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I love those little kernels of history that can be found everywhere if you are only looking. Cheryl Harness is an author that is always looking, and she shares some great stories with her writing. Cheryl Harness provides proof that there is nothing boring about history! |
English/Language Arts
Explore leads - talking directly to the reader (conversational style)
Social Studies
Explore World Geography
Research Skills
Explore Keyword searching
Explore leads - talking directly to the reader (conversational style)
- Author Harness uses a conversational style of writing with this Minute, speaking directly to her audience as though she were sitting across the kitchen table. Have your students take one of their own pieces and attempt a re-write using this technique. Does it work? Why or why not?
- Author Harness uses features like bold print and all capital letters to highlight what’s important in a text. Use this article to have that discussion with your students.
Social Studies
Explore World Geography
- This is a great Minute to use for honing mapping skills. Give students outline maps of Europe and have them fill in the Western Front as described in the Minute.
- WWI - Use this minute to look at the events surround the "Great War". How was this war different than those that came before? Why did this not become the "war to end all wars"?
- US Presidents - Author Harness mentions three presidents in this Minute. Have students look at some of the facts surrounding these presidents. How did these presidents influence the history of US wars?
Research Skills
Explore Keyword searching
- Play with keywords to see what kind of results you get when you try to learn about animals in wars. What do you have to add to get more specific results? What can you take away to broaden your search? This is a good topic to have students explore the possibilities of tweaking keywords to broaden or narrow search results on the free web
- Author Harness uses lots of subject specific vocabulary in this article (and highlights it with capital letters and bold print). Have students explore the Google hack Define ____ to learn this new vocabulary
- Museums are great places to visit for viewing and exploring both primary and secondary sources. Museum websites provide some trustworthy information for all who explore. The author mentions the Smithsonian Museum of American History at the end of her article. Have students explore the Smithsonian Museum site. Have them do a site search for Stubby and explore some of the results. Have students compare their searching on this museum site to their searching on Google. Which gets them more good information quickly?
© Karen Sterling, 2017 - May be used for educational purposes without written permission
