90-second Newbery Films created by students; started by author James Kennedy

Kennedy, J. (2013, July 4). 25 successful 90-second Newbery videos. Retrieved December 1, 2014, from http://jameskennedy.com/2013/07/04/the-25-most-popular-90-second-newbery-videos-so-far/

Summary: These are 25 of the most popular student-created 90-second Newbery films.  James Kennedy created a contest for students to make films that cover the entire plot of a Newbery winner or honor book in approximately 90 seconds.  

Review:  These films are great to watch when teaching Newbery books.  They are fun and display creativity of a variety of genres.

Diversity: Some films include students of color. However, many of the Newbery books are white in general.

Suggestions for Teachers: Great to inspire students to do their own book projects. An engaging idea to foster reading the whole book, identifying key plot points, collaborating and creating.

1. Quantitative: N/A
2. Qualitative: Students with knowledge of the particular Newbery book will understand these films better. However, these students could be used as a pre-reading activity to build schema. They are mostly organized chronologically. Some films use the actual dialogue from the text itself. Depending on the book, the language could be contemporary or more from that period. Students will be able to make meaning with the visual context clues.

Content Areas: English, Drama

Common Core State Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1
Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2
Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.3
Analyze how and why individuals, events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.

Relevant links: James Kennedy

Subjects/Themes: English, Drama

Awards: N/A

Series Information: N/A

The Matrix film directed by The Wachowskis

Wachowski, L., & Wachowski, A. (Directors). (1999). The matrix [Motion picture]. US: Warner Bros.

Summary: Thomas Anderson leads a mundane life as an office worker by day and a hacker by night.  He meets Morpheus who convinces him that once he knows the truth, he will never want to return to his old life and will try to convince others to see the truth too.

Review:  While there are some violent scenes, this is an excellent film for high school students when grappling Plato's Allegory of the Cave.

Diversity: Talk about characters who do not fit the "norm". Here it is cool to be alternative. Keanu Reeves and Laurence Fishburne are also men of color.

Suggestions for Teachers: Show clips of this film while teaching Plato's Allegory of the Cave. Read it with Malcolm X's "Learning to Read". What other texts talk about the truth being powerful?

Reading Level:

1. Quantitative: N/A
2. Qualitative: High interest and complex ideas. Students will be able to use this film to make meaning of Plato. Knowledge of computer hacking will help students make meaning. Overall, easy to follow.

Content Areas: English, Philosophy

Common Core State Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1
Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2
Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.3
Analyze how and why individuals, events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.

Relevant links: Wikipedia, History Guide

Subjects/Themes: philosophy, Plato, English

Awards: See here.

Series Information: N/A

Ms. Yingling Reads

Yingling, K. (2014, November 30). Fantasy [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://msyinglingreads.blogspot.com/

Summary: Ms. Yingling's blog for middle school librarians and ELA teachers who are looking for the right book for each kid.  She publishes reviews daily and is especially thinking about how to get boys reading.

Review:  This blog is a great resource for librarians and teachers of middle school students.  There is a wealth of information for all kinds of middle grade books.  She gives a summary and then strengths and weaknesses.  Just reading for the strengths and weaknesses can help you develop your collection.

Diversity: Ms. Yingling is an ally the campaign for diverse books and often always features diverse books as soon as she gets them in her hands. Each Wed is devoted to reviews of diverse books.

Suggestions for Teachers: Use this website to develop your collection and to recommend books to your students.

Reading Level:

1. Quantitative: N/A
2. Qualitative: Easy to use layout, daily concise postings and good book lists. This is for professionals in education to get ideas about books for their students. Students could use Ms. Yingling's reviews to search for books they might like. The text is largely familiar to all. No prior knowledge is necessary.

Content Areas: English, Social Studies

Common Core State Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1
Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2
Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.3
Analyze how and why individuals, events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.

Relevant links: Ms. Yingling Reads

Subjects/Themes: teaching resources, ELA, Common Core, text complexity, lesson plans

Awards: N/A

Series Information: N/A

Teaching Books.net website

Teaching Books. (2001). Retrieved November 26, 2014, from http://teachingbooks.net

Summary: This is a one-stop shop website with supplementary online materials about all the books students read in schools.  Lesson plans, online videos with authors, readers theater scripts, interviews, text complexity analyses are all in one database set up for easy use.  

Review:  This is a great place for teachers and educators to find the vast collection of resources out there on the web about the books their students are reading.  It is a time saver.

Diversity: Every book I've searched for has been available; some have more limited information than others, but they exist. This includes authors of color.

Suggestions for Teachers: Use this website resource to help plan your ELA class and for students to have access to authors.

Reading Level:

1. Quantitative: N/A
2. Qualitative: Easy to use layout and materials are student friendly. This website will help teachers and students alike get schema for the text they are reading and more in-depth knowledge of the author of their text. This could be used either before reading the text or after to get insight on the reader's craft. No prior knowledge is necessary except for how to search a database.

Content Areas: English, Social Studies

Common Core State Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1
Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2
Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.3
Analyze how and why individuals, events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.

Relevant links: Teaching Books

Subjects/Themes: teaching resources, ELA, Common Core, text complexity, lesson plans

Awards: N/A

Series Information: N/A

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries produced by Hank Green & Bernie Sue

Green, H., & Su, B. (Producers). (2012, April 9). My name is Lizzie Bennet [Show #1]. The Lizzie Bennet diaries. Podcast retrieved from http://www.pemberleydigital.com/the-lizzie-bennet-diaries/

Summary: This is a modern Pride and Prejudice with Lizzie Bennet a grad student in Mass Communications living at home with her parents. Mrs. Bennet is obsessed with marrying off all three of her daughters and is especially excited when millionaire and medical student Bing Lee moves into the neighborhood.

Review: A clever and engaging way to supplement teaching Jane Austen's masterpiece.

Diversity: In this vlog version, Charlotte is Asian and Bing Lee, Lizzie's love interest, is biracial.

Suggestions for Teachers: Each vlog is short and teachers could use clips to supplement reading assignments or for review.

Reading Level:

1. Quantitative: N/A
2. Qualitative: These videos are organized with Lizzie retelling various happenings in her household. She re-hashes these events by acting them out with her friend Charlotte. The story is organized chronologically. Vocabulary is largely contemporary and familiar. Students with knowledge of the plot of Pride and Prejudice will have greater interest and anticipation.

Content Areas: English

Common Core State Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.2
Determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to produce a complex account; provide an objective summary of the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.3
Analyze the impact of the author's choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama (e.g., where a story is set, how the action is ordered, how the characters are introduced and developed).

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.7
Analyze multiple interpretations of a story, drama, or poem (e.g., recorded or live production of a play or recorded novel or poetry), evaluating how each version interprets the source text. (Include at least one play by Shakespeare and one play by an American dramatist.)

Relevant links: Teaching Books

Subjects/Themes: family, marriage, romance

Awards: 
2012 TV. com Best Web Series – Winner
2013 IAWTV Awards – Best Interactive Series – Winner
2013 Streamy Awards – Best Comedy Series – Nominee
2013 Streamy Awards – Best Actress in a Comedy – Ashley Clements – Nominee
2013 Streamy Awards – Best Actress in a Comedy – Julia Cho – Nominee
2013 Streamy Awards – Best Ensemble Cast – Nominee
2013 Streamy Awards – Best Writing – Bernie Su – Winner
2013 Streamy Awards – Best Interactive Series – Jay Bushman, Alexandra Edwards, Bernie Su– Winner
2013 Primetime Emmy Award – Original Interactive Program – Winner
2013 PGA Awards – Best Online Series – Nominee
2014 Streamy Awards – Best Drama Series – Winner
2014 Streamy Awards – Best Actor in a Drama – Daniel Vincent Gordh – Nominee
2014 Streamy Awards – Best Actress in a Drama – Ashley Clements – Winner

Series Information: The Lizzie Bennet Diaries series

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (Folger Shakespeare Library Edition)

Mowat, B. A., & Werstine, P. (Eds.). (2011). Folger Shakespeare Library: Romeo 
     and Juliet by William Shakespeare. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster. 


Summary:  A longstanding grudge between two families has caused ongoing hostility in Verona, Italy.  The Montagues' son Romeo is out of sorts because he is in love with a woman who shares no interest in him.  His cousin Benvolio encourages him to go to a party to find another woman.  They crash the Capulet's family, the great enemy of the Montagues.  Capulet is hoping to marry his daughter Juliet off to County Paris.  While at the party, Romeo sets eyes on Juliet and falls in love at first sight.  The two decide to marry during a famous balcony scene later that evening.  But many unfortunate events caused by the families' feuding ultimately leads to their dual suicide.

Review:  This is by far my favorite edition to teach.  I probably taught with it 14 times with 9th grade students.  The format and the spacing is good for kids.  The notes provided on the left side of the page are accessible to students and the short summaries for each scene are easy to understand.  Folger also provides a lot of online support materials.

Suggestions for Teachers:  Use Folger's Shakespeare Set Free to help make teaching this text really interactive.  There are lots of activities from tableaus to blocking and rewriting scripts that make this by far a favorite unit for 9th graders who are sometimes craving reading a classic they've heard about over and over.  Do a side-by-side reading of Gareth Hinds' graphic novel and show clips from Zeferelli and Luhrmann's films.  Give them the plot in advance.  Even use key lines to act out the scene.  Create improvs of modern day scenarios to help engage  (I have written a bunch of these and can email!)  Look at modern Romeo and Juliet scenarios in the world as a connection to social studies.

Reading Level:

1. Quantitative: Lexile 720L, ATOS Book Level 8.6, Readability Grade Level 4.8, Flesh-Kincaid 3.3, RMM 7.7 *There seems to be some inconsistency in the quantitative assessment.  From my background of teaching Romeo and Juliet, I would lean towards 8th-9th grade reading level.
2. Qualitative:  Reading a play is a complex task on its own.  The reader is left to visualizing time and place and shifts in setting.  The organization here is very complex as there are subplots.  Language can be exceedingly complex but Folger does a great job of simplifying key lines and adding accessible summaries on the left hand side of the page.  There are multiple levels of meaning but a student doesn't need to understand all of them to get the gist of the play as a first pass.  Of course there are dated historical and some Biblical references, but with the support this edition provides, the knowledge demands are lessened.  The young, forbidden love theme and disagreement with parents will be easy to connect with most teens.

Content Areas: English (teaching Shakespeare), Social Studies

Common Core State Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.2
Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to the characters, setting, and plot; provide an objective summary of the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.3
Analyze how particular lines of dialogue or incidents in a story or drama propel the action, reveal aspects of a character, or provoke a decision.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.4
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including analogies or allusions to other texts.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.5
Compare and contrast the structure of two or more texts and analyze how the differing structure of each text contributes to its meaning and style.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.7
Analyze the extent to which a filmed or live production of a story or drama stays faithful to or departs from the text or script, evaluating the choices made by the director or actors.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.9
Analyze how a modern work of fiction draws on themes, patterns of events, or character types from myths, traditional stories, or religious works such as the Bible, including describing how the material is rendered new.

Relevant Links: There is so much out there just doing a quick search on google. But I love the Folger Shakespeare Library! Folger Digital Texts, Folger Shakespeare Library

Subject/Themes: love, forbidden love, parental pressure, Shakespeare, gangs, feuds, poetry, sonnet, play, drama

Awards: N/A

Series Information: Folger Shakespeare Library Series

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

Woodson, J. (2014). brown girl dreaming. New York, NY: Nancy Paulsen Books. 

Summary:
Jacqueline Woodson's newest book is a memoir about her childhood during the 1960s and 70s written in verse.  Woodson begins with her early upbringing in Ohio, but most of her childhood includes long summers in South Carolina where her mother's parents lived and New York, where her mother moves as Jacqueline enters school.  Part of this memoir is a tribute to Woodson's long family history before her birth and the strength of her African American heritage.  Woodson's relationship with her grandmother, a strong Jehovah's Witness which later dictate her own religious practices are chronicled here.  This memoir is also a peek into the South during the early Civil Rights Movement, where Blacks are organizing as segregation is at its height.  Woodson is able to capture the essence of the time period through vivid sensory detail.

Review:
Woodson writes an evocative memoir in verse.  It is a tribute to family and how family shapes individuals.  It is also a bit of an exploration of her family tree.  A quick, beautiful read for those interested in Black history especially in the South during the late 1960's.

Suggestions for Teachers:
Students might have fun imitating sections of this book since it is written in verse.  Excerpts from this could be used at the beginning of the year for community building and units on memoirs or "Where I'm From" poems considering the work of Linda Christensen. There is also a lot in here on the power of reading and writing.  Those sections could be excerpted for the English classroom.  History teachers could use this as a primary text to go along with the textbook when studying Voting Rights Act, Civil Rights, the Black Panthers and also the effects of slavery and reconstruction.  Note: this is a quick read, but not a suspenseful one.  

Reading Level:

1. Quantitative: Lexile 1350L, ATOS Book Level 4.5, Flesh-Kincaid 9.7, RMM 7.5, Readability Grade Level, 10.0, Titlewave RL: 4.3
2. Qualitative:  The organization of brown girl dreaming is a little intricate.  There are time shifts back to before Jacqueline Woodson was born.  Since this memoir is written in verse, it has fairly complex language features including abstract ideas and figurative language.  At the same time, many of the sentence structures are very simple.  The vocabulary is mostly simple, but Woodson takes some liberties with language combining phrases into one word to sound more vernacular.   Woodson uses italics to indicate dialogue.  There is some vocabulary connected to a Southern context. Most of the knowledge demands are in the realm of what students know, but, students who have schema surrounding the Voting Rights Act, segregation, Civil Rights Movement, slavery and reconstruction and the Black Panther Party will have a stronger understanding of the text.  There are some Biblical references and knowledge surrounding Jehovah's Witnesses will be helpful.

Content Areas: English (teaching memoir, verse, sensory description, setting), History (1960s & 70's, Segregation, Voting Rights, Freedom Riders, Civil Rights, Black Panther Party)

Common Core State Standards:

• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including vocabulary specific to domains related to history/social studies.

• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.5 Describe how a text presents information (e.g., sequentially, comparatively, causally).
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.6 Identify aspects of a text that reveal an author's point of view or purpose (e.g., loaded language, inclusion or avoidance of particular facts).

Relevant Links/Digital Content: Teaching Books

Subjects/themes: African American history, women, Civil Rights, Voting Rights, Segregation, reading identity, writing identity

Awards: N/A as of today

Series Information:  N/A