Resources for Discussing Ebola with Your Students

My students just finished watching the movie, Guns, Germs, and Steel, based on the book by Jared Diamond.  As a follow up to watching episode 3 of the movie, they are currently researching germs and disease. I checked out a ton of books at the library to aid in their research (whose titles will probably become another post at a later date).

I was searching for some articles to use for our weekly "current events" type class.  I saw some of the articles on the Ebola outbreak.  Being that we also are in Dallas, it seemed a very relevant topic to discuss considering it also relates to what we have been discussing in Social Studies with Guns, Germs, and Steel.  The third episode of the movie also primarily focuses on the history of diseases in Africa with the Africans and the Europeans, so it makes the Ebola discussion even more relevant.

Here are some of the links and articles I found.  I know some of the latest issues of the Scholastic magazines also include articles on Ebola.

https://www.dogonews.com/2014/9/29/making-sense-of-the-ebola-virus

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/daily_videos/first-u-s-ebola-diagnosis-in-dallas/

https://newsela.com/articles/ebola-patient/id/5429/

https://newsela.com/articles/ebola-curfew/id/5333/


PBS also even has lesson plans with activities to help you discuss this topic with your students:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/lessons_plans/ebola-outbreak-lesson-plan/

HERE is a link to some suggested answers to questions you may get from your students, put out by PBS.

Disguised Turkeys, Newspaper Articles, and Persuasive Writing

I am going to actually finish all of the products I start one of these days.  Oh, well.

Today we presented our disguised turkeys.  Last week we read Letters from the Campaign Trail: LaRue for Mayor by Mark Teague. 

The vocabulary is fabulous, and the text structure really challenges students.  The story is presented half through persuasive letters and half through newspaper articles. This would be a fabulous story to discuss fact versus opinion and look at differences in newspaper articles and persuasive writing.  You also could look at the differences in opinions between Ike LaRue (the dog) and Mayor Bogwort on the mischievious behavior of dogs in Snort City.

We used this book as our segway from the election to Thanksgiving.  Just like Ike LaRue ran for mayor to represent the interests of dogs, we discussed what a turkey might do represent the interests of turkeys. My students had to present the viewpoint of their disguised turkey.  I gave them the option of writing a letter, writing a story, or writing a newspaper article about their disguised turkey and what he/she does to convince others not to eat him. Now, this is an activity I would like to work on expanding.  We will go more into the features of letter writing, persuasive writing, and newspaper articles.  Today I let them jump in and experiment.  We used the Read Write Think interactive tools to help us. Here are the links:

Those writing a story used the Interactive Story Map to plan out their story.  Those writing a newspaper article used the Printing Press tool.  Those that wrote a letter used the Letter Generator.

For my students who wanted to plan their articles on paper, I used graphic organizers that I had created for a product in my TpT store called Create a Novel Newspaper. (It is an activity I created to be a culminating activity on a class novel, but the graphic organizers could be used for any writing activity where you want your students to create a newspaper article or editorial.)

Here is a picture of my disguised turkey named Turbob, who is disguised as a cowboy or "redneck."



Here is a picture of my newspaper article on Turbob. 



I also am going to write a letter tomorrow from Turbob to juxtapose the letter and newspaper article just like Mark Teague did in Ike for Mayor.

If you are looking for some additional persuasive writing lessons and resources, click here for several fabulous lessons from Read Write Think. There are printables, Powerpoints, lessons, and interactive technology tools.