Yellow Fever 1793 – Mrs. Love's Blog-0-Rama!

deep diving — Underwater Cave Diving by Viktor Lyagushkin www.flowcheck.es

Today I was observed for the last 40 minutes of my last class of the day on the first day back from winter break, and that was perfectly fine. I trust my evaluator completely and know that the feedback I receive will be informed and valuable. In our time -constrained worlds, though, I am not sure I’ll have the opportunity to tell her all the things leading up to the moment where she came in.

So here is where I get to reflect–this space is a good thinking space.

Today I began a unit I created from scratch. I use the steel-cased, reinforced, V-8 engine with multiple air bags of UBD, or Understanding By Design. It’s adaptive, flexible, and meaty. For my vegan friends: packed with protein.

Since I’m Humanities this year, and love cross-content, real-world connections, this past summer, before news of Zika broke out, I thought I would do a yellow fever unit, and how diseases impact history. My Enduing Understanding is: “Disease shapes the course of history, and often societies’ responses to health/disease are culturally based.” One of the essential questions is: How did our new nation handle health/disease?

And I’m using a classroom set, with an in-class reading of Yellow Fever: 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson. I could only get my hands on 30 copies, so I told the students a few things:

1. We only have 30 copies; I can’t get more (a book angel gave me her 12 books from her classroom library, so now I have a few extras: bless you, book angel!)

2. We will work on stamina: stamina is the ability to focus on text during a time. The reason we work on stamina is mental training, just like we’re training for a sport. It’s endurance. It’s getting in the zone and not wanting to stop reading.

3. I told them my insights about students who say “I HATE READING.”

*They hate reading because they kept reading logs

*They hate reading because they don’t have choice

*They hate reading because someone shamed them when it was difficult

*They may struggle and not know why

But this is what got them: I told them no baby is born hating to read. Every baby loves to communicate, to look at their parents’ faces, to babble and blurb, and every baby loves stories.

They became believers. But they also don’t know how much I have to fight this current trend of just reading passages. Robert Zaretsky, who teaches at the University of Houston, wrote this article, “Taught to pass tests, they don’t know how to read books” concerning how college students are ill prepared to read and discuss novels.

Today, we are reaping the results of this strategy. Among its many catastrophic consequences has been its impact on student literacy. Like a koan riddle, we might soon be asking if a textbook war can take place if no one knows how to read. The decline of reading among American youth is reflected by a growing raft of books with titles like “Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It,” “Why Kids Can’t Read” and “I Read It, But I Don’t Get It.” These books, written by teachers, confirm what my conversations with my brother-in-law, a bright and dedicated Houston-based high school English teacher, long ago revealed: Forced to teach to the test, he can no longer encourage students to reach for the texts as sources of wisdom and wonder.

I am trying not to let that happen on my watch.

Close reading has an important place in instruction, there is no doubt, because…it’s not new. It’s as old as stories themselves. So I created a quote log that serves a few purposes: it provides 3 lenses to consider:

1. The author puts a quote at the beginning of every chapter: why? How is it significant to the chapter once read?

2. Talk about character/plot events: how are the characters responding to the events?

3. Look through the medical/health lens; was there anything in this chapter that related to health?

They will not be doing this alone. We will read independently, and burst forth with conversation. We will learn everything we can about the medical practices of the time, and how science and superstition can devastate or be our savior.

And they will read the entire book.

A few kids are hooked after the first chapter: who can’t relate to a pouty teenage girl who’s annoyed her nagging mother is waking her up to do chores? This response is universal.

One thing Zaretsky may want to try is what I did– remind his college students they love stories. And if he wants them to read stories worth telling, which he does, they will.

#thethingsidoforlove

Yes, a Thursday night in August, not many days until I start back, though I haven’t really stopped. One week of a writing workshop class, and in the middle of two weeks of a Common Core ELA/SS exploration course, both at University of Washington through PSWP. This involves waking up at 5AM, meeting two colleagues in our work parking lot by 7AM, and spending many hours in a stuffy, fluorescent-lit room–but wouldn’t trade it for anything. Well, okay maybe a sandy beach and swimming-pool sized adult beverages, but other than that…meeting new colleagues and refining work and pedagogical know-how–pretty cool stuff.

So in an effort to refocus my energies to 7th grade US History, I am thinking about the role of disease in our history. When asked what things affect the course of events, most folks would answer war, religion, change of power, etc. To me, disease may not be a direct conflict, but it is a formidable catalyst. Our own nation’s relationship with disease and health/medical access, treatment, and prevention is essential to analyze and seek to understand.

Some essential questions may include:

What role does disease play in how America grew as a nation? What effects or consequences had a larger impact?

What is the role of medicine and health care in American’s growth as a nation? Who has access to medical treatment, and how does that create differences or similarities among its people?

Who takes care of the sick and dying? What misconceptions about health do continued harm? Are we past those misconceptions today with healthcare?

If you think of something that piques your interest, my esteemed colleagues, please comment.

Historical Fiction:

An epidemic of fever sweeps through the streets of 1793 Philadelphia in this novel from Laurie Halse Anderson where “the plot rages like the epidemic itself” (The New York Times Book Review).

During the summer of 1793, Mattie Cook lives above the family coffee shop with her widowed mother and grandfather. Mattie spends her days avoiding chores and making plans to turn the family business into the finest Philadelphia has ever seen. But then the fever breaks out.

Disease sweeps the streets, destroying everything in its path and turning Mattie’s world upside down. At her feverish mother’s insistence, Mattie flees the city with her grandfather. But she soon discovers that the sickness is everywhere, and Mattie must learn quickly how to survive in a city turned frantic with disease.

Non-Fictional Media and Texts:

1793, Philadelphia. The nation’s capital and the largest city in North America is devastated by an apparently incurable disease, cause unknown . . .

In a powerful, dramatic narrative, critically acclaimed author Jim Murphy describes the illness known as yellow fever and the toll it took on the city’s residents, relating the epidemic to the major social and political events of the day and to 18th-century medical beliefs and practices. Drawing on first-hand accounts, Murphy spotlights the heroic role of Philadelphia’s free blacks in combating the disease, and the Constitutional crisis that President Washington faced when he was forced to leave the city–and all his papers–while escaping the deadly contagion. The search for the fever’s causes and cure, not found for more than a century afterward, provides a suspenseful counterpoint to this riveting true story of a city under siege.

An American Plague‘s numerous awards include a Sibert Medal, a Newbery Honor, and designation as a National Book Award Finalist. Thoroughly researched, generously illustrated with fascinating archival prints, and unflinching in its discussion of medical details, this book offers a glimpse into the conditions of American cities at the time of our nation’s birth while drawing timely parallels to modern-day epidemics. Bibliography, map, index.

1793: Yellow Fever Breaks Out in Philadelphia–History Channel

Fever 1793 Philadelphia: The Great Experiment

Could Yellow Fever Return to the United States? from the Public Library of Science

Now, which to read first, the non-fiction or historical fiction? Of course this brings up other major epidemics we have feared, faced, or flee from: small pox, polio, ebola–and the questions about the ‘anti vaccers’ in our nation’s dialogue – what would they have thought if they lived in Philadelphia in 1793? How does historical presence affect one’s opinion?

Also: Add Outbreak! by Bryn Barnard — Yellow Fever changed the shape of slavery–more to follow.

Immersive Gaming: http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/08/07/can-an-immersive-video-game-teach-the-nuances-of-american-history/

Tag: Yellow Fever 1793

Deep down.

Media Festival: Yellow Fever.