this to in current events or in recent history that it aligns with?” And of course, a lot of our kids go with something like 9/11… or I always bring up something like Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle which causes the whole regulation of the food industry. And we go into that and we analyze that, and we also do some prediction and everything. So, it’s a lot of close reading, a lot of critical analysis, which takes it a step further. It’s not just this explicit reading that we get in our elementary and middle school levels. We get more implicit. We have them draw details out themselves, which is, you know, that higher level comprehension. It always brings very positive results in my class.

How Kyle got permission to use comics in his course

Vicki: What did your administrators think when you said, “Hey, I’m going to use a graphic novel, a Marvel Civil War, to teach government regulations.” I mean, they almost don’t go together. It’s almost kind of hilarious. “I’m going to teach government regulation with a comic.” It’s basically a comic book, right?

Kyle: Oh yeah. Absolutely. I actually had a really fantastic first principal at my school. His name was Robert Beal. I brought the idea to him, and he probably had the best response that I’ve ever heard. And he was like, “Well, do you think parents are going to get upset with the fact that their kids are reading comic books in your classroom?”

Vicki: (laughs)

Kyle: And I was like, “Well, I don’t think so.” And was like, “Well, are you going to make it controversial?” And I was like, “No, that’s not my job.” And he’s just like, “Alright. Then I see no problem, as long as it gets the job done, then I don’t mind what you do.”

When he saw that my kids did actually really well with covering government regulations, then he’s like, “Well, don’t fix what isn’t broken.” So, we kept going along.

How well are the students learning government regulation?

Vicki: Yeah, cool! So, you’re teaching with this. How do the kids responding and how well are they learning it?

Kyle: It’s actually really funny. When I introduce it, like any other time when you say, “We’re going to do Readers Theater,” and everything, they all groan. And they’re all like, “I don’t want to read in front of everyone. I don’t want to be a character.” And then it’s even better when the kids are like, “I don’t like comic books. Comic books are terrible. I’d rather read something else.”

Initially, there’s a little bit of push and pull. But then once they finally really get into it, the kids start providing more information. We’re doing like standard callouts in class, and so like in the story, “We have Ironman representing this one group, and we have Captain America representing another group. What do they represent?”

And after a second of thinking the kids will go, “Oh! Ironman represents big business. Captain America represents small business.” Or, “Federal government or local government” kind of things. And they really start clicking especially as the story goes along.

And one of the main points that we try to make is, “Who does regulation really benefit? Does it really benefit big business? Does it really benefit small business?” We mostly push this during my Economics unit, so that’s how we tend to frame it.

Vicki: So, how long have you been taking this approach with this unit?

Kyle: Let’s see. At my school we do semester classes, so I’ll do Civics/Economics for half the year, and I’ve now done it about four times in my class. And it’s been honestly pretty productive. I’ve had kids come out of the North Carolina final exam for Civics/Economics, and they’re like, “Oh, Mr. Stern! There was a question about Civics/Economics, government regulation, and I definitely understood it, and it was all because of that book!”

And I was just like – and mind you, it’s kids – “I was a little worried if you were going to figure it out. I knew you had the information. I just wasn’t sure if you were going to draw on it.” And I’ve had a number of kids that do it, and now I have rising freshmen who are going to be sophomores this year. They’re like, “Oh, I heard we get to read this in your class! Is this true?” And I’m like, “Well, do you see the whole class set on the bookshelf? I don’t keep it all for myself.”

What other topics would be good for graphic novels?

Vicki: Yeah. Awesome! Now if you had your way, are there some other units you might do with graphic novels?

Kyle: There’s a number of different things that I would like to do. Some of it is just figuring out the best way to take a look at them. I always like to find, for example – I actually did this one in my thesis study, and I think I’m going to push for it this year – is discussing the Constitution, and the different parts of it, and the Amendments.

There’s actually a really great graphic novel, and it’s just, The Constitution: The Graphic Novel. It really breaks it down, and it uses the different literacies that, you know, our student have and we don’t draw on all the time. Like, we constantly have our students read, right?

And not all of our kids – I mean, we would love to say they’re all at grade level or above, but let’s face it, some kids just aren’t. And it helps give them a little more leverage to grasp the information a little bit better. That’s one of the reasons why I really like using graphic novels. I get the kid to read the Constitution, but let’s face it. Reading 18th century writing is not the easiest when you’re just kind of trying to come to grips with the way we read and write in the 21st century. So, adding those pictures, it becomes a little bit more clear. It gives them a new way of analyzing the information.

Vicki: So, teachers, we have heard an idea. You have an example to share, that this DOES work, and you CAN teach – I mean, if you can teach government regulation with graphic novels, what can you NOT teach with it? So, it can be done. I think it’s really exciting, and I love it because, I’m not even going to say “out of the box” because I don’t even like boxes.

It’s just good teaching, saying, “I can use this to teach.” It engages the kids, and it gets kids excited. And so get out there and be remarkable!

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford

Full Bio As Submitted

Kyle Stern

Kyle Stern is a high school social studies teacher at Lee County Schools in North Carolina. Originally from Webster, New York (just outside of Rochester), Stern attended the State University of New York and Fredonia. There he earned his BA in Adolescent Social Studies Education and MS in Literacy Education.

While completing his Master’s, he focused on the use of non-traditional texts on expository material. Since coming to Lee County in 2015 he has taught Civics & Economics, World History and is the lead teacher in his school’s ACT prep program.

      Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.)

The post This Teacher Uses Marvel Comics to Teach Government Regulation (with Great Results!) appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

from Cool Cat Teacher BlogCool Cat Teacher Blog http://www.coolcatteacher.com/e133/

[patriciaanderson357-blog]

This Teacher Uses Marvel Comics to Teach Government Regulation (with Great Results!)

Episode 133 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Today Kyle Stern @stern_history uses Marvel’s “Civil War” to teach Government Regulation. The test scores show it is working. Understand how a teacher can use graphic novels (a/k/a Comic Books) to meet standards, excite kids, and teach at the same time. It can be done!

Today’s sponsor is Kids Discover. They’re doing awesome things to drive inquiry based learning. The Kids Discover online platform lets students enter discovery mode. This fun, visual tool lets students explore 150 different science and social studies units for elementary and middle school learners.

And while they can explore a wide variety of topics from the US Constitution to Ecology and Ancient China, I also like that you can assign these nonfiction texts at three different lexiles to supplement what you’re doing in the classroom.

Go to coolcatteacher.com/discover and get started for free. They support single sign-on with Google and Clever.

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

Below is a transcript modified for your reading pleasure. For information on the guests and items mentioned in this show, scroll down to the bottom of this post.

****

Enhanced Transcript for Episode 133 

Using Marvel Comics to Teach Government Regulation

Shownotes: www.coolcatteacher.com/e133 Download the transcript: Episode 133 Transcript

Wednesday, August 23, 2017

How Kyle Uses Comics to Teach Government Regulation

Vicki: Happy Wonderful Classroom Wednesday! Today we are talking to Kyle Stern @Stern_History, a history teacher from North Carolina, about using graphic novels to teach. So, Kyle, tell us about how you taught government regulation.

Kyle: With government regulation, especially with students, it’s not exactly the most exciting topic in the world.

Vicki: (laughs)

Kyle: (laughs) I know I love it, but they don’t. And you know, there’s tons of ways to go about it. I could drone on and on about specific topics or specific things, but I found the best way with my kids was to take advantage of, you know, popular media. Comic books kind of made this huge breakthrough a couple of years ago, and I’ve always loved them. I found that the best way for me is using Marvel Civil War, which goes into regulation, but of course it’s a fictional telling of it.

What we actually tend to do is use a dual entry log, where I will show them specific scenes from the book and actually do it Reader’s Theater style. So each kid is assigned a specific character, which gets a little bit more of student buy in and engagement, which of course is always what we’re looking for with our lesson plans.

As we go along, we stop after each scene, and we analyze it a little bit. We go over what is this? What happened? So like, for example, the first scene that we always talk about is our catalyst, our thing that causes the need for regulation. So, in the book it’s a school comes under fire, and it’s because these superheroes are not trained, and now everyone’s like, “Well we need to figure something out so this doesn’t happen again.”

And then of course I say, “Alright, what can we equate this to in current events or in recent history that it aligns with?” And of course, a lot of our kids go with something like 9/11… or I always bring up something like Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle which causes the whole regulation of the food industry. And we go into that and we analyze that, and we also do some prediction and everything. So, it’s a lot of close reading, a lot of critical analysis, which takes it a step further. It’s not just this explicit reading that we get in our elementary and middle school levels. We get more implicit. We have them draw details out themselves, which is, you know, that higher level comprehension. It always brings very positive results in my class.

How Kyle got permission to use comics in his course

Vicki: What did your administrators think when you said, “Hey, I’m going to use a graphic novel, a Marvel Civil War, to teach government regulations.” I mean, they almost don’t go together. It’s almost kind of hilarious. “I’m going to teach government regulation with a comic.” It’s basically a comic book, right?

Kyle: Oh yeah. Absolutely. I actually had a really fantastic first principal at my school. His name was Robert Beal. I brought the idea to him, and he probably had the best response that I’ve ever heard. And he was like, “Well, do you think parents are going to get upset with the fact that their kids are reading comic books in your classroom?”

Vicki: (laughs)

Kyle: And I was like, “Well, I don’t think so.” And was like, “Well, are you going to make it controversial?” And I was like, “No, that’s not my job.” And he’s just like, “Alright. Then I see no problem, as long as it gets the job done, then I don’t mind what you do.”

When he saw that my kids did actually really well with covering government regulations, then he’s like, “Well, don’t fix what isn’t broken.” So, we kept going along.

How well are the students learning government regulation?

Vicki: Yeah, cool! So, you’re teaching with this. How do the kids responding and how well are they learning it?

Kyle: It’s actually really funny. When I introduce it, like any other time when you say, “We’re going to do Readers Theater,” and everything, they all groan. And they’re all like, “I don’t want to read in front of everyone. I don’t want to be a character.” And then it’s even better when the kids are like, “I don’t like comic books. Comic books are terrible. I’d rather read something else.”

Initially, there’s a little bit of push and pull. But then once they finally really get into it, the kids start providing more information. We’re doing like standard callouts in class, and so like in the story, “We have Ironman representing this one group, and we have Captain America representing another group. What do they represent?”

And after a second of thinking the kids will go, “Oh! Ironman represents big business. Captain America represents small business.” Or, “Federal government or local government” kind of things. And they really start clicking especially as the story goes along.

And one of the main points that we try to make is, “Who does regulation really benefit? Does it really benefit big business? Does it really benefit small business?” We mostly push this during my Economics unit, so that’s how we tend to frame it.

Vicki: So, how long have you been taking this approach with this unit?

Kyle: Let’s see. At my school we do semester classes, so I’ll do Civics/Economics for half the year, and I’ve now done it about four times in my class. And it’s been honestly pretty productive. I’ve had kids come out of the North Carolina final exam for Civics/Economics, and they’re like, “Oh, Mr. Stern! There was a question about Civics/Economics, government regulation, and I definitely understood it, and it was all because of that book!”

And I was just like – and mind you, it’s kids – “I was a little worried if you were going to figure it out. I knew you had the information. I just wasn’t sure if you were going to draw on it.” And I’ve had a number of kids that do it, and now I have rising freshmen who are going to be sophomores this year. They’re like, “Oh, I heard we get to read this in your class! Is this true?” And I’m like, “Well, do you see the whole class set on the bookshelf? I don’t keep it all for myself.”

What other topics would be good for graphic novels?

Vicki: Yeah. Awesome! Now if you had your way, are there some other units you might do with graphic novels?

Kyle: There’s a number of different things that I would like to do. Some of it is just figuring out the best way to take a look at them. I always like to find, for example – I actually did this one in my thesis study, and I think I’m going to push for it this year – is discussing the Constitution, and the different parts of it, and the Amendments.

There’s actually a really great graphic novel, and it’s just, The Constitution: The Graphic Novel. It really breaks it down, and it uses the different literacies that, you know, our student have and we don’t draw on all the time. Like, we constantly have our students read, right?

And not all of our kids – I mean, we would love to say they’re all at grade level or above, but let’s face it, some kids just aren’t. And it helps give them a little more leverage to grasp the information a little bit better. That’s one of the reasons why I really like using graphic novels. I get the kid to read the Constitution, but let’s face it. Reading 18th century writing is not the easiest when you’re just kind of trying to come to grips with the way we read and write in the 21st century. So, adding those pictures, it becomes a little bit more clear. It gives them a new way of analyzing the information.

Vicki: So, teachers, we have heard an idea. You have an example to share, that this DOES work, and you CAN teach – I mean, if you can teach government regulation with graphic novels, what can you NOT teach with it? So, it can be done. I think it’s really exciting, and I love it because, I’m not even going to say “out of the box” because I don’t even like boxes.

It’s just good teaching, saying, “I can use this to teach.” It engages the kids, and it gets kids excited. And so get out there and be remarkable!

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford

Full Bio As Submitted

Kyle Stern

Kyle Stern is a high school social studies teacher at Lee County Schools in North Carolina. Originally from Webster, New York (just outside of Rochester), Stern attended the State University of New York and Fredonia. There he earned his BA in Adolescent Social Studies Education and MS in Literacy Education.

While completing his Master’s, he focused on the use of non-traditional texts on expository material. Since coming to Lee County in 2015 he has taught Civics & Economics, World History and is the lead teacher in his school’s ACT prep program.

      Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.)

The post This Teacher Uses Marvel Comics to Teach Government Regulation (with Great Results!) appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

[ralph31ortiz]

This Teacher Uses Marvel Comics to Teach Government Regulation (with Great Results!)

Episode 133 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Today Kyle Stern @stern_history uses Marvel’s “Civil War” to teach Government Regulation. The test scores show it is working. Understand how a teacher can use graphic novels (a/k/a Comic Books) to meet standards, excite kids, and teach at the same time. It can be done!

Today’s sponsor is Kids Discover. They’re doing awesome things to drive inquiry based learning. The Kids Discover online platform lets students enter discovery mode. This fun, visual tool lets students explore 150 different science and social studies units for elementary and middle school learners.

And while they can explore a wide variety of topics from the US Constitution to Ecology and Ancient China, I also like that you can assign these nonfiction texts at three different lexiles to supplement what you’re doing in the classroom.

Go to coolcatteacher.com/discover and get started for free. They support single sign-on with Google and Clever.

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

Below is a transcript modified for your reading pleasure. For information on the guests and items mentioned in this show, scroll down to the bottom of this post.

****

Enhanced Transcript for Episode 133 

Using Marvel Comics to Teach Government Regulation

Shownotes: www.coolcatteacher.com/e133 Download the transcript: Episode 133 Transcript

Wednesday, August 23, 2017

How Kyle Uses Comics to Teach Government Regulation

Vicki: Happy Wonderful Classroom Wednesday! Today we are talking to Kyle Stern @Stern_History, a history teacher from North Carolina, about using graphic novels to teach. So, Kyle, tell us about how you taught government regulation.

Kyle: With government regulation, especially with students, it’s not exactly the most exciting topic in the world.

Vicki: (laughs)

Kyle: (laughs) I know I love it, but they don’t. And you know, there’s tons of ways to go about it. I could drone on and on about specific topics or specific things, but I found the best way with my kids was to take advantage of, you know, popular media. Comic books kind of made this huge breakthrough a couple of years ago, and I’ve always loved them. I found that the best way for me is using Marvel Civil War, which goes into regulation, but of course it’s a fictional telling of it.

What we actually tend to do is use a dual entry log, where I will show them specific scenes from the book and actually do it Reader’s Theater style. So each kid is assigned a specific character, which gets a little bit more of student buy in and engagement, which of course is always what we’re looking for with our lesson plans.

As we go along, we stop after each scene, and we analyze it a little bit. We go over what is this? What happened? So like, for example, the first scene that we always talk about is our catalyst, our thing that causes the need for regulation. So, in the book it’s a school comes under fire, and it’s because these superheroes are not trained, and now everyone’s like, “Well we need to figure something out so this doesn’t happen again.”

And then of course I say, “Alright, what can we equate this to in current events or in recent history that it aligns with?” And of course, a lot of our kids go with something like 9/11… or I always bring up something like Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle which causes the whole regulation of the food industry. And we go into that and we analyze that, and we also do some prediction and everything. So, it’s a lot of close reading, a lot of critical analysis, which takes it a step further. It’s not just this explicit reading that we get in our elementary and middle school levels. We get more implicit. We have them draw details out themselves, which is, you know, that higher level comprehension. It always brings very positive results in my class.

How Kyle got permission to use comics in his course

Vicki: What did your administrators think when you said, “Hey, I’m going to use a graphic novel, a Marvel Civil War, to teach government regulations.” I mean, they almost don’t go together. It’s almost kind of hilarious. “I’m going to teach government regulation with a comic.” It’s basically a comic book, right?

Kyle: Oh yeah. Absolutely. I actually had a really fantastic first principal at my school. His name was Robert Beal. I brought the idea to him, and he probably had the best response that I’ve ever heard. And he was like, “Well, do you think parents are going to get upset with the fact that their kids are reading comic books in your classroom?”

Vicki: (laughs)

Kyle: And I was like, “Well, I don’t think so.” And was like, “Well, are you going to make it controversial?” And I was like, “No, that’s not my job.” And he’s just like, “Alright. Then I see no problem, as long as it gets the job done, then I don’t mind what you do.”

When he saw that my kids did actually really well with covering government regulations, then he’s like, “Well, don’t fix what isn’t broken.” So, we kept going along.

How well are the students learning government regulation?

Vicki: Yeah, cool! So, you’re teaching with this. How do the kids responding and how well are they learning it?

Kyle: It’s actually really funny. When I introduce it, like any other time when you say, “We’re going to do Readers Theater,” and everything, they all groan. And they’re all like, “I don’t want to read in front of everyone. I don’t want to be a character.” And then it’s even better when the kids are like, “I don’t like comic books. Comic books are terrible. I’d rather read something else.”

Initially, there’s a little bit of push and pull. But then once they finally really get into it, the kids start providing more information. We’re doing like standard callouts in class, and so like in the story, “We have Ironman representing this one group, and we have Captain America representing another group. What do they represent?”

And after a second of thinking the kids will go, “Oh! Ironman represents big business. Captain America represents small business.” Or, “Federal government or local government” kind of things. And they really start clicking especially as the story goes along.

And one of the main points that we try to make is, “Who does regulation really benefit? Does it really benefit big business? Does it really benefit small business?” We mostly push this during my Economics unit, so that’s how we tend to frame it.

Vicki: So, how long have you been taking this approach with this unit?

Kyle: Let’s see. At my school we do semester classes, so I’ll do Civics/Economics for half the year, and I’ve now done it about four times in my class. And it’s been honestly pretty productive. I’ve had kids come out of the North Carolina final exam for Civics/Economics, and they’re like, “Oh, Mr. Stern! There was a question about Civics/Economics, government regulation, and I definitely understood it, and it was all because of that book!”

And I was just like – and mind you, it’s kids – “I was a little worried if you were going to figure it out. I knew you had the information. I just wasn’t sure if you were going to draw on it.” And I’ve had a number of kids that do it, and now I have rising freshmen who are going to be sophomores this year. They’re like, “Oh, I heard we get to read this in your class! Is this true?” And I’m like, “Well, do you see the whole class set on the bookshelf? I don’t keep it all for myself.”

What other topics would be good for graphic novels?

Vicki: Yeah. Awesome! Now if you had your way, are there some other units you might do with graphic novels?

Kyle: There’s a number of different things that I would like to do. Some of it is just figuring out the best way to take a look at them. I always like to find, for example – I actually did this one in my thesis study, and I think I’m going to push for it this year – is discussing the Constitution, and the different parts of it, and the Amendments.

There’s actually a really great graphic novel, and it’s just, The Constitution: The Graphic Novel. It really breaks it down, and it uses the different literacies that, you know, our student have and we don’t draw on all the time. Like, we constantly have our students read, right?

And not all of our kids – I mean, we would love to say they’re all at grade level or above, but let’s face it, some kids just aren’t. And it helps give them a little more leverage to grasp the information a little bit better. That’s one of the reasons why I really like using graphic novels. I get the kid to read the Constitution, but let’s face it. Reading 18th century writing is not the easiest when you’re just kind of trying to come to grips with the way we read and write in the 21st century. So, adding those pictures, it becomes a little bit more clear. It gives them a new way of analyzing the information.

Vicki: So, teachers, we have heard an idea. You have an example to share, that this DOES work, and you CAN teach – I mean, if you can teach government regulation with graphic novels, what can you NOT teach with it? So, it can be done. I think it’s really exciting, and I love it because, I’m not even going to say “out of the box” because I don��t even like boxes.

It’s just good teaching, saying, “I can use this to teach.” It engages the kids, and it gets kids excited. And so get out there and be remarkable!

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford

Full Bio As Submitted

Kyle Stern

Kyle Stern is a high school social studies teacher at Lee County Schools in North Carolina. Originally from Webster, New York (just outside of Rochester), Stern attended the State University of New York and Fredonia. There he earned his BA in Adolescent Social Studies Education and MS in Literacy Education.

While completing his Master’s, he focused on the use of non-traditional texts on expository material. Since coming to Lee County in 2015 he has taught Civics & Economics, World History and is the lead teacher in his school’s ACT prep program.

      Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.)

The post This Teacher Uses Marvel Comics to Teach Government Regulation (with Great Results!) appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

from Cool Cat Teacher BlogCool Cat Teacher Blog http://www.coolcatteacher.com/e133/

[aira26soonas]

This Amazing South Bronx School Grows 50,000 Pounds of Vegetables a Year

Episode 131 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Today Stephen Ritz @StephenRitz grows 50,000 pounds of vegetables in the Bronx. As founder of the Green Bronx Machine, his students grow plants while learning more and going onto college. Exciting!

Today’s sponsor is Kids Discover. They’re doing awesome things to drive inquiry based learning. The Kids Discover online platform lets students enter discovery mode. This fun, visual tool lets students explore 150 different science and social studies units for elementary and middle school learners. And while they can explore a wide variety of topics from the US Constitution to Ecology and Ancient China, I also like that you can assign these nonfiction texts at three different lexiles to supplement what you’re doing in the classroom. Go to coolcatteacher.com/discover and get started for free. They support single sign-on with Google and Clever.

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

Below is a transcript modified for your reading pleasure. For information on the guests and items mentioned in this show, scroll down to the bottom of this post.

The Power of a Plant Book Giveaway Contest

****

Enhanced Transcript for Episode 131

The Power of a Plant with Stephen Ritz

Shownotes: www.coolcatteacher.com/e131 Transcript: http://www.coolcatteacher.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/131-transcript-Stephen-Ritz-KM1.pdf Monday, August 21, 2017

50,000 pounds of Vegetables in the South Bronx

Vicki: Stephen Ritz @StephenRitz is with us today, a finalist from the 2015 Global Teacher Prize, and just a very excited amazing person who really has a green classroom. So, Stephen, describe for us what you’ve done in your classroom.

Stephan: Well, in the poorest Congressional district in the America in the least healthy county of all of New York state, in the largest stretch of public housing, in a 100+ year old building, we are growing food! And I mean tons of it. Fifty thousand pounds of vegetables! And fifty thousand pounds of vegetables later, my favorite crop is organically grown citizens. Grant you, it’s members of the middle class, it’s kids who are going to college.

But I took the money from the Global Teacher Prize and created this National Health Wellness and Learning Center, which is a state of the art facility, four stories up in a walk-up building, mind you, where we grow food, we cook, we have integrated science labs.

Stephen Ritz and his students are gardening and growing food for their school and neighborhood.

It is net positive on food and energy. We have bicycle-powered blenders. We have a Green Bronx Machine mobile classroom kitchen. We have solar generators, bicycle blenders, bicycle-powered kitchens, a TV studio. And it’s all low-cost, replicable, and of course, there are our incredible tower gardens where we are growing food in a food-insecure community using 90% less water, 90% less space, and sending home 100 bags of groceries per week. Aligns to content area, instruction, and Common Core Next Generation Science Standards.

What can any teacher do to add sustainable practices to their school?

Vicki: Wow! Now you have a book called The Power of a Plant which is going to help our teachers who are completely overwhelmed and have their jaw on the floor be able to do this, because is there something that an average everyday teacher can do, because it seems like so much!

Stephan: Well, nobody can do everything, but everyone can do something. That is the mantra and the premise behind my book, The Power of a Plant: A Teacher’s Odyssey to Grow Healthy Minds and Schools.

I literally realized six years ago I was over 300 pounds myself, so The Power of a Plant really talks about so many things, but getting specifically to the book – the book will make you laugh, the book will make you cry. Realize I started teaching in 1984 when New York City, the South Bronx was in shambles and burnt to a crisp. So it highlights my odyssey, if you will, across pedagogy, across scaling, across dealing with administration, about dealing with your own personal tragedies and conflicts and challenges within the teaching profession. So it’s 100% inspiration, 100% perspiration, but it is a blueprint.

It also has a growing guide, all kinds of suggested tools. It has letters from students, letters from teachers, 45 luminaries have blurbed the book. Really, it’s designed for one thing – to help you make epic happen in your personal life, in your professional life, and in every single community you serve.

So. as we like to say in the South Bronx, “Si, se puede!” or “Yes, we can!” If I can, you can. That’s the purpose of this book, The Power of a Plant. In fact, it comes with a double-your-money-back guarantee. If you buy the book and don’t like it, I’ll buy it back for twice the price. All the proceeds are being donated to public education, so this is an opportunity for all of us to pay it forward and celebrate the profession that we all know and love.

What is a day in the life of a student at Stephen’s school like?

Vicki: Love it! OK, Stephen, could you take me through what a day of students that you work with, what they’ll do in a day with you?

Aeroponic methods help students grow plants indoors. Units are taught and integrated with the plants that grow alongside student’s growing minds.

Stephan: So, we believe – that’s a great question – we believe that the art and science of growing vegetables aligned to content area instruction grows healthy students, healthy schools, and high-performing resilient communities.

So, in the course of a day, you will come into this lab, where it’s 25 periods of weekly classroom instruction. Before school, lunchtime, after school and weekend programming. And you will get thematic science programming, aligned to Next Generation Science Standards. We do all the ratio, proportions, statistics and measuring aligned to seed propagation, so we touch on math. We touch on literacy, making prediction, doing measurements, if-then conditional statements, the whole art of ordinal direction, of prediction. Then we do a whole lot of science, we do a whole lot of cooking. Then this classroom is aligned to 25 periods of in class content area instruction.

So we believe that the art and science of growing vegetables and taking a garden and putting it at the heart of school, in a classroom, indoors, is not a band-aid so to speak but is a whole school solution. We are not an add on. We are a whole school program that really teaches children in food-insecure communities how to grow food, get the parents involved, brings parents in and aligns it.

Believe it or not, next week we are meeting with the State University of New York to create K-20 programming! Because the one thing about food and plants is that without all of it, we’d all be naked and hungry, and that’s not a thought that looks good on radio or sounds good either.

How do you have time to garden and teach school?

Vicki: (laughs) OK. So I’m a farmer’s daughter. I grew up on a farm. I’m trying to figure out when do the kids work in the garden? Growing plants is actually very hard work, as you know.

Stephan: Well, we have an indoor garden and an outdoor garden. So the outdoor garden is done after school, and not that I am anti-soil, I’m actually pro-soil and pro-garden-time but I’m actually very pro-instructional-time.

During the school day, our plants, our garden is indoors using aeroponic systems known as a tower garden, where the plants are literally growing themselves. The only thing that’s not happening is that they don’t take care of themselves, so the children take care of them, but no school uniforms are ruined, I have reading plant programs, I have leaf monitors, I have Ph patrols, you name it. Kids taking care of plants can document, collecting data, aggregating data, they’re talking about it, discussing it.

And we grew tremendous volumes of food, so deciding what we’re going to do with that food, what we’re going to do with the profits that we sell. Those are the kinds of collegial and professional conversations that really dictate a productive and proactive healthy school culture and climate.

And, it’s being evidenced in our test scores, our school report card, our teacher retention, our teacher satisfaction, our ability to attract new young dynamic teachers who LOVE coming to school in this state of the art facility.

And that’s what we do, so kids are in here literally from about 7:00 in the morning — another set will be coming in here soon – until 7:00 at night. We have about anywhere on any given day, 50-100 kids showing up after school in one of the most productive soil gardens in all of New York City — in the heart of a housing project, I might add – and we do cooking programs, TV shows.

We have our Green Bronx Machine (mobile kitchen) which is a state of the art food truck on wheels for a fraction of the cost which goes classroom to classroom. So it’s not only teaching kids to HAVE food, it’s teaching them what to do with it, giving parents access to it, giving grandparents access to it, and flooding our community with a whole new set of options aligned to help, wellness, and 21st Century college and career readiness.

Stephen’s 30-second Pep Talk for Every Teacher

Vicki: You’ve given us so much. It’s so very exciting. Could you give us a 30-second pep talk to every teacher out there listening about what they can do today?

Stephan: The secret sauce to all of my success is three things – passion, purpose and hope. And I believe that passion, purpose and hope will get you close. And sometimes you just need to take that endless leap of faith to get to the finish line. But teachers, don’t be afraid to fail. If anyone has perfected failing in life, it is me. But I have some hard buttocks, I bounce up quickly, and I keep falling up the ladder of success, saying “Please,” and “Thank you, and “Have a nice day,” and “How can we work to make things better?” And that’s what this is all about, growing the next generation of healthy students, healthy teachers, healthy schools, and healthy communities.

Vicki: Well, teachers. What we’ve heard is truly remarkable. Please go to the Shownotes. We’re giving away a book, The Power of a Plant. I’ve known Stephen for quite some time, and he always amazes me with how much he’s doing and how much we all need to be doing to be going green in our schools.

Full Bio As Submitted

Stephen Ritz

Stephen Ritz, Founder of Green Bronx Machine, Top Ten Global Teacher Prize Finalist, one of NPR’s 50 Greatest Teachers and BAMMY Laureate – Elementary Educator of the Year is a South Bronx educator who believes that children should not have to leave their neighborhood to live, learn and earn in a better one.

Stephen and his students have grown more than 50,000 pounds of vegetables, indoors, farming their way to the White House and back, using 90% less water and space, en route to outstanding personal and school performance which is highlighted in his new book via Rodale: The Power of A Plant with co-author Suzie Boss. To learn more about Stephen’s revolutionary program, see this powerful new two-minute video via Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

    Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.)

The post This Amazing South Bronx School Grows 50,000 Pounds of Vegetables a Year appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

from Cool Cat Teacher BlogCool Cat Teacher Blog http://www.coolcatteacher.com/e131/

[athena29stone]

This Amazing South Bronx School Grows 50,000 Pounds of Vegetables a Year

Episode 131 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Today Stephen Ritz @StephenRitz grows 50,000 pounds of vegetables in the Bronx. As founder of the Green Bronx Machine, his students grow plants while learning more and going onto college. Exciting!

Today’s sponsor is Kids Discover. They’re doing awesome things to drive inquiry based learning. The Kids Discover online platform lets students enter discovery mode. This fun, visual tool lets students explore 150 different science and social studies units for elementary and middle school learners. And while they can explore a wide variety of topics from the US Constitution to Ecology and Ancient China, I also like that you can assign these nonfiction texts at three different lexiles to supplement what you’re doing in the classroom. Go to coolcatteacher.com/discover and get started for free. They support single sign-on with Google and Clever.

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

Below is a transcript modified for your reading pleasure. For information on the guests and items mentioned in this show, scroll down to the bottom of this post.

The Power of a Plant Book Giveaway Contest

****

Enhanced Transcript for Episode 131

The Power of a Plant with Stephen Ritz

Shownotes: www.coolcatteacher.com/e131 Transcript: http://www.coolcatteacher.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/131-transcript-Stephen-Ritz-KM1.pdf Monday, August 21, 2017

50,000 pounds of Vegetables in the South Bronx

Vicki: Stephen Ritz @StephenRitz is with us today, a finalist from the 2015 Global Teacher Prize, and just a very excited amazing person who really has a green classroom. So, Stephen, describe for us what you’ve done in your classroom.

Stephan: Well, in the poorest Congressional district in the America in the least healthy county of all of New York state, in the largest stretch of public housing, in a 100+ year old building, we are growing food! And I mean tons of it. Fifty thousand pounds of vegetables! And fifty thousand pounds of vegetables later, my favorite crop is organically grown citizens. Grant you, it’s members of the middle class, it’s kids who are going to college.

But I took the money from the Global Teacher Prize and created this National Health Wellness and Learning Center, which is a state of the art facility, four stories up in a walk-up building, mind you, where we grow food, we cook, we have integrated science labs.

Stephen Ritz and his students are gardening and growing food for their school and neighborhood.

It is net positive on food and energy. We have bicycle-powered blenders. We have a Green Bronx Machine mobile classroom kitchen. We have solar generators, bicycle blenders, bicycle-powered kitchens, a TV studio. And it’s all low-cost, replicable, and of course, there are our incredible tower gardens where we are growing food in a food-insecure community using 90% less water, 90% less space, and sending home 100 bags of groceries per week. Aligns to content area, instruction, and Common Core Next Generation Science Standards.

What can any teacher do to add sustainable practices to their school?

Vicki: Wow! Now you have a book called The Power of a Plant which is going to help our teachers who are completely overwhelmed and have their jaw on the floor be able to do this, because is there something that an average everyday teacher can do, because it seems like so much!

Stephan: Well, nobody can do everything, but everyone can do something. That is the mantra and the premise behind my book, The Power of a Plant: A Teacher’s Odyssey to Grow Healthy Minds and Schools.

I literally realized six years ago I was over 300 pounds myself, so The Power of a Plant really talks about so many things, but getting specifically to the book – the book will make you laugh, the book will make you cry. Realize I started teaching in 1984 when New York City, the South Bronx was in shambles and burnt to a crisp. So it highlights my odyssey, if you will, across pedagogy, across scaling, across dealing with administration, about dealing with your own personal tragedies and conflicts and challenges within the teaching profession. So it’s 100% inspiration, 100% perspiration, but it is a blueprint.

It also has a growing guide, all kinds of suggested tools. It has letters from students, letters from teachers, 45 luminaries have blurbed the book. Really, it’s designed for one thing – to help you make epic happen in your personal life, in your professional life, and in every single community you serve.

So. as we like to say in the South Bronx, “Si, se puede!” or “Yes, we can!” If I can, you can. That’s the purpose of this book, The Power of a Plant. In fact, it comes with a double-your-money-back guarantee. If you buy the book and don’t like it, I’ll buy it back for twice the price. All the proceeds are being donated to public education, so this is an opportunity for all of us to pay it forward and celebrate the profession that we all know and love.

What is a day in the life of a student at Stephen’s school like?

Vicki: Love it! OK, Stephen, could you take me through what a day of students that you work with, what they’ll do in a day with you?

Aeroponic methods help students grow plants indoors. Units are taught and integrated with the plants that grow alongside student’s growing minds.

Stephan: So, we believe – that’s a great question – we believe that the art and science of growing vegetables aligned to content area instruction grows healthy students, healthy schools, and high-performing resilient communities.

So, in the course of a day, you will come into this lab, where it’s 25 periods of weekly classroom instruction. Before school, lunchtime, after school and weekend programming. And you will get thematic science programming, aligned to Next Generation Science Standards. We do all the ratio, proportions, statistics and measuring aligned to seed propagation, so we touch on math. We touch on literacy, making prediction, doing measurements, if-then conditional statements, the whole art of ordinal direction, of prediction. Then we do a whole lot of science, we do a whole lot of cooking. Then this classroom is aligned to 25 periods of in class content area instruction.

So we believe that the art and science of growing vegetables and taking a garden and putting it at the heart of school, in a classroom, indoors, is not a band-aid so to speak but is a whole school solution. We are not an add on. We are a whole school program that really teaches children in food-insecure communities how to grow food, get the parents involved, brings parents in and aligns it.

Believe it or not, next week we are meeting with the State University of New York to create K-20 programming! Because the one thing about food and plants is that without all of it, we’d all be naked and hungry, and that’s not a thought that looks good on radio or sounds good either.

How do you have time to garden and teach school?

Vicki: (laughs) OK. So I’m a farmer’s daughter. I grew up on a farm. I’m trying to figure out when do the kids work in the garden? Growing plants is actually very hard work, as you know.

Stephan: Well, we have an indoor garden and an outdoor garden. So the outdoor garden is done after school, and not that I am anti-soil, I’m actually pro-soil and pro-garden-time but I’m actually very pro-instructional-time.

During the school day, our plants, our garden is indoors using aeroponic systems known as a tower garden, where the plants are literally growing themselves. The only thing that’s not happening is that they don’t take care of themselves, so the children take care of them, but no school uniforms are ruined, I have reading plant programs, I have leaf monitors, I have Ph patrols, you name it. Kids taking care of plants can document, collecting data, aggregating data, they’re talking about it, discussing it.

And we grew tremendous volumes of food, so deciding what we’re going to do with that food, what we’re going to do with the profits that we sell. Those are the kinds of collegial and professional conversations that really dictate a productive and proactive healthy school culture and climate.

And, it’s being evidenced in our test scores, our school report card, our teacher retention, our teacher satisfaction, our ability to attract new young dynamic teachers who LOVE coming to school in this state of the art facility.

And that’s what we do, so kids are in here literally from about 7:00 in the morning — another set will be coming in here soon – until 7:00 at night. We have about anywhere on any given day, 50-100 kids showing up after school in one of the most productive soil gardens in all of New York City — in the heart of a housing project, I might add – and we do cooking programs, TV shows.

We have our Green Bronx Machine (mobile kitchen) which is a state of the art food truck on wheels for a fraction of the cost which goes classroom to classroom. So it’s not only teaching kids to HAVE food, it’s teaching them what to do with it, giving parents access to it, giving grandparents access to it, and flooding our community with a whole new set of options aligned to help, wellness, and 21st Century college and career readiness.

Stephen’s 30-second Pep Talk for Every Teacher

Vicki: You’ve given us so much. It’s so very exciting. Could you give us a 30-second pep talk to every teacher out there listening about what they can do today?

Stephan: The secret sauce to all of my success is three things – passion, purpose and hope. And I believe that passion, purpose and hope will get you close. And sometimes you just need to take that endless leap of faith to get to the finish line. But teachers, don’t be afraid to fail. If anyone has perfected failing in life, it is me. But I have some hard buttocks, I bounce up quickly, and I keep falling up the ladder of success, saying “Please,” and “Thank you, and “Have a nice day,” and “How can we work to make things better?” And that’s what this is all about, growing the next generation of healthy students, healthy teachers, healthy schools, and healthy communities.

Vicki: Well, teachers. What we’ve heard is truly remarkable. Please go to the Shownotes. We’re giving away a book, The Power of a Plant. I’ve known Stephen for quite some time, and he always amazes me with how much he’s doing and how much we all need to be doing to be going green in our schools.

Full Bio As Submitted

Stephen Ritz

Stephen Ritz, Founder of Green Bronx Machine, Top Ten Global Teacher Prize Finalist, one of NPR’s 50 Greatest Teachers and BAMMY Laureate – Elementary Educator of the Year is a South Bronx educator who believes that children should not have to leave their neighborhood to live, learn and earn in a better one.

Stephen and his students have grown more than 50,000 pounds of vegetables, indoors, farming their way to the White House and back, using 90% less water and space, en route to outstanding personal and school performance which is highlighted in his new book via Rodale: The Power of A Plant with co-author Suzie Boss. To learn more about Stephen’s revolutionary program, see this powerful new two-minute video via Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

    Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.)

The post This Amazing South Bronx School Grows 50,000 Pounds of Vegetables a Year appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

from Cool Cat Teacher BlogCool Cat Teacher Blog http://www.coolcatteacher.com/e131/

[patriciaanderson357-blog]

This Amazing South Bronx School Grows 50,000 Pounds of Vegetables a Year

Episode 131 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Today Stephen Ritz @StephenRitz grows 50,000 pounds of vegetables in the Bronx. As founder of the Green Bronx Machine, his students grow plants while learning more and going onto college. Exciting!

Today’s sponsor is Kids Discover. They’re doing awesome things to drive inquiry based learning. The Kids Discover online platform lets students enter discovery mode. This fun, visual tool lets students explore 150 different science and social studies units for elementary and middle school learners. And while they can explore a wide variety of topics from the US Constitution to Ecology and Ancient China, I also like that you can assign these nonfiction texts at three different lexiles to supplement what you’re doing in the classroom. Go to coolcatteacher.com/discover and get started for free. They support single sign-on with Google and Clever.

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

Below is a transcript modified for your reading pleasure. For information on the guests and items mentioned in this show, scroll down to the bottom of this post.

The Power of a Plant Book Giveaway Contest

****

Enhanced Transcript for Episode 131

The Power of a Plant with Stephen Ritz

Shownotes: www.coolcatteacher.com/e131 Transcript: http://www.coolcatteacher.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/131-transcript-Stephen-Ritz-KM1.pdf Monday, August 21, 2017

50,000 pounds of Vegetables in the South Bronx

Vicki: Stephen Ritz @StephenRitz is with us today, a finalist from the 2015 Global Teacher Prize, and just a very excited amazing person who really has a green classroom. So, Stephen, describe for us what you’ve done in your classroom.

Stephan: Well, in the poorest Congressional district in the America in the least healthy county of all of New York state, in the largest stretch of public housing, in a 100+ year old building, we are growing food! And I mean tons of it. Fifty thousand pounds of vegetables! And fifty thousand pounds of vegetables later, my favorite crop is organically grown citizens. Grant you, it’s members of the middle class, it’s kids who are going to college.

But I took the money from the Global Teacher Prize and created this National Health Wellness and Learning Center, which is a state of the art facility, four stories up in a walk-up building, mind you, where we grow food, we cook, we have integrated science labs.

Stephen Ritz and his students are gardening and growing food for their school and neighborhood.

It is net positive on food and energy. We have bicycle-powered blenders. We have a Green Bronx Machine mobile classroom kitchen. We have solar generators, bicycle blenders, bicycle-powered kitchens, a TV studio. And it’s all low-cost, replicable, and of course, there are our incredible tower gardens where we are growing food in a food-insecure community using 90% less water, 90% less space, and sending home 100 bags of groceries per week. Aligns to content area, instruction, and Common Core Next Generation Science Standards.

What can any teacher do to add sustainable practices to their school?

Vicki: Wow! Now you have a book called The Power of a Plant which is going to help our teachers who are completely overwhelmed and have their jaw on the floor be able to do this, because is there something that an average everyday teacher can do, because it seems like so much!

Stephan: Well, nobody can do everything, but everyone can do something. That is the mantra and the premise behind my book, The Power of a Plant: A Teacher’s Odyssey to Grow Healthy Minds and Schools.

I literally realized six years ago I was over 300 pounds myself, so The Power of a Plant really talks about so many things, but getting specifically to the book – the book will make you laugh, the book will make you cry. Realize I started teaching in 1984 when New York City, the South Bronx was in shambles and burnt to a crisp. So it highlights my odyssey, if you will, across pedagogy, across scaling, across dealing with administration, about dealing with your own personal tragedies and conflicts and challenges within the teaching profession. So it’s 100% inspiration, 100% perspiration, but it is a blueprint.

It also has a growing guide, all kinds of suggested tools. It has letters from students, letters from teachers, 45 luminaries have blurbed the book. Really, it’s designed for one thing – to help you make epic happen in your personal life, in your professional life, and in every single community you serve.

So. as we like to say in the South Bronx, “Si, se puede!” or “Yes, we can!” If I can, you can. That’s the purpose of this book, The Power of a Plant. In fact, it comes with a double-your-money-back guarantee. If you buy the book and don’t like it, I’ll buy it back for twice the price. All the proceeds are being donated to public education, so this is an opportunity for all of us to pay it forward and celebrate the profession that we all know and love.

What is a day in the life of a student at Stephen’s school like?

Vicki: Love it! OK, Stephen, could you take me through what a day of students that you work with, what they’ll do in a day with you?

Aeroponic methods help students grow plants indoors. Units are taught and integrated with the plants that grow alongside student’s growing minds.

Stephan: So, we believe – that’s a great question – we believe that the art and science of growing vegetables aligned to content area instruction grows healthy students, healthy schools, and high-performing resilient communities.

So, in the course of a day, you will come into this lab, where it’s 25 periods of weekly classroom instruction. Before school, lunchtime, after school and weekend programming. And you will get thematic science programming, aligned to Next Generation Science Standards. We do all the ratio, proportions, statistics and measuring aligned to seed propagation, so we touch on math. We touch on literacy, making prediction, doing measurements, if-then conditional statements, the whole art of ordinal direction, of prediction. Then we do a whole lot of science, we do a whole lot of cooking. Then this classroom is aligned to 25 periods of in class content area instruction.

So we believe that the art and science of growing vegetables and taking a garden and putting it at the heart of school, in a classroom, indoors, is not a band-aid so to speak but is a whole school solution. We are not an add on. We are a whole school program that really teaches children in food-insecure communities how to grow food, get the parents involved, brings parents in and aligns it.

Believe it or not, next week we are meeting with the State University of New York to create K-20 programming! Because the one thing about food and plants is that without all of it, we’d all be naked and hungry, and that’s not a thought that looks good on radio or sounds good either.

How do you have time to garden and teach school?

Vicki: (laughs) OK. So I’m a farmer’s daughter. I grew up on a farm. I’m trying to figure out when do the kids work in the garden? Growing plants is actually very hard work, as you know.

Stephan: Well, we have an indoor garden and an outdoor garden. So the outdoor garden is done after school, and not that I am anti-soil, I’m actually pro-soil and pro-garden-time but I’m actually very pro-instructional-time.

During the school day, our plants, our garden is indoors using aeroponic systems known as a tower garden, where the plants are literally growing themselves. The only thing that’s not happening is that they don’t take care of themselves, so the children take care of them, but no school uniforms are ruined, I have reading plant programs, I have leaf monitors, I have Ph patrols, you name it. Kids taking care of plants can document, collecting data, aggregating data, they’re talking about it, discussing it.

And we grew tremendous volumes of food, so deciding what we’re going to do with that food, what we’re going to do with the profits that we sell. Those are the kinds of collegial and professional conversations that really dictate a productive and proactive healthy school culture and climate.

And, it’s being evidenced in our test scores, our school report card, our teacher retention, our teacher satisfaction, our ability to attract new young dynamic teachers who LOVE coming to school in this state of the art facility.

And that’s what we do, so kids are in here literally from about 7:00 in the morning — another set will be coming in here soon – until 7:00 at night. We have about anywhere on any given day, 50-100 kids showing up after school in one of the most productive soil gardens in all of New York City — in the heart of a housing project, I might add – and we do cooking programs, TV shows.

We have our Green Bronx Machine (mobile kitchen) which is a state of the art food truck on wheels for a fraction of the cost which goes classroom to classroom. So it’s not only teaching kids to HAVE food, it’s teaching them what to do with it, giving parents access to it, giving grandparents access to it, and flooding our community with a whole new set of options aligned to help, wellness, and 21st Century college and career readiness.

Stephen’s 30-second Pep Talk for Every Teacher

Vicki: You’ve given us so much. It’s so very exciting. Could you give us a 30-second pep talk to every teacher out there listening about what they can do today?

Stephan: The secret sauce to all of my success is three things – passion, purpose and hope. And I believe that passion, purpose and hope will get you close. And sometimes you just need to take that endless leap of faith to get to the finish line. But teachers, don’t be afraid to fail. If anyone has perfected failing in life, it is me. But I have some hard buttocks, I bounce up quickly, and I keep falling up the ladder of success, saying “Please,” and “Thank you, and “Have a nice day,” and “How can we work to make things better?” And that’s what this is all about, growing the next generation of healthy students, healthy teachers, healthy schools, and healthy communities.

Vicki: Well, teachers. What we’ve heard is truly remarkable. Please go to the Shownotes. We’re giving away a book, The Power of a Plant. I’ve known Stephen for quite some time, and he always amazes me with how much he’s doing and how much we all need to be doing to be going green in our schools.

Full Bio As Submitted

Stephen Ritz

Stephen Ritz, Founder of Green Bronx Machine, Top Ten Global Teacher Prize Finalist, one of NPR’s 50 Greatest Teachers and BAMMY Laureate – Elementary Educator of the Year is a South Bronx educator who believes that children should not have to leave their neighborhood to live, learn and earn in a better one.

Stephen and his students have grown more than 50,000 pounds of vegetables, indoors, farming their way to the White House and back, using 90% less water and space, en route to outstanding personal and school performance which is highlighted in his new book via Rodale: The Power of A Plant with co-author Suzie Boss. To learn more about Stephen’s revolutionary program, see this powerful new two-minute video via Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

    Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.)

The post This Amazing South Bronx School Grows 50,000 Pounds of Vegetables a Year appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

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This Amazing South Bronx School Grows 50,000 Pounds of Vegetables a Year

Episode 131 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Today Stephen Ritz @StephenRitz grows 50,000 pounds of vegetables in the Bronx. As founder of the Green Bronx Machine, his students grow plants while learning more and going onto college. Exciting!

Today’s sponsor is Kids Discover. They’re doing awesome things to drive inquiry based learning. The Kids Discover online platform lets students enter discovery mode. This fun, visual tool lets students explore 150 different science and social studies units for elementary and middle school learners. And while they can explore a wide variety of topics from the US Constitution to Ecology and Ancient China, I also like that you can assign these nonfiction texts at three different lexiles to supplement what you’re doing in the classroom. Go to coolcatteacher.com/discover and get started for free. They support single sign-on with Google and Clever.

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Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

Below is a transcript modified for your reading pleasure. For information on the guests and items mentioned in this show, scroll down to the bottom of this post.

The Power of a Plant Book Giveaway Contest

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Enhanced Transcript for Episode 131

The Power of a Plant with Stephen Ritz

Shownotes: www.coolcatteacher.com/e131 Transcript: http://www.coolcatteacher.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/131-transcript-Stephen-Ritz-KM1.pdf Monday, August 21, 2017

50,000 pounds of Vegetables in the South Bronx

Vicki: Stephen Ritz @StephenRitz is with us today, a finalist from the 2015 Global Teacher Prize, and just a very excited amazing person who really has a green classroom. So, Stephen, describe for us what you’ve done in your classroom.

Stephan: Well, in the poorest Congressional district in the America in the least healthy county of all of New York state, in the largest stretch of public housing, in a 100+ year old building, we are growing food! And I mean tons of it. Fifty thousand pounds of vegetables! And fifty thousand pounds of vegetables later, my favorite crop is organically grown citizens. Grant you, it’s members of the middle class, it’s kids who are going to college.

But I took the money from the Global Teacher Prize and created this National Health Wellness and Learning Center, which is a state of the art facility, four stories up in a walk-up building, mind you, where we grow food, we cook, we have integrated science labs.

Stephen Ritz and his students are gardening and growing food for their school and neighborhood.

It is net positive on food and energy. We have bicycle-powered blenders. We have a Green Bronx Machine mobile classroom kitchen. We have solar generators, bicycle blenders, bicycle-powered kitchens, a TV studio. And it’s all low-cost, replicable, and of course, there are our incredible tower gardens where we are growing food in a food-insecure community using 90% less water, 90% less space, and sending home 100 bags of groceries per week. Aligns to content area, instruction, and Common Core Next Generation Science Standards.

What can any teacher do to add sustainable practices to their school?

Vicki: Wow! Now you have a book called The Power of a Plant which is going to help our teachers who are completely overwhelmed and have their jaw on the floor be able to do this, because is there something that an average everyday teacher can do, because it seems like so much!

Stephan: Well, nobody can do everything, but everyone can do something. That is the mantra and the premise behind my book, The Power of a Plant: A Teacher’s Odyssey to Grow Healthy Minds and Schools.

I literally realized six years ago I was over 300 pounds myself, so The Power of a Plant really talks about so many things, but getting specifically to the book – the book will make you laugh, the book will make you cry. Realize I started teaching in 1984 when New York City, the South Bronx was in shambles and burnt to a crisp. So it highlights my odyssey, if you will, across pedagogy, across scaling, across dealing with administration, about dealing with your own personal tragedies and conflicts and challenges within the teaching profession. So it’s 100% inspiration, 100% perspiration, but it is a blueprint.

It also has a growing guide, all kinds of suggested tools. It has letters from students, letters from teachers, 45 luminaries have blurbed the book. Really, it’s designed for one thing – to help you make epic happen in your personal life, in your professional life, and in every single community you serve.

So. as we like to say in the South Bronx, “Si, se puede!” or “Yes, we can!” If I can, you can. That’s the purpose of this book, The Power of a Plant. In fact, it comes with a double-your-money-back guarantee. If you buy the book and don’t like it, I’ll buy it back for twice the price. All the proceeds are being donated to public education, so this is an opportunity for all of us to pay it forward and celebrate the profession that we all know and love.

What is a day in the life of a student at Stephen’s school like?

Vicki: Love it! OK, Stephen, could you take me through what a day of students that you work with, what they’ll do in a day with you?

Aeroponic methods help students grow plants indoors. Units are taught and integrated with the plants that grow alongside student’s growing minds.

Stephan: So, we believe – that’s a great question – we believe that the art and science of growing vegetables aligned to content area instruction grows healthy students, healthy schools, and high-performing resilient communities.

So, in the course of a day, you will come into this lab, where it’s 25 periods of weekly classroom instruction. Before school, lunchtime, after school and weekend programming. And you will get thematic science programming, aligned to Next Generation Science Standards. We do all the ratio, proportions, statistics and measuring aligned to seed propagation, so we touch on math. We touch on literacy, making prediction, doing measurements, if-then conditional statements, the whole art of ordinal direction, of prediction. Then we do a whole lot of science, we do a whole lot of cooking. Then this classroom is aligned to 25 periods of in class content area instruction.

So we believe that the art and science of growing vegetables and taking a garden and putting it at the heart of school, in a classroom, indoors, is not a band-aid so to speak but is a whole school solution. We are not an add on. We are a whole school program that really teaches children in food-insecure communities how to grow food, get the parents involved, brings parents in and aligns it.

Believe it or not, next week we are meeting with the State University of New York to create K-20 programming! Because the one thing about food and plants is that without all of it, we’d all be naked and hungry, and that’s not a thought that looks good on radio or sounds good either.

How do you have time to garden and teach school?

Vicki: (laughs) OK. So I’m a farmer’s daughter. I grew up on a farm. I’m trying to figure out when do the kids work in the garden? Growing plants is actually very hard work, as you know.

Stephan: Well, we have an indoor garden and an outdoor garden. So the outdoor garden is done after school, and not that I am anti-soil, I’m actually pro-soil and pro-garden-time but I’m actually very pro-instructional-time.

During the school day, our plants, our garden is indoors using aeroponic systems known as a tower garden, where the plants are literally growing themselves. The only thing that’s not happening is that they don’t take care of themselves, so the children take care of them, but no school uniforms are ruined, I have reading plant programs, I have leaf monitors, I have Ph patrols, you name it. Kids taking care of plants can document, collecting data, aggregating data, they’re talking about it, discussing it.

And we grew tremendous volumes of food, so deciding what we’re going to do with that food, what we’re going to do with the profits that we sell. Those are the kinds of collegial and professional conversations that really dictate a productive and proactive healthy school culture and climate.

And, it’s being evidenced in our test scores, our school report card, our teacher retention, our teacher satisfaction, our ability to attract new young dynamic teachers who LOVE coming to school in this state of the art facility.

And that’s what we do, so kids are in here literally from about 7:00 in the morning — another set will be coming in here soon – until 7:00 at night. We have about anywhere on any given day, 50-100 kids showing up after school in one of the most productive soil gardens in all of New York City — in the heart of a housing project, I might add – and we do cooking programs, TV shows.

We have our Green Bronx Machine (mobile kitchen) which is a state of the art food truck on wheels for a fraction of the cost which goes classroom to classroom. So it’s not only teaching kids to HAVE food, it’s teaching them what to do with it, giving parents access to it, giving grandparents access to it, and flooding our community with a whole new set of options aligned to help, wellness, and 21st Century college and career readiness.

Stephen’s 30-second Pep Talk for Every Teacher

Vicki: You’ve given us so much. It’s so very exciting. Could you give us a 30-second pep talk to every teacher out there listening about what they can do today?

Stephan: The secret sauce to all of my success is three things – passion, purpose and hope. And I believe that passion, purpose and hope will get you close. And sometimes you just need to take that endless leap of faith to get to the finish line. But teachers, don’t be afraid to fail. If anyone has perfected failing in life, it is me. But I have some hard buttocks, I bounce up quickly, and I keep falling up the ladder of success, saying “Please,” and “Thank you, and “Have a nice day,” and “How can we work to make things better?” And that’s what this is all about, growing the next generation of healthy students, healthy teachers, healthy schools, and healthy communities.

Vicki: Well, teachers. What we’ve heard is truly remarkable. Please go to the Shownotes. We’re giving away a book, The Power of a Plant. I’ve known Stephen for quite some time, and he always amazes me with how much he’s doing and how much we all need to be doing to be going green in our schools.

Full Bio As Submitted

Stephen Ritz

Stephen Ritz, Founder of Green Bronx Machine, Top Ten Global Teacher Prize Finalist, one of NPR’s 50 Greatest Teachers and BAMMY Laureate – Elementary Educator of the Year is a South Bronx educator who believes that children should not have to leave their neighborhood to live, learn and earn in a better one.

Stephen and his students have grown more than 50,000 pounds of vegetables, indoors, farming their way to the White House and back, using 90% less water and space, en route to outstanding personal and school performance which is highlighted in his new book via Rodale: The Power of A Plant with co-author Suzie Boss. To learn more about Stephen’s revolutionary program, see this powerful new two-minute video via Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

    Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.)

The post This Amazing South Bronx School Grows 50,000 Pounds of Vegetables a Year appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

from Cool Cat Teacher BlogCool Cat Teacher Blog http://www.coolcatteacher.com/e131/