Literature

“A grounding in the arts will help our children to see; to bring a uniquely human perspective to science and technology. In short, it will help them as they grow smarter to also grow wiser.” - Robert E. Allen – Chairman and CEO, AT&T Corporation

Music is a language of its own. The language of music and the technicalities of music composition may seem daunting and scary to teachers without much of a music background. Understanding, reading, appreciating, and writing music are skills that take years of training and practice to hone. The Gateway to 21st Century Skills has a variety of unique ideas to help you integrate music into your teaching in the context of different subjects and themes.

The past six months has seen a renaissance of superheroes, particularly in feature films such as The Green Lantern, Captain America, and Thor.  The final installment of the Harry Potter movies, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, however, does not feature a superhero, but instead a hero in the classic sense – one who completes his quest and hence concludes his archetypal heroic journey. In completing his quest, Harry joins the pantheon of archetypal heroes such as Gilgamesh, Odysseus, Huckleberry Finn, Luke Skywalker, and many others.

It’s been nearly 14 years since the publication of the first Harry Potter book. The first generation of Potter fans has now likely completed college, having grown up alongside the books’ protagonists that they’ve grown to love. Although sales of the Harry Potter series have slowed since the publication of the final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, in 2007, a new crop of readers continue to discover the series each year. According to Scholastic, the American publisher of the Harry Potter series, there are currently 143 million copies of Potter books in print in the U.S., and 400 million copies worldwide.

A few weeks ago, my third grader stopped in her tracks, flung her arms far apart, and breathed deeply. Nonplussed, I stopped and asked her what she was doing.

“Remembering the way summer smells,” she said.

I sniffed the air tentatively, but all I could really smell was car exhaust. We were in the middle of a plaza parking lot, after all.

I had forgotten this little scenario until this morning, when we awakened to temperatures in the 40s. As we waited for the school bus, my daughter raised her chin into the wind and announced that it now smelled like fall. “But I still remember how summer smells,” she said.

According to a recent CDC survey, one in five U.S. high school students say that they have taken prescription drugs without a doctor’s prescription. The survey also found that 72% of high schoolers had used alcohol in the past year, while 37% had used marijuana. Clearly, drugs and alcohol continue to be attractive to teens, despite various drug education programs and public service announcements to alert them to the dangers of such behavior.

Once upon a time, there was a fabulous storyteller – which, alas, is not me. My grandmother, however, was a superb storyteller; her ability to keep scores of cousins engrossed in her tales was legendary. Her gift of timing, as well as her ability to use different accents and intonations kept us all enthralled. The oral tradition of storytelling is ancient; Homer’s numerous repetitions of the “wine-dark sea” in The Iliad and The Odyssey, for example, illustrate how the stories were memorized and passed down over the years until they were finally transcribed into print. Storytelling in the oral tradition is both a craft and an art, and something that deserves a resurgence in popularity.

According to The Farmer’s Almanac, Native Americans named January the month of the Full Wolf Moon. Historically, it was a time of increased prowling by wolf packs, looking for food as the winter deepened. Most students are fascinated by wolves. Wolves are big, hairy, and find humans to be tasty (at least in fairy tales). They’re also mysterious creatures that offer plenty of fodder for lessons in a host of subjects.

Lon Po Po, by Ed Young
http://www.thegateway.org/browse/25012
Subjects: Literature, Chinese culture and Inventions
Grade: K-3