The King's Butt
Sarah Albee

Here she goes again!  Sarah Albee just likes to tell us about the grossest stuff.  And we can’t wait to read about it.  If your students are loving this, make sure they check out Sarah’s other books, like Bugged: How Insects Changed History, or better yet, Poop Happened: A History of the World from the Bottom Up.

Social Studies
Explore the use of timelines

• When science and history overlap, it’s always fun to draw some timelines to see what’s what.  Would this advancement in surgery and physician status have happened if a royal wasn’t involved?  Have your students take a look at the connection between royal problems and their solutions
• Use this as an anticipatory set for learning out European history in the 17th century

STEM
Explore modern medicine and surgery

• The author gives us some good information on how the King’s butt problems may have advanced modern medicine.  See if your students can find some other medical milestones!

Explore the technology behind medical and surgical tools

• Scalpels and retractors - how did they make them then and how would you make one now?  Think there might be some engineering involved?  Get your students investigating!

FCS/Nutrition
Explore the connection between good nutrition and good health

• Use this one as a cautionary tale!  A great anticipatory set.

​Research Skills
Practice questioning skills

• There are so many possibilities for questioning here.  Have students brainstorm questions - it can be anything from anal fistulas to King Louis furniture style!  

Practice search skills

• Once you have a good list of questions, head to the computers and have students look for good sites to answer those questions.  You can use this for practicing with subscription databases, or practicing evaluation skills on free web sites.  Ask students, what makes this a good site to answer your question?  Why?
• Have students use the library catalog to amass a list of good print and online resources to answer their questions

© Karen Sterling, 2017 - May be used for educational purposes without written permission