Traveling Back in Time

guest post by Deborah Kalb

What would it be like to travel back in time and meet the early presidents and their families? That’s what the fifth graders in George Washington & the Magic Hat and its sequel, John Adams & the Magic Bobblehead, get to do.

Sam and Ava are regular 21^st century kids, living across the street from each other in Bethesda, Maryland, dealing with issues a lot of kids face. Sam and his former best friend, Andrew, aren’t speaking to each other any more. Ava, in a newly blended family, can’t stand her stepbrother, J.P.

And then, thanks to a crotchety hat, in Sam’s case, and a talking bobblehead, in Ava’s, they are transported into a completely different time.

Students can focus on the historical figures--George Washington, John and Abigail Adams, and more. What do they know about the Founding Fathers and Mothers? Is there one that they’re particularly interested in and why? What do they think these historical figures would make of today’s world if the time travel were reversed?

And then there are the contemporary issues. How do the students identify with Sam? With Ava? How do the students try to resolve the issues that bother them?

If they had a magic hat or a magic bobblehead, which time period would they like to visit, and why? Is there a particular person they’d like to get to know? 

Any of these questions can prompt a discussion or writing assignment that will get students thinking about history or today’s issues or a combination of both.

Here are links to George Washington’s home, Mount Vernon, in Northern Virginia, and to the Adams National Historic Park in Quincy, Massachusetts.

   

Deborah Kalb is a freelance writer and editor. She spent two decades working as a journalist in Washington, D.C., for news organizations including Gannett News Service, Congressional Quarterly, U.S. News & World Report, and The Hill, mostly covering Congress and politics. Her book blog, Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb, which she started in 2012, features hundreds of interviews she has conducted with a wide variety of authors. She is the author of the new children’s book The President and Me: John Adams and the Magic Bobblehead (Schiffer, 2018), the second in a series — after The President and Me: George Washington and the Magic Hat (Schiffer, 2016) Visit http://www.deborahkalb.com/

Bring Me Your Tired, Your Poor…

by Karen Leggett Abouraya

For generations, American schoolchildren have learned that the United States is a nation of immigrants - melting pot, tossed salad, destination for the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free” welcomed by the Statue of Liberty.

The issue of immigration is now fraught with controversy and polarizing politics, but it remains a worthy subject to challenge student thinking and writing. In fact, the American Immigration Council is sponsoring its 19th annual Celebrate America 5th Grade Creative Writing Contest. Students are asked to write 500 words on “Why I am glad America is a nation of immigrants.” Essays are due February 29, 2016.  In Maryland, D.C. and Virginia, contest questions may be directed to essaycontestATsilversimmigration.com. 

The Friends of the Library in Montgomery County, MD, also sponsors an essay contest on“Celebrating Diversity” with a January 29 deadline.  This contest invites middle school students to submit an essay, short story or poem that is an expression of their culture. It is appropriately called “Mosaic.” With or without a contest, these writing prompts about immigration and culture can be adapted to any grade level.

Use the contest guidelines directly or simply ask students to find out when they or their families came to the United States and why.

Some families came willingly, some not and some were here long before immigration became a fact of American life.  The question should prompt discussion at home and interesting stories or essays at school. If the question is too sensitive for some children to discuss publicly, they could talk to a neighbor or a school staff member instead.

There is a variety of books to inform the discussion and stimulate writing.  The Institute for Humane Education lists 14 picture and chapter books about refugee children from Vietnam and Cambodia, Somalia, Mali, Pakistan and more.  For older students, Kem Knapp Sawyer has just published Grace Akallo and the Pursuit of Justice for Child Soldiers. Akallo escaped the brutal Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda and is now raising her family in Massachusetts while she advocates for peace and justice. Sawyer’s message in the book, as she explains in an interview with Deborah Kalb, is that Grace Akallo – after a tragic and frightening childhood - became an American immigrant with a “remarkable vision, who believes she was given a purpose in life, not to mourn for herself but to help others who have suffered as she has.”

Last year, fifth grader Anya Frazier of Raleigh, NC, included these thoughts in the poem that won the American Immigration Council contest:

On each ship,

A flicker of hope,

A flash blinding my endless waters,

But then it’s gone.

Like a burnt out fire,

Trying to reignite.

But as they catch sight of the golden land,

That fire begins to glow.

It spreads out wide like a seed to soil,

Its timid shoots poking out of the ground.

Promise.

http://childrensbookguild.org/karen-leggett-abouraya