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Themes:
Martin Luther King Day,
Art Appreciation & More
Dear %%NAME%%,
Happy New Year! Welcome to this month's issue of ProQuest Teachable Moments. This issue focuses on Martin Luther King Day, the Chinese New Year, baseball, student gambling, art appreciation, and more.
Our monthly enewsletter delivers a set of hands-on learning activities that encourage students to conduct quality research and produce meaningful results to increase their knowledge and understanding of everything from basic math to literature to history and beyond. Keep in mind that these activities are not duplicated in our other monthly newsletters, which also contain ready-made lessons.
Have an idea or feedback concerning this newsletter? Send email to tim.mclain@il.proquest.com today.
Reading A-Z
Winter Reading Activities
Grades K-6
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January weather in the U.S. is usually the coldest of the year. Many students have already adapted to the season and are interested in learning more about the unique kinds of experiences that winter provides for nature, recreation, health, and safety.
Below is a sampling of fiction and nonfiction books from Reading A-Z that can help students learn more about winter and appreciate its opportunities and challenges. Each comes with worksheets to guide reading and check understanding:
Levels aa-L
Winter
We Make a Snowman
The Mitten
The Changing Seasons
Places People Live
Hibernation
How Glooskap Found Summer
Levels M-Z
The Igloo
The Mighty Glaciers
Seals, Sea Lions, and Walruses
Polar Regions of the Earth
Caribou Man
The Inuit: Northern Living
The Nor'easter
You can connect to each book by clicking the ALL BOOKS tab at www.readinga-z.com.
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SIRS Leading Issues
Human & Civil Rights
Grades 6-12
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On January 15, 1929, Michael Luther King, Jr., later renamed Martin, was born to teacher Alberta King and Baptist minister Michael Luther King. The struggle to change conditions in America, and to win equal protection under the law for citizens of all races, formed the backdrop of Martin Luther King's short life. His birthday is a national holiday and is celebrated each year on the first Monday of the week following the actual birthday. This year it will be celebrated on January 16. This holiday helps us to explore the ongoing struggle for human and civil rights, not only here in the U.S. but also in the world.
Activity: Leading Issues provides teachers and students with the resources to better understand how this ongoing struggle for human and civil rights plays out on a variety of issues that define it on a daily basis. Here are some of the Leading Issues that focus on human and civil rights in our country and in the world:
Affirmative Action
Child Abuse
Criminal Justice
Death Penalty
Elder Abuse
Gay Rights
Hate Crimes
Homelessness
Human Rights
Health Care Reform
Poverty
Racism
Welfare
Women's Rights
The common denominator to solving most of these issues is to wage war on poverty. So many human rights and civil rights abuses target people who have neither the financial means nor the education and opportunity to acquire them. What are the varying opinions on solving poverty in our country and the world?
- Click "more issues" in the Pro vs. Con section.
- Click the issue of Welfare.
- Take one side or the other of the issue.
- Prepare to present your reasoned opinion using three of the resources provided for the issue.
Leading Issues provides students and teachers with unique and specially prepared research guides for four types of reports/presentations: Formal Research Paper; Mini-Research Report; PowerPoint Presentation; and Mini-Debate. Each of these resources is written in a template designed to specifically correlate to the Leading Issues format. In addition, two teacher guides support the Mini-Research and the Mini-Debate student guides. This makes it easy for teachers and students to work together to manage analysis, synthesis, and reporting, generally the least understood processes in conducting student research activities.
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eLibrary
Student Gambling
Grades 7-12
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January is the time for NFL football playoffs and NCAA college bowl games. All of these football extravaganzas provide an opportunity for office betting pools, telephone, and online wagering.
During the last decade, there has been a steady increase in gambling activity on all sports but particularly on football. The popularity of gambling on sports has spread to students in college and now in high schools across the country. There is an enormous down side to this activity especially for students who may become more easily addicted to the thrill and idea of winning money at a time when their personal finances are usually low.
Activity: One of the ways of combating this problem of student gambling is to study the potential negative effects of the gambling on social, emotional, and financial well-being of students. ProQuest has created a model BookCart titled "Student Gambling." It's a collection of digital articles, magazines, and websites that present some compelling views and information on the perils of student gambling. The BookCart includes a national standard for Health and three Essential Questions for students to consider while doing their mini-research activity. These EQs provide examples for teachers to use to help ensure that students integrate critical thinking into their mini-research activities. Here are the EQs from the BookCart:
- Why can student gambling become addictive?
- What kinds of social, emotional, and economic problems can excessive student gambling lead to?
- What are some ways to reduce the extent of this problem?
- How can the government help to discourage or eliminate student gambling?
Ask your librarian for support in copying this BookCart to your local collection. Or do it yourself by reviewing this Flash-enabled tutorial from our K-12 website.
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CultureGrams
National Holidays: Heros
Grades 4-12
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Just as Americans honor Martin Luther King, Jr. each January, people in countries around the world set aside national holidays to honor their heroes. For example, India celebrates the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi (Oct. 2), independence leader and advocate of peaceful resistance. On Chulalongkorn Day (Oct. 23), Thailand honors the "beloved monarch" (1868–1910) who abolished slavery and introduced reforms. And in the small African nation of Lesotho, Moshoeshoe's Day (March 12) honors King Moshoeshoe the Great, who fought against the encroachment of Afrikaaners on Sotho land.
Activity: National holidays can provide excellent opportunities for you to educate students about the countries and cultures of the world. Students gain unique insights into a nation as they learn how it celebrates its important events and heroes. Using the Holidays sections of the CultureGrams reports, have students identify a national holiday for a particular country and research how it's celebrated. Or choose a holiday each month to celebrate as a class.
CultureGrams subscribers can access holidays information in the series' 187 concise, reliable, and up-to-date country reports. Short biographies of national heroes are also available in the CultureGrams series of Famous People.
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eLibrary BookCarts
Fresh BookCarts
Grades: 4-12
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Did you know that eLibrary has more than 350 model BookCarts created for teachers to use immediately with assigned student mini-research projects?
These BookCarts all contain more than 25 digital articles, graphics, websites, and publications specially selected to save classroom and library time and ensure quality results for students and teachers. These standards-based models also provide Essential Questions samples to help teachers integrate more critical thinking into topical mini-research activities. Another new feature in each BookCart is the multiple-choice Quiz Template (QuizCarts) for teachers to use to create short quizzes that direct and help review student reading assignments for factual information.
All of these BookCarts are freely available for downloading to your local collection. Here's a list of the available BookCarts that can be copied and shared by teachers at your school.
Ask your librarian for support in copying these or use
this link to our tutorial. Scroll down to Copying the ProQuest Collection. You may also want to view the Flash demonstration by clicking the link integrated with the text in this section.
Here are some samples of some of the timely and most engaging BookCarts recently created for teachers and students:
Wikepedia for Student Research?
Language Arts: High School
OPEC and World Oil Supply
Social Studies (Economics): High School
Student Gambling
Health & Safety: High School
United Nations History & Challenges
World History: Middle School
Food, Nutrition, and Disease
Health & Fitness: Middle School
Endangered Animals
Science (Environmental): Elementary
Economic Games, Simulations, and Info
Social Studies (Economics): Elementary
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eLibrary Elementary
Art Appreciation
Grades K-6
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One of the ProQuest Teachable Moments themes for this month is Art Appreciation. Art activities are a natural motivator for students in K-6. To help support a variety of creative art and crafts activities in elementary schools, ProQuest has created a BookCart for K-6 teachers.
Most librarians and teachers view BookCarts as a student research resource however, BookCarts can be a great tool for teacher professional development, too. This teacher BookCart provides a collection of articles, publications, and websites that access a wealth of arts and crafts activities that are fun and educational too.
The BookCart is entitled "Arts and Crafts Projects" and is one of more than 100 BookCarts created for elementary teachers and students. To view a list of all BookCarts including the elementary offerings, click here.
Activity: Open the Teacher Edition of eLibrary Elementary and click BookCart Admin. Type "Arts and Crafts Projects" in the Title box and "PQ BookCart" in the Author box, then click Search. Check the box next to this BookCart title and click Copy. The BookCart will be copied to your local collection and be ready for any teacher to use. Or you may want to ask your librarian to copy this for you using this tutorial link. Scroll down to Copying the ProQuest Collection. You may also want to view the Flash demonstration by clicking the link in this section.
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ExploreLearning Gizmos
Chinese New Year
Grades 5-10
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The Chinese New Year falls between Jan. 21 and Feb. 19 each year, beginning on the day the new moon appears according to the Chinese lunar calendar.
Every year of this calendar is represented not only by a number but also by an animal of the zodiac. There are 12 in all: the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. Chinese legend holds that Buddha called all the animals in his kingdom before him; these 12 obeyed and were rewarded for their loyalty with a year named for them.
Activity: ExploreLearning Gizmos provide a way for students to understand more about the phases of the moon that determine the lunar calendar.
Moon Phases Gizmo
Moonrise, Moonset, and Phases Gizmo
You can find links to these, and our full collection of hands-on Gizmos at ExploreLearning.com.
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Historical Newspapers
Baseball Hall of Fame
Grades 8-11
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The Baseball Hall of Fame was founded January 29, 1936 in Cooperstown, NY. As such, it's the oldest institution dedicated to honoring the achievement of individual athletes in a major sport. Many students continue their interest in our "National Pastime" and continue to get excited about the annual crop of new inductees into the Hall of Fame.
Activity: Students will be motivated to explore the birth and early years of the Hall of Fame. PHN provides a great way to do this.
- Type "Baseball Hall of Fame and Cooperstown" in the Search box.
- Type "Hall of Fame" in the Document Title box in Advanced Search options.
- Click Search button.
- There will be more than 60 results for the era
1933-45.
- Click the icon for this era.
Here are some examples of Essential Questions for teachers to assign so students can integrate critical thinking into their reports:
- Why was there a need to create a Baseball Hall of Fame?
- Why was Cooperstown, NY selected to be its home?
- Why were baseball writers designated to determine which players were inducted?
- What rules were instituted so that only the most worthy players would receive this honor?
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ProQuest Platinum
Chinese New Year & Western New Year Celebrations
Grades 6-12
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The Chinese New Year falls between Jan. 21 and Feb. 19 each year, beginning on the day the new moon appears according to the Chinese lunar calendar. Every year of this calendar is represented not only by a number but also by an animal of the zodiac. There are 12 in all: the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. Chinese legend holds that Buddha called all the animals in his kingdom before him; these 12 obeyed and were rewarded for their loyalty with a year named for them.
Activity: Find out more about the Chinese New Year and how it compares to our Western New Year celebrations.
- Type "Chinese AND New Year AND monkey AND lunar" In the Basic Search box.
- Click the Search button.
- Browse through almost 20 articles describing present and past new year celebrations.
To ensure that students use critical thinking skills to create their reports, teachers need to create engaging and Essential Questions to provide focus and motivate original thought. Here are some samples of these EQs:
- What animal is this year named after and what makes the coming year different than previous years?
- Why is the Chinese New Year based on a variable calendar and the Western New Year on a fixed date of January 1?
- How are the rituals of the Chinese New Year similar to and different from the Western holiday?
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SIRS Decades
Civil Rights & MLK
Grades 7-12
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On January 15, 1929, Michael Luther King, Jr., later renamed Martin, was born to teacher Alberta King and Baptist minister Michael Luther King. The struggle to change conditions in America, and to win equal protection under the law for citizens of all races, formed the backdrop of Martin Luther King's life. His birthday is a national holiday and is celebrated each year on the first Monday of the week following the actual birthday. This year it will be celebrated on January 16.
Dr. King is best remembered for his leadership in the March on Washington on August 28, 1963. This culminated the era of non-violent mass protest when 250,000 people from across the country demonstrated for the rights of African-Americans. It was here that he gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, stirring the consciences of viewers around the world.
Activity: Dr. King was famous for his philosophy of non-violence which he used in achieving his goal of getting universal support for the civil rights of African-Americans. Students need to explore what happened then and why it matters now.
- Click the 1960 icon.
- Click the Civil Rights Topic.
- Answer at least one of the Essential Questions below.
- Cite three resources that were used to answer the Essential Questions.
Here are some examples of the Essential Questions that teachers may assign to students as they study Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s:
- What are some examples of his strategies of non-violence?
- Who were some of the non-African-American groups in the country who supported Dr. King and why did they?
- How did President Kennedy lend support to the Civil Rights Movement?
- What are some of the reforms that were written into the Civil Rights Law?
- To what extent has the Civil Rights Law been disappointing to this day?
- What provisions of the law have had the greatest success thus far?
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SIRS Discover & WebFind
The Arts
Grades K-8
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ProQuest Teachable Moments theme for January is The Arts. Students in K-8 are often interested in creative activities that include arts and crafts. Did you know that Discoverer/WebFind is both a student and teacher tool? Good teachers are always looking for new ideas and activities to motivate and challenge their students. These activities are most successful when connected to the students' current world and interests.
Activity: Teachers should browse and gather ideas from the Arts Subject Tree.
- Click the Arts icon.
- View the list of art and art related topics/subtopics which include:
Acting & Drama
Animation
Architecture
Artists
Comics
Dance
Decorative
Arts & Crafts
Graphic Art & Design
Mass Media
Music
Painting, Illustrating & Cartooning
Photography
Sculpture
Street Art
- Open each of these and look for the red "a" that indicates that it's an activity.
- Pick your favorites, print, and get your students started.
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Cordially,
Your ProQuest K-12 Team
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