How to use this Page

Today’s world is smaller than ever, and as technology continues to advance it will only get smaller. Raising students for success means teaching them how to be global citizens, emphasizing cultural literacy and geoliteracy, and exposing them to people whose lives differ from theirs.

For this, there’s no better author than Jan Reynolds. Reynolds is a writer, photographer, and adventurer who has written over fourteen nonfiction books for children about her travels. Her work has appeared in numerous publications including National Geographic, The New York Times, and Outside Magazine. Reynolds is an avid skier, mountain climber, and adventurer who holds the record for women’s high altitude skiing, was part of the first expedition to circumnavigate Mount Everest, and performed a solo crossing of the Himalayas.

Throughout April, we’ll be exploring how Jan’s books can be used in the classroom to teach about the environment, geoliteracy, global citizenship, and nonfiction. Today, we wanted to share Jan’s books and some of our favorite resources available to help teach them:

image from Cycle of Rice, Cycle of Life

Jan’s Books:
Vanishing Cultures: Sahara (North Africa)
Vanishing Cultures: Mongolia (Mongolia)
Vanishing Cultures: Himalaya (Nepal/Tibet)
Vanishing Cultures: Frozen Land (Northwest Territories, Canada)
Vanishing Cultures: Far North (Arctic Circle, Northern Europe)
Vanishing Cultures: Amazon Basin (Amazon Basin, South America)
Vanishing Cultures: Down Under (Australia)
Celebrate! Connections Among Cultures
Cycle of Rice, Cycle of Life: A Story of Sustainable Farming (Bali)
Only the Mountains Do Not Move: A Maasai Story of Culture and Conservation (Kenya and Tanzania)

image from Vanishing Cultures: Far North

Lesson Plans and Classroom Guides:
Classroom Guide for Vanishing Cultures series (including classroom guides for individual books)
Classroom Guide for Only the Mountains Do Not Move
Classroom Guide for Cycle of Rice, Cycle of Life
Classroom Guide for Celebrate! Connections Among Cultures

Jan Reynolds with Maasai family while working on Only the Mountains Do Not Move

Interviews with Jan Reynolds:
Jan Reynolds on Cultural Anthropology and Photography (Only the Mountains Do Not Move)
Talking about Sustainability with Jan Reynolds (Cycle of Rice, Cycle of Life)
Interview with Jan Reynolds on Celebrate! Connections Among Cultures

map of some of the places explored in Jan Reynolds’ Vanishing Cultures series

Video:
Jan! From Here to There
Maasai Life with Anthropologist Terry Mcabe
Life in the Wild: Visit a Maasai Tribe in Kenya
Explore Rice Farming on the Island of Bali: Parts I, II, and III

Author Visits:
Jan Reynolds visits schools around the world to share her books and experiences, and also does virtual Skype visits. For more information on her school visits or virtual visits, visit her website or contact us at [email protected].

Visit our Author Study Pinterest Page for more great activities and resources related to Jan’s books, and stay tuned throughout April as we delve deeper into the books of Jan Reynolds and explore how they can be used to teach global citizenship, environmental stewardship, geoliteracy, and more.

Happy Poetry Friday: share the love at Some Novel Ideas, a middle-school focused blog that I'm happy to discover.

Since my last post I've participated to my great benefit in two poetry stretches and the public charter school application has passed the Technical Review--and of course, while the district was doing their checkthrough to see if anything was missing, so were we. I-yi-yi we found some glaring omissions! So yesterday I stood in the Asst. Superintendent's office with one of the stalwarts of the project and replaced or added to 20 binders eight pieces that had gone wrong somehow, and crossed out a really important "not" on every page 95.

More interesting for you all in the Poetry Friday audience is page 29. Here is where I included the following perfect poem by Countee Cullen, a move which many considered too risky for a charter school supplication (which may be a better word than application, since if approved we would be the first public charter school in our district ever).

Incident

Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue and called me, "Nigger."

I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.

~Countee Cullen

This poem leads the section about how, in addition to "what children know and can do," our schools must address what children feel, value and demonstrate as attitudes towards each other and the planet. This, to me, is what reading is for (among a few other important things), and what poetry is particular is useful for crystallizing.

"But, the word "nigger"?!" some said.
I said, "That's precisely the point."

On Monday morning my partner-in-charter Janet and I drove to the Central Office to deliver 15 binders, each full of 350 pages of public charter school application. It was finally completed at 11:30 the night before with the substantial participation of about 40 teachers, parents and general citizens and included 100 pages of public support letters and petition signatures. Working on this project was an exhilarating experience of grass-roots collaboration, and yet what kept me going as the "lead writer" on the project (I came as close as I ever will to "pulling an all-nighter") was working some carefully selected poetry into the Academic Design section.

Here are the first two: an epigraphical gem that opens the whole application, and a really fine, serendipitous summary of what it is we want children to learn at our school--a poem from Marilyn Singer's Footprints on the Roof.

Lyric from Ancient Arabia

Our children
are our hearts
developing feet
and walking.

~Hattan Ibu Al Mu'alla


Home
(incorrect formatting; I still haven't learned to make blogger obey my indents)

Ask me where is home
and I will tell you
a house
a street
a neighborhood
a town
Someplace safe and solid
where I eat
I run
I sing
I nap
Someplace I can pinpoint
on a map
But what if I were an astronaut
with the world dangling below me
like a yo-yo from a giant's hand
and home was the whole planet?
Would I be wise enough to understand
the worth
of my new address: Earth?

~ Marilyn Singer