Literature and Disease!

Microbe-Obliterator from WALL-E

(photos courtesy of FlikR images)

Overview - Disease and Literature

            My final project is combining literature with a science theme; diseases. My goal was to collaborate with the science teacher in a way that challenges me outside of my comfort zone of SS/LA teacher and incorporated many ideas from this EDLI course. While I still wear my classroom teacher hat, I am trying to think of this final assignment less as a SS/LA teacher and more as a librarian. I also strived to make sure this was not a thematic unit. I’ve created many in my teaching career.

            Instead I asked myself, “If you were the librarian at WCS, what would you put together for a teacher who needed a science themed literature unit”?  First, I put together a list of 7-8 disease themed literature books appropriate for 5-8 graders. Next, I started to find resources the science teacher could use in conjunction with the disease themed books as part of her science classes. I then created a pathfinder/PB Wiki page that teachers and students could access. Then things took an interesting twist as this unit quickly became very interesting to the other team teachers on Harbor House. They decided to have the students research a deeper disease-related topic as part of a report written for their language arts classes. The pathfinder needed to modify to include helping students with the research process. It was interesting to watch this topic explode into other areas of the curriculum.

            In short, students will be able to participate in a variety of activities (technology based, constructivist, multiple intelligences, etc.) to explore diseases; everything from plague to polio to the Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1918. My unit involves technology usage for students to research and explore the world of microbes.

Collaborative roles for teacher and librarian: Working with the science teacher on Harbor House, Jessica Contois, we discussed the BIG questions students would need to know at the end of the disease unit. We found the following essential questions really captured everything we wanted our students to understand:

Disease Essential Questions

• What are diseases?

• How do we protect ourselves from them and stay healthy? 

Having our students answer these questions was the idea, but how would we get them to do this? We knew students would participate in one last round of Literature Groups in May. (Note: Literature groups are small, 18 max., that meet 3 times a week for 30 minutes). Perhaps teaching disease with a selection of fiction and non-fiction sources would peak some interest. One my many tasks included finding a variety of literature books for 5-8 graders with a disease theme. (Book list included). Next, I created a Pathfinder of microbe related sources for students to use as part of a larger disease research project. Also included on the Pathfinder was a kick-off activity for students to comprehend just how small microbe can be! Using the Cells Alive website http://www.cellsalive.com/howbig.htm we used a laptop and LCD to show students how small microbes are in comparison to a human hair.

Kick-off Activities

First, the concept of how microbes can enter the body can be very abstract for some students. I used the Cellsalive website as an interactive model that allows you to zoom in 1 million times! This was projected with an LCD for a whole class.

http://www.cellsalive.com/howbig.htm