7th grade reading lists

Today with our supervisor Ms. D we discussed possible reading lists for the 7th & 8th grade:

Lists matched up with content area:

-(American perspective on immigration) Return to Sender

-(Caribbean: Haiti) Open the Door to Liberty

-(An American in Europe) Bloomability -
- (Mexico & California during Great Depression) Esperanza Rising

- (Africa) A Girl Named Disaster

-The Breadwinner - by Deboarah Ellis (Afghanistan)
-A Single Shard (set in Korea)
-When my name was Keoko (set in Korea during Japanese occupation)

- (Australia) Ash Road

-Chasing Vermeer (fictional but interesting merge of history & geography)

Plan: pick 2 by Christmas and could implement in the spring

Good list of books: http://www.clpgh.org/teens/books/showbooklist.cfm?catid=6&list=worldnonfiction

A Book I'm Reading: "Reading Like a Historian"

I'm currently reading, "Reading Like a Historian". Our dept. supervisor has all of the Social Studies teachers looking at this book as we consider Common Core and incorporating more literacy into our lessons. The book itself is fairly practical for a teacher; each part is split up with the historical debate, why teach it, and how you might use the materials. It's dedicated primarily to history classes, so I need to "think outside the box" to apply this to my geography classes. However, it's still a good resource for me to be reading as we look at how Common Core will change what and how we teach!