How to use this Page

Emerson students have been so excited to share their projects on amazing women. I just love the way they're celebrating women who inspire them. Over the next week, I'd like to share several projects.

-- click through to watch it.

Mykeia created a Google Presentation about Fantasia Bronno, an amazing winner of American Idol.

One of the things I've loved about this project is how excited the kids are to find out about these women and share their information in new and interesting ways. Because it isn't a required project, it's more fun to do! And, they've learned great presentation skills, while having fun.

If you see any projects that you like, it would mean a whole lot to our Emerson students if you left a quick note. Thanks so much learning about these great women --

©2014 Mary Ann Scheuer, Great Kid Books

Add a Comment

Do you remember when you were a little kid and looked into the cockpit of an airplane? Wowwwww... all those controls and buttons and dials. I love sharing the story of early women pilots, and one of my favorites is Sky High: The True Story of Maggie Gee. Pair this with a great video interview of Maggie, which I'll include below.

Sky High:
The True Story of Maggie Gee
by Marissa Moss
illustrated by Carl Angel
Tricycle Press, 2009
Amazon
your local library
ages 6 - 10

As a young girl, Maggie Gee longed to fly, but it wasn’t until World War II broke out that she was able to achieve this dream. One of only two Chinese-American women to join the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), Maggie’s passion for flying shines through in this biography of a true local hero. Gee went to UC Berkeley and was a longtime resident of Berkeley after her days in the WASP.

Maggie Gee WASP 44-W-9

Young kids often ask me, "Is this real? Is she still alive?" They're trying to put history into context. Maggie Gee lived in Berkeley for many years, passing away in February 2013. Here is a wonderful interview to share with students:

Older students might want to use this as a launching pad for talking with neighbors, family members and friends about their experiences when they were younger. I found this article about Maggie Gee in Bay Area Insider also very interesting.

The review copy came from our school library. If you make a purchase using the Amazon links on this site, a small portion goes to Great Kid Books (at no cost to you!). Thank you for your support.

©2014 Mary Ann Scheuer, Great Kid Books

Add a Comment

Do we help our girls by sharing stories of women who broke through barriers, daring the world to accept them as they wanted to be seen? I definitely think we do. Who knows what our girls will want to do as they explore their passions and confront others' expectations. Tanya Lee Stone's upbeat portrait of Elizabeth Blackwell is a delight to share with young girls.
Girls will like the way Tanya Lee Stone talks directly to them right from the beginning:
"I bet you've met plenty of doctors in your life. And I'll bet lots of them were women. Well, you might find this hard to believe, but there was once a time when girls weren't allowed to become doctors." Young readers will be drawn in by Stone's challenge: Who do you think changed all that?

Elizabeth Blackwell loved exploring new things, taking on challenges and doing the best she could. Don't you just love Marjorie Priceman's illustrations? As The Horn Book writes, they lend a perfect framework of energy and pacing to the text."
Even though she was rejected from 28 medical schools, Elizabeth kept pursuing her dream. Read this aloud with 1st through 4th graders, talking about what qualities helped Elizabeth persevere. See where you can see her courage, sense of self, and determination.

For more resources, definitely check out The Classroom Bookshelf, a blog created by four terrific professors of education and literacy. Their posts include a wealth of ideas for using books as a springboard for discussions and projects. They also always include many links to pursue for further information. Here are some gems they share about Elizabeth Blackwell:

• NIH: Changing the Face of American Medicine: Elizabeth Blackwell
• National Women’s History Museum: Elizabeth Blackwell
• Times Topics, Elizabeth Blackwell, The New York Times
• The Elizabeth Blackwell Society, New York City

Illustration copyright © 2013 by Marjorie Priceman, Who Says Women Can’t Be Doctors?, written by Tanya Lee Stone. Published by Christy Ottaviano Books/Henry Holt, an imprint of Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group. The review copy came from our school library. If you make a purchase using the Amazon links on this site, a small portion goes to Great Kid Books (at no cost to you!). Thank you for your support.

©2014 Mary Ann Scheuer, Great Kid Books

Add a Comment

Pure Grit:
How American World War II 
Nurses Survived Battle and 
Prison Camp in the Pacific
by Mary Cronk Farrell
Middle School, High School    Abrams    160 pp.
2/14    978-1-4197-1028-5    $24.95

There are many books written about young people enlisting in the military, being unprepared for the horrors of battle or tortures of capture, serving bravely, and coming home. But women? In direct fire? In POW camps? During World War II? Not so many, a void Farrell admirably fills with this account of the more than one hundred army and navy nurses who served in the Philippines during the bombing and evacuation of Manila, the Battle of Bataan, and the evacuation and surrender of Corregidor. During every battle and every retreat, and even within the walls of the POW camps (where many were incarcerated from 1942 to 1945), these nurses cared for the injured under the most primitive of conditions. Using information taken mainly from historical interviews and modern correspondence with the subjects’ relatives, Farrell directly confronts the horrors of war and the years of inhumane treatment in the POW camps. These women — malnourished, ill with diseases such as malaria, dysentery, and beriberi —
 established multiple hospital sites and often shouldered doctors’ medical duties. Many returned home with disabilities and lifelong medical problems; though many suffered from PTSD, no mental health services were available to them. The book design is double-columned utilitarianism; archival photographs vary in effectiveness: many are posed group shots while others are (understandably) grainy, offering context over clarity. The account concludes with a timeline, glossary, list of nurses, documentation, bibliography, suggested websites, and an index.

The post Review of Pure Grit appeared first on The Horn Book.

Add a Comment

Me, Frida
by Amy Novesky
illustrated by David Diaz
Abrams, 2010
Amazon
your local library
ages 6-10

This lush picture book focuses on Frida Kahlo’s trip to San Francisco with her new husband, Diego Rivera. Frida felt so far away from home in our cool, gray city, but as she started exploring the city on her own and began painting she began to find a place for herself. The spread below shows Frida after she found her voice, painting "something great: a colorful wedding portrait of herself and Diego. She painted Diego big, and she painted herself small, just as the world saw them."
Glowing with vibrant, jewel-tone colors, this book will inspire young readers to learn more about this glorious artist. David Diaz's work is truly stunning. Head over to Amy Novesky's website to see more.

For older students, I would direct them to both the PBS website for the film The Life and Times of Frida Kahlo and the SFMOMA website from their exhibition on Frida Kahlo. In the SFMOMA site, check out the interesting multimedia resources for interactive features that kids (ages 9-12) will find interesting.

SFMOMA website's interactive feature on Frida Kahlo

Illustrations copyright 2010, David Diaz, shared with permission of the publishers. The review copy came from our school library. If you make a purchase using the Amazon links on this site, a small portion goes to Great Kid Books (at no cost to you!). Thank you for your support.

©2014 Mary Ann Scheuer, Great Kid Books

Add a Comment

Sojourner Truth, from nps.gov

I know in my heart that we can bore our kids with history or we can engage them, show them them that it matters, that it's wrought with conflict -- and we're still wrestling with many of these same conflicts today.

Kerry Washington combines the swagger of today's girls with Sojourner Truth's strong declarations. I like the way this video clip splices together parts of Truth's speech with Washington's reflections on why it's important to learn about history.

Alfre Woodward reads from Sojourner Truth's speech Ain't I a Woman

This video clip has much more of Sojourner Truth's speech, It would be very interesting to have kids watch both of these videos and talk about what each actress brings to their performance.

What questions does Truth ask that we could still ask today? What issues are we still wrestling with?

I would follow up this with reading aloud Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice (read my full review here) -- one of my all-time-favorite nonfiction books.

Both of these videos came from Anthony Arnove, co-editor, along with Howard Zinn, of Voices of a People's History of the United States. See more at Arnove's You Tube channel.

©2014 Mary Ann Scheuer, Great Kid Books

Add a Comment

 Mae West spoke those provocative lines in the movie I'm No Angel, and women have been identifying with it ever since. But women were bad a lot further back than that 1933 movie. Find twenty-six of the world's most notorious females in Bad Girls: Sirens, Jezebels, Murderesses, Thieves, & Other Female Villains by Jane Yolen and Heidi E. Y. Stemple, with illustrations by Rebecca Guay.

Modern Times and Changing Gender Roles

If Salome dropped her veils today, would we call her bad? Or would we arrest her parents for a variety of crimes against a child? If Mata Hari made up a whole new self tomorrow and danced her way into a criminal lifestyle, would we execute her or send her to counseling for post-traumatic stress disorder? Would we encourage Lizzie Borden to move into her own apartment, Bloody Mary to establish an ecumenical council, and Typhoid Mary to take some nursing courses at a community college? Would we still consider these women bad? Or would we consider them victims of bad circumstances? As our world changes, so does our definition of bad. Especially when it comes to half the world's population--the half that happens to be female.

With women's relatively new rights--to speak out, to vote, to have power over their own bodies--comes a new set of responsibilities. Women are no longer required to do a man's bidding--no matter whether that bidding is legal or not. But no longer can a woman say that she was just followign a man and count that as justification for bad acts.

We measure guilt and innocence today on a sliding scale. And never has it been easier for the general public to "weigh" the misdeeds of its favorite modern-day bad girls. The nightly news, tabloids, blogs, and the fast pace of the Internet all make sure of this. Today, as throughout history, the court of public opinion is capable of swaying or tempering the criminal courts.

Now that you have been introduced to some of history's bad girls, you will have to decide for yourself if they were really bad, not so bad, or somewhere in the middle. And perhaps you will see that even the baddest of bad girls may have had a good reason for what she did.

from the Conclusion of Bad Girls

March is Women's History Month!

Add a Comment

What's it like to hold on to a dream? Can a role model truly encourage a young child, or is that just what parents and teachers tell themselves? There are times that sharing a story helps me keep faith, just as much as reading an inspiring biography. A Dance Like Starlight is a book that filled me with hope and warmth, as I read about one little ballerina's dream.

A Dance Like Starlight
One Ballerina's Dream
by Kristy Dempsey
illustrations by Floyd Cooper
Philomel/Penguin, 2014
Amazon
your local library
*best new book*
ages 4-9

A young African American girl longs to dance with the ballet school, but her mama says "wishing on stars is a waste anyhow." Hope is the key, mama says, but "hoping is hard work." Her mama certainly knows hard work, taking in laundry at night, and working every day sewing and cleaning costumes for the ballet school.

Mama says hoping is hard work.

When the Ballet Master sees her dancing in the wings, he notices her talent and dreams and invites her to join lessons each day "even though I can't perform onstage with white girls." Demspey and Cooper build up the story slowly and softly, helping readers understand the setting in 1950s New York, the discrimination at play.

When Mama takes her daughter to see Miss Janet Collins, the first African American prima ballerina to dance with the Metropolitan Opera House Ballet, the little girl's heart soars, "dancing, opening wide with the swell of the music."

It's like Miss Collins is dancing for me, only for me showing me who I can be

This story reminds me of the power of role models, the way they can inspire us to reach out for our dreams and persevere through hard times. Floyd Cooper's artwork is uplifting and dreamy, with soft grainy textures. Did you know he creates all his artwork by first painting layers, and then erasing them slowly to reveal the shapes?

Share more information about Janet Collins with your children. I loved reading about her in the New York Public Library article and this New York Times article, both celebrating the life of Janet Collins.

Thanks very much to Deborah Ford's and Junior Library Guild's Booktalks to Go LiveBinder. If you're looking for more books to read with kids and information to make that reading experience richer, I highly recommend this site.

All illustrations are copyright ©Floyd Cooper, 2014, shared with permission of the publisher, Penguin Books for Young Readers. The review copy came from our school library collection. If you make a purchase using the Amazon links on this site, a small portion goes to Great Kid Books (at no cost to you!). Thank you for your support.

©2014 Mary Ann Scheuer, Great Kid Books

Add a Comment

I read ten or more books each week. They feed my soul. But they also start swimming around in my mind like minnows in a stream. So how do I keep track of the books I've read, remember those I've liked and recommend books to friends? I have used Goodreads for over five years, and I love it.

Here's my shelf on books to recommend for Women's History Month, with just five of the books I've recently added. Click through to Goodreads to see more!

When I'm doing a blogging challenge or planning a teaching unit, Goodreads helps me remember books I've read -- kind of like browsing the physical shelves in my library. How do you keep track of the books you've read and those you want to read? Do you like keeping this list to yourself, or do you like sharing it with friends?

©2014 Mary Ann Scheuer, Great Kid Books

Add a Comment

By Katie Day

I am one of the last professional women I know to read Lean In by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg (Knopf, 2013). If you are also among the laggards, it is an inspiring call to women to lean into leadership. Too often, Sandberg shows through research and life story, women are not considered “leadership material,” and not just by men. We also send that message to ourselves, and attribute any success to external factors such as luck and the support of others. We just don’t think we have the right stuff to be leaders.

Too bad Sheryl Sandberg has not been to Germantown Avenue in Philadelphia. After studying the communities of faith along that one street—around 88 congregations, the number fluctuating year to year—I found one thing that stumped me. There are a whole lot more women in leadership in these houses of worship than in any national sample of clergy. The most generous research findings reflect 10-20% of congregations to be headed by women in the United States today. In my sample, 44% of communities of faith have female leadership. This phenomenon is true across the religious spectrum. “Prestigious pulpits” in the historic Mainline Protestant churches are disproportionately occupied by women. But so were the pulpits in small independent African-American churches. Two of the three mega-churches had women as co-pastors. In the third, the associate pastor is a woman and considered the heir-apparent for the senior position. Two of the three peace churches had women leaders. There are no longer Catholic churches on the Avenue (which don’t have women priests), and the two mosques I researched were led exclusively by men. But the small Black spiritualist Hurleyite congregation (Universal Hagar) has a woman as pastor.

How can we account for this? It might have something to do with Philadelphia’s cultural history of inclusivity, providing a context in which women broke through the stained glass ceiling in the AMEZ and Episcopal traditions. Perhaps it is more closely related with the Great Migration North, in which women sought out church anchors in neighborhoods in which to settle. Frankly, I am hoping a researcher will figure this out…and bottle it!

More impressive to me than the numbers are the amazing women I interviewed. Women like Pastor Jackie Morrow, who started a church and a school in a row house, and ministers to everyone in her corner of Northwest Philly, from the young men who play basketball in her parking lot to the mentally challenged woman who regularly stops by for prayer, food, and a hug. Or Rev. Melanie DeBouse, who pastors in the poorest neighborhood in the city and is teaching young children to “kiss your brain” and older men how to read. Or Rev. Cindy Jarvis, senior pastor at the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, where she oversees a budget of over a million dollars and has underwritten efforts to prevent gun violence, provide health care for the poor, and a vibrant social and educational program for seniors. These women, and others on the Avenue, are leaning in to take leadership roles not in corporations but in the trenches of gnarly urban problems.

Make no mistake: I like Sandberg’s book. But the clergy women of Germantown Avenue are leaning into stronger headwinds with impressive competence and confidence. They inspired me more.

Katie Day is the Charles A. Schieren Professor of Church and Society at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. She is the author of Faith on the Avenue: Religion on a City Street and three other books and numerous articles that look at how religion impacts a variety of social realities.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only religion articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post Leaning in appeared first on OUPblog.

Add a Comment

This March we celebrate Women’s History Month, commemorating the lives, legacies, and contributions of women around the world. We’ve compiled a brief reading list that demonstrates the diversity of women’s lives and achievements.

Women in Asia

The Courtesan’s Arts: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, Edited by Martha Feldman and Bonnie Gordon

Delve into courtesan cultures, including artistic practices and cultural production, often overlooked or diminished in relevancy.

The Power of Gender and the Gender of Power: Explorations in Early Indian History by Kumkum Roy

Discover the distinct strategies through which men and women constituted their identities in India for all their implications, tensions, and inconsistencies.

Cornelia Sorabji: India’s Pioneer Woman Lawyer: A Biography by Suparna Gooptu

Learn about Sorabji’s decisive role in opening up the legal profession to women long before they were allowed to plead before the courts of law, including her writings and personal correspondence.

Women in the Middle East

Cleopatra: A Biography by Duane W. Roller

Uncover not the figure in popular culture, arts, and literature of the last five hundred years — but the real last Greek queen of Egypt.

Conceiving Citizens: Women and the Politics of Motherhood in Iran by Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet

Place women in their proper role as mothers of a nation — central to the history of Iran during successive regimes in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire by Leslie P. Peirce

Examine the sources of royal women’s power and assess the reactions of contemporaries, which ranged from loyal devotion to armed opposition.

Women in British History

Singled Out: How Two Million British Women Survived Without Men After the First World War by Virginia Nicholson

Try to keep up with a generation of women fated to remain unmarried in the aftermath of the Great War.

The Wealth of Wives: Women, Law, and Economy in Late Medieval London by Barbara A. Hanawalt

Consider an overlooked contribution to London’s economy—the wealth that women accumulated through inheritance, dowry, and dower.

Queen Anne: Patroness of Arts by James A. Winn

Study the life and reign of Queen Anne through literature, art, and music from Dryden, Pope, Purcell, Handel, Lely, Kneller, Wren, Vanbrugh, Addison, Swift, and many other artists.

Women in European History

Murder of a Medici Princess by Caroline P. Murphy

Illuminate the brilliant life and tragic death of Isabella de Medici, one of the brightest stars in the dazzling world of Renaissance Italy, the daughter of Duke Cosimo I, ruler of Florence and Tuscany.

Writing the Revolution: A French Women’s History in Letters by Lindsay A. Parker

Investigate nearly 1,000 familiar letters, which convey the intellectual, emotional, and familial life of a revolutionary in all of its complexity.

The Burgher and the Whore: Prostitution in Early Modern Amsterdam by Lotte van de Pol

Delve into the cultural, social, and economic conditions of the lives of poor women in a seafaring society from the perspectives of prostitutes, their bawds, their clients, and the police.

Women in American History

Southern Lady, Yankee Spy: The True Story of Elizabeth Van Lew, a Union Agent in the Heart of the Confederacy by Elizabeth R. Varon

Probe the life and work of one of the most remarkable women of the Civil War era–the leader of the North’s key spy ring in the South.

Working Women, Literary Ladies: The Industrial Revolution and Female Aspiration by Sylvia J. Cook

Trace the hopes and tensions generated by expectations of gender and class from the first New England operatives in the early 19th century to immigrant sweatshop workers in the early 20th.

Seneca Falls and the Origins of the Women’s Rights Movement by Sally McMillen

Join the meeting that launched the women’s rights movement and changed American history.

I Died for Beauty: Dorothy Wrinch and the Cultures of Science by Marjorie Senechal

Enter the provocative, scintillating mind of the talented and flawed scientist.

African American Women Chemists by Jeannette Brown

Connect to the lives of African America women chemists, from the earliest pioneers through late 1960′s when the Civil Rights Acts were passed, to today.

Women in Latin American History

Power and Women’s Representation in Latin America by Leslie A. Schwindt-Bayer

Look at the recent trends in women’s representation in Latin America, and the complex and often incomplete nature of women’s political representation.

Refusing the Favor: The Spanish-Mexican Women of Santa Fe, 1820-1880 by Deena J. Gonzalez

Uncover the key role “invisible” Spanish-Mexican women played in the US takeover of Mexico’s northern territory and gain a greater understanding of conquest and colonization.

Weaving the Past: A History of Latin America’s Indigenous Women from the Prehispanic Period to the Present by Susan Kellogg

Reach back through women’s long history of labor, political activism, and contributions to — or even support of — family and community well-being.

Women’s history encompasses the history of humankind, including men, but approaches it from a woman‐centered perspective. It highlights women’s activities and ideas and asserts that their problems, issues, and accomplishments are just as central to the telling of the human story as are those of their brothers, husbands, and sons. It places the sociopolitical relations between the sexes, or gender, at the center of historical inquiry and questions female subordination.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only history articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

Image Credits: (1) Physical World Map via CIA World Factbook (public domain). (2) Map of Asia by Bytebear. CC-BY-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons. (3) Map of Middle East by NuclearVacuum. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons. (4) Map of Britain by Anonymous101. CC-BY-SA-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons. (5) Map of Europe via CIA World Factbook (public domain). (6) Blank US Map by Theshibboleth. CC-BY-SA-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons. (7) Map of Latin America and the Caribbean by Yug. CC-BY-SA-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

The post Celebrating Women’s History Month appeared first on OUPblog.

Add a Comment

In honor of Women’s History Month, we’ve rounded up ten of our books that feature some amazing women of color! From a baseball player to an American politician, these women have helped pave the way for many others.

1. Wangari Maathai, Seeds of Change: Planting a Path to Peace - the first African woman, and environmentalist, to win a Nobel Peace Prize

2. Marcenia Lyle, Catching the Moon: The Story of a Young  Girl’s Baseball Dream - the first woman to play for an all-male professional baseball team

3. Anna May Wong, Shining Star: The Anna May Wong Story - the first Chinese American movie star

4. Florence Mills, Baby Flo: Florence Mills Lights Up the Stage - an international dancing and singing superstar during the Harlem Renaissance

5. Augusta Savage, In Her Hands: The Story of Sculptor Augusta Savage- a sculptor during the Harlem Renaissance who carved out her own special place in art history

6. Pura Belpré, The Storyteller’s Candle / La velita de los cuentos - New York City’s first Latina librarian

7. Patsy Mink, How We Are Smart - an American politician from the U.S. state of Hawaii

8. Hiromi Suzuki, Hiromi’s Hands - one of a handful of women in the male-dominated world of sushi chefs

9. Rosa Parks, Dear Mrs. Parks: A Dialogue with Today’s Youth - Mrs. Parks changed the course of history when she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery, Alabama bus, sparking the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement

10. Zora Neale Hurston, Zora Hurston and the Chinaberry Tree - renowned African American writer

Filed under: Book Lists, Musings & Ponderings Tagged: Anna May Wong, augusta savage, diversity, florence mills, hiromi suzuki, Marcenia Lyle, patsy mink, Pura Belpré, Rosa Parks, Wangari Maathai, women, women's history, women's history month, zora neale hurston

Display Comments Add a Comment

Add a Comment

Emerson students are having so much fun creating projects to celebrate amazing women this month. Some are researching pop stars, others are celebrating their mothers or teachers. I'm excited to share two digital ways to create projects.

Animoto is an easy-to-use online video creation site that you can use to create short, dynamic slide shows. Kids love the music and movement. I love that you can add just a few words with the images to really communicate your ideas. Plus, it's free (for short videos)!

Here's an Animoto I created to celebrate Gabby Douglas, Olympic champion:



Our 4th and 5th graders are also learning how to use their school Google accounts, and some are taking the challenge to create a Google Presentation. Again, they love using images! For many kids, this is much easier than creating a poster board.

Here's an example I created about Jane Goodall. I really tried to show the kids how one simple picture with a short caption can communicate a lot of what you admire about a person. We talk about how this presentation doesn't have much of a conclusion, that I could have put in more of my own ideas.



I'm excited to see what projects the students create! Are your students creating anything using new digital tools that they love? There are so many to choose from!!

©2014 Mary Ann Scheuer, Great Kid Books

Add a Comment

Throughout Women's History Month, I share with students stories of women who inspire me with their determination and courage. When I first read about Wilma Rudolph, Olympic champion sprinter who overcame incredible odds to win victory, I was awe-struck. My students sit in rapt attention each time they hear in Kathleen Krull's picture book biography Wilma Unlimited.

Wilma UnlimitedHow Wilma Rudolph Became the World's Fastest Woman
by Kathleen Krull
illustrated by David Diaz
Harcourt Brace, 1996
Amazon
your local library
ages 6-10

No one expected Wilma Rudolph to survive her difficult childhood. She not only learned to walk after having scarlet fever and polio, but joined her school’s basketball team and then her college’s track team. Through sheer determination and hard work, she went on to win three Olympic gold medals. My students cheer for Wilma at every turn in this inspiring biography.

If your children are inspired to learn more about Rudolph, I'd recommend two websites: Olympic.org and ABC Sports. You'll find historic film footage and photographs on Olympic.org, the official website for the Olympics. I like the way it combines brief facts, compelling images and a short biography that students can read for more information.
The review copy came from our school library. If you make a purchase using the Amazon links on this site, a small portion goes to Great Kid Books (at no cost to you!). Thank you for your support.

©2014 Mary Ann Scheuer, Great Kid Books

Add a Comment

Women musicians are constantly pushing societal boundaries around the world, while hitting all the right notes. In honor of Women’s History Month, Oxford University Press is testing your knowledge about women musicians. Take the quiz and see if you’re a shower singer or an international composer!

Maggie Belnap is an intern in the Social Media Department at Oxford University Press. She is a student at Amherst College.

Oxford Reference is the home of reference publishing at Oxford. With over 16,000 photographs, maps, tables, diagrams and a quick and speedy search, Oxford Reference saves you time while enhancing and complementing your work.

Subscribe to OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only music articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post Women of 20th century music appeared first on OUPblog.

Add a Comment

Tonight, I was reading aloud with my 10 year old (yep, she still loves it when I read her picture books) and I told her why I really wanted to read some of Cokie Robert's new book Founding Mothers. I explained that when I was growing up, the history books really didn't have much about the women who helped establish this country. Immediately, she was hooked and wanted to hear more.

Founding Mothers
Remembering the Ladies
by Cokie Roberts
illustrated by Diane Goode
Harper, 2014
Amazon
your local library
ages 8-12

Roberts begins this picture book with letter explaining to readers how she came to write this book. It's a wonderful way to begin, because it personalizes the story for children, explaining why Roberts felt it was so important to write this and share these women's stories.

"I don't remember ever being taught anything about the women who lived at the time the thirteen American colonies decided to break from Britain and build a country. I knew nothing of the mothers, wives, sisters, daughters and female friends of the men who wrote the Declaration of Independence, fought in the revolution, created the Constitution, and formed our first government."

Roberts profiles ten women who were influential in the founding of the country, whether directly through their own writing or actions, or indirectly through the men they supported. She writes of Deborah Read Franklin, who ran her husband Ben Franklin's businesses in the States while he was in England. Goode's illustrations are lively and engaging, as you can see below.
Share this with children and see where the conversation takes you. I love the way Mary Lee Hahn, part of the terrific teaching duo behind A Year of Reading, describes how she might use the book:

"Even just the conversation about what makes a person influential would be fascinating, as would a discussion of the problem of how to know historic women deeply when they often did not leave a trail of primary source material for historians to study."

Roberts' writing is clear and concise, providing just enough information to pique children's interest. At times, I wish that she had shared more about where she found her information, or perhaps just a few more quotes from the women themselves. But I can understand how this might have weighed down the text too much. It's a delicate balance. Kids who are interested in learning more will definitely be interested in checking out the websites listed in the back.

For students who are interested in women's lives during this period, definitely check out the Colonial Williamsburg web site. Kids will like their new article "Martha Washington and 4 great 18th century women you've never heard of." I especially like their profiles of different women who lived and worked in Williamsburg, shedding light on the different roles and activities of a range of social classes.

Do you like sharing nonfiction picture books with children? Definitely check out the weekly feature over at Kid Lit Frenzy, hosted by Alyson Beecher.

The review copy was kindly sent by the publishers, Harper Collins. If you make a purchase using the Amazon links on this site, a small portion goes to Great Kid Books (at no cost to you!). Thank you for your support.

©2014 Mary Ann Scheuer, Great Kid Books

Add a Comment

Elementary school kids are interested in exploring the Internet to learn about the world around them. But parents and teachers need to direct kids to finding sites that are interesting, informative and accessible. Kids ages 7-10 are not ready for general searching, but they love exploring what the Web has to offer.

Time for Kids celebrates Women's History Month with a dedicated mini-site-- I'd recommend this as a good starting place for 2nd through 5th grades.

Time for Kids mini-site to celebrate Women's History Month

Kids can easily navigate through different sections, whether they start with modern professionals who might inspire them, background of the holiday, or an in-depth interview with Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

Kids will like the abundant photos with brief chunks of text. I really think we read online information differently than print sources. We like highly visual sites with brief chunks of text. Time for Kids keeps readers engaged, prompting them to click from one picture to the next. Here, actress Miranda Cosgrove tells about how she's been inspired by Rosa Parks:

Time for Kids mini-site to celebrate Women's History Month

Time For Kids also introduces different historical milestones in Women's History. For example, there's a short article on the suffragist's movement, The Fight to Vote. I like sharing this type of journalistic writing style with kids, getting them primed to read newspaper articles in middle school.

Women suffragists marched in the streets across the nation.

I can see using this site to get kids interested in a topic and ready to learn more. Is there a website you like to share with kids to get them engaged and interested in learning more?

©2014 Mary Ann Scheuer, Great Kid Books

Add a Comment

Jill Eisenberg, our Resident Literacy Expert, began her career teaching English as a Foreign Language to second through sixth graders in Yilan, Taiwan as a Fulbright Fellow. She went on to become a literacy teacher for third grade in San Jose, CA as a Teach for America corps member. She is certified in Project Glad instruction to promote English language acquisition and academic achievement. In her column she offers teaching and literacy tips for educators. 

I entered the education field to broaden the minds of a new generation and teach the truths that I felt I had missed or was denied in my own education. Indeed, I was not alone in those motivations. According to the Primary Sources project by Scholastic and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, of the more than 20,000 public school classroom teachers polled, 85% of teachers say they chose the profession in order to make a difference in children’s lives.

Despite my righteous ambitions, once in the classroom, I was hesitant to broach the conversation about gender with a mixed class of boys and girls. So many of my own college classes that focused on social justice and equality issues were almost entirely women.

Acutely aware of my students’ fragile perception of themselves, I was intimated by the prospect of guiding the discussion. When I was leading a classroom of my own, it was often easier to concentrate on the benign world of synonyms, dictionary skills, main idea, and genre features than push my students to think about what role gender plays in achievement, history, and identity.

I wondered: How do we teach about women’s history and contributions without alienating boys? Will boys disengage if a girl or woman is on the cover or is the main character? In this day and age, do girls still need explicit attention drawn to high-achievers that share their gender?

Leading up to my first month of March as a teacher, I thought I would “just” read more books with women as the central figures during Women’s History Month, but not explicitly point out that these were all women so as not to freak out boys and hope the girls would pick up on my subliminal messages of empowerment….

Insert face palm here.

This thinking was a huge disservice to ALL of my students’ educations. As I introduced books with prominent women historic figures or girl characters, I realized if the books were about gender, we would discuss identity and tolerance. Other times if the story just happened to have a girl character, but gender wasn’t a central feature of the story, my scholars just wanted to focus on the great story and how the universal lessons applied to their lives.

Four lessons to think about when teaching women’s history so both boys AND girls grow and learn:

1. Two words: cool stories. Above all, if it’s a great story, it doesn’t matter who is on the cover. Everyone will want to sit up and participate.
2. Pick contemporary and diverse stories. To continue to show the relevancy of the women’s movements and contributions of women to society, we owe it to all of our students to find more contemporary examples of women figures and showcase more diverse participants in equality. Let’s keep exposing our kids to women of today and of different backgrounds.
3. Show explicit examples of men championing women. Boys need to see great role models of men advocating for women alongside or behind the scenes. There are plenty of men who have been in the trenches with women fighting for social justice and as invested in their wives, daughters, sisters, and mothers achieving great success in a field of study as the women themselves. If we want future generations of men to respect and support women, we need to offer boys examples of how to recognize and champion women’s contributions. Boys and girls need to see that the struggles for equality impacted everyone and were not about one group’s success at the other’s detriment.
4. Talk about the universal lesson and character traits. Everyone can learn from a story about overcoming obstacles, persistence, and courage. Women like Wangari Maathai and Pura Belpré fought for what they loved and believed was right first, and then fought for who they were and who they represented. If we want to instill resiliency and develop children’s imaginations, we need to present children with stories about long odds, big dreams, and fantastic leadership that come in all shapes, sizes, and bodies.

Throughout the year and especially during Women’s History Month, we need to teach that gender shouldn’t be an excuse to bar someone from exploring or contributing to a field of study. Concurrently, we want to show all students that gender can offer a unique perspective or approach that should be recognized and celebrated.

Alongside our girls, boys need the language of equality and a broader view of history. Women’s contributions advanced our society and continue to impact all of us. We need to teach that gender totally does matter and, at the same time, totally doesn’t matter.

Susan B. Anthony Is Great, But Who Else Do We Have? Here are books about high-achieving women from diverse backgrounds with diverse pursuits.

• Wangari Maathai in Seeds Of Change: Planting A Path To Peace
• The women of the Chipko Andolan movement in Aani And The Tree Huggers
• Irena Sendler in Irena’s Jars Of Secrets
• Anna May Wong in Shining Star: The Anna May Wong Story
• Pura Belpré in The Storyteller’s Candle/La velita de los cuentos
• Ynes Mexia and Patsy Takemoto Mink in How We Are Smart
• Toni Stone in Catching The Moon: The Story Of A Young Girl’s Baseball Dream 

Women and The Men That Championed Them. Explore these books with awesome men celebrating awesome women:

• Baby Flo: Florence Mills Lights Up The Stage
• Janna And The Kings
• Allie’s Basketball Dream
• Mama’s Window
• Raymond’s Perfect Present
• Keepers
• Under The Mesquite
• Antonio’s Card
• My Papa Diego And Me 

Stories That Will Hook ’Em All. Here are stories so fun that it won’t matter who is on the cover…but the cover just happens to feature a girl:

• Marisol Mcdonald Doesn’t Match
• Killer Of Enemies
• Tankborn trilogy
• Summer Of The Mariposas
• The Bus Ride
• Destiny’s Gift
• The Happiest Tree
• Closet Ghosts
• My Diary From Here To There
• My Very Own Room
• The Legend Of Freedom Hill 

Filed under: Curriculum Corner Tagged: children's books, diversity, Educators, Girls/women, History, holidays, Reading Aloud, reluctant readers, Wangari Maathai, women in history, women's history month

Add a Comment

Do you read aloud much nonfiction with your children? If they're reluctant, try reading them Marissa Moss's terrific picture book biography Nurse, Soldier, Spy -- The Story of Sarah Edmonds, a Civil War Hero. Our students LOVED the way Moss drew them into Sarah's story with unexpected twists and turns. They especially commented on John Hendrix's art and design.

Nurse, Soldier, Spy
The Story of Sarah Edmunds, a Civil War Hero
by Marissa Moss
illustrated by John Hendrix
Abrams, 2011
Amazon
your local library
ages 7-12

At age nineteen, Sarah Edmonds disguised herself as a man and joined the Union Army to fight in the Civil War. She took the name Frank Thompson, and headed off to battle the Confederacy with her Michigan regiment. Frank, as Sarah was known, was an outstanding soldier, brave and true, risking his/her life to help others.

My students loved the way Hendrix showed the battle scenes, using both color and dramatic lines to bring readers right into the scene.
Hendrix also makes the words pop out from the page with his dramatic design. My students found this particularly effective. I was very interested to learn from Elizabeth Bird's Fuse 8 post in the School Library Journal that "Hendrix takes his hand-drawn letters from the illustrated letterforms found on broadside posters from that era."
You might want to share with older children Marissa Moss's novel A Soldier's Secret. I have not had a chance to read this, but here is the publisher's description:

Historical fiction at its best, this novel by bestselling author Marissa Moss tells the story of Sarah Emma Edmonds, who masqueraded as a man named Frank Thompson during the Civil War. Her adventures include serving as a nurse on the battlefield and spying for the Union Army, and being captured by (and escaping from) the Confederates. The novel is narrated by Sarah, offering readers an in-depth look not only at the Civil War but also at her journey to self-discovery as she grapples with living a lie and falling in love with one of her fellow soldiers.
Using historical materials to build the foundation of the story, Moss has crafted a captivating novel for the YA audience.

All illustrations are copyright © John Hendrix, 2011; see his website for more terrific examples. The review copy came from our school library. If you make a purchase using the Amazon links on this site, a small portion goes to Great Kid Books (at no cost to you!). Thank you for your support.

©2014 Mary Ann Scheuer, Great Kid Books

Add a Comment

Helen's Big World:
The Life of Helen Keller
by Doreen Rappaport
illustrated by Matt Tavares
Disney / Hyperion, 2012
ages 5 - 9
available at your local library and on Amazon

Doreen Rappaport gives readers a clear sense of Helen's whole life, from the illness that left her blind and deaf as a child, to her years with Annie, and then her accomplishments as an adult.

Throughout it, Rappaport highlights Keller's own inspiring words in large, bold print. Young readers will be inspired not only by how Helen overcame her own disabilities, but how she used her voice to speak up for justice and equality for all.

From the Author’s Note:

I remember when I went to the theater and saw the play The Miracle Worker, which focuses on the early relationship between Helen and her teacher Annie Sullivan. The most electrifying moment in the play, and in the biographies of Helen Keller, was always the moment at the water pump, when Helen connected the water flowing over her hand with the word that Annie was spelling into her other hand.

That moment reminds us of how we learn, and the power of learning; the more we understand things, the larger our world becomes. Annie Sullivan opened up Helen Keller’s limited, dark, silent world; it grew and grew until it truly became a big world.

Kids will enjoy checking out the American Foundation for the Blind's Helen Keller Kids' Museum Online, full of pictures and short paragraphs of information.

AFB's Helen Keller Kids Museum Online

The review copy came from our school library. If you make a purchase using the Amazon links on this site, a small portion goes to Great Kid Books (at no cost to you!). Thank you for your support.

©2014 Mary Ann Scheuer, Great Kid Books

Add a Comment

March 8th marks International Women's Day, a celebration that has been observed since in the early 1900's. On this day, thousands of events are held throughout the world to inspire women and celebrate achievements.

I have really enjoyed sharing with students the website for the Nobel Prize. Since 1901, prizes have been awarded for remarkable achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and peace. Of the more than 500 prizes 45 have been awarded to women (see the list here), an amount that I think is much too small. But one way to inspire girls of today to reach for greatness is to celebrate the achievement of other women.

The Nobel Prize website provides information for every Nobel Prize since 1901, including the Nobel Laureates' biographies, Nobel Lectures, interviews, photos, articles, video clips, press releases, educational games and more.

Find out about Tawakkoi Karman, who has worked toward improving women's rights in Yemen. Read about Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, who discovered the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Share about Emily Greene Balch, a leader of the American peace movement.

Each day this month, I will be sharing different resources to help children learn about amazing women throughout history. What books or websites do you like to share with children during Women's History Month?

©2014 Mary Ann Scheuer, Great Kid Books

Add a Comment

Add a Comment

Wangari Maathai won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her work helping women throughout Africa planting trees to improve the environment and their quality of life. As we celebrate Women's History Month, I make sure to introduce students to women from throughout the world who have worked hard to improve their communities.

Seeds of Change
Planting a Path of Peace
by Jen Cullerton Johnson
illustrations by Sonia Lynn Sadler
Lee and Low, 2010
your local library
Amazon
ages 6-10

Although it was unusual for girls to receive formal education in rural Kenya, Wangari’s parents agreed to send her to school. Wangari’s determination and hard work continued as she went first to high school in the city, and then to university in the United States to study biology.

Wangari returned to Kenya to teach and inspire women scientists, but became concerned when she saw the environmental damage that was occurring throughout the country. Maathai established the Green Belt Movement, bringing about environmental and economic change in Kenya by helping local women plant over thirty million trees.

I would also share this video clip, from the PBS/Independent Lens documentary Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai



International Women's Day, March 8th, is a global day celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future. In some places like China, Russia, Vietnam and Bulgaria, International Women's Day is a national holiday. Are you celebrating International Women's Day with your children?

The review copy came from our school library. If you make a purchase using the Amazon links on this site, a small portion goes to Great Kid Books (at no cost to you!). Thank you for your support.

©2014 Mary Ann Scheuer, Great Kid Books

Add a Comment

I am excited to see my kindergarten class today and introduce them to a woman I truly admire: Jane Goodall. I will read aloud the wonderful picture book Me, Jane by Patrick McDonnell, but first I want to tell them a bit about Jane's life. I will share this video from the Jane Goodall Institute to introduce students to her life work:


Jane Goodall: Showing Us the Way to a Better World from the Jane Goodall Institute on Vimeo.

We will then read aloud Me, Jane by Patrick McDonnell and talk about how you can see her interest in animals when she was a young child.

Me, Jane
by Patrick McDonnell
Little, Brown, 2011
2012 Caldecott Honor Award
ages 4-8
your local library
Amazon

Little Jane carries her stuffed chimpanzee Jubilee around with her everywhere - reading stories, exploring outside, climbing trees.

Right from the beginning, children can relate to having a favorite stuffed animal. Jane loves exploring the outdoors - and so she spends most of her time either watching animals and plants outside or writing in her journal about facts she's discovered. Children can easily imagine keeping a journal with questions and observations about the animals around them.

Is there a scientist you look forward to telling students about during Women's History Month?

The review copy came from our school library collection. If you make a purchase using the Amazon links on this site, a small portion goes to Great Kid Books (at no cost to you!). Thank you for your support.

©2014 Mary Ann Scheuer, Great Kid Books

Add a Comment