Can Electives Build Readers?

Background

I love electives. They kept me in teaching. For many years in a community college, I taught books like Parallel Time, Walking with the Wind-A Memoir of the Movement, A Hope in the Unseen-An American Odyssey from the Inner City to the Ivy League, Dead Man Walking, etc. as part of ENG 101 classes. In some ways, the community college was a horrible place to teach. Most of us were adjuncts, part-timers year after year, and they forgot to pay us much. The union for the fulltime faculty in the City University of New York was too small to matter much in a city of mega-unions each with tens of thousands of members in New York City, and the fulltimers pretended that the adjuncts did not exist at contract time. But the English Department did treat adjuncts like professionals. We were allowed to select the reading materials for our classes.

If the department had forced me to use the boring anthologies in wide use in the English Department, I would have left teaching. How can instructors expect students to read about 15 or more topics in an anthology? The opportunity to connect to a topic is so limited. But enough about me.

By now we know that electives are much more likely to allow a teacher to choose reading materials that he or she cares about. With enthusiasm and energy from a teacher about the reading assignment, a class is much more likely to be engaged in the readings. But where is the evidence?

Students Chose to Be in the Elective

If you need to convince an administrator that electives engage students far more than core courses demanded by states, Jal Mehta and Sarah Price have much to say about electives in their excellent book In Search of Deeper Learning. They observed required classes and electives in a variety of high schools across the country and found that when students chose a course that they were much more involved in the content:

“In different ways, these electives were able to open up alternative possibilities for schooling, and so unleash an energy and level of student interest that was often absent from core classes. They were able to do so in part because they were buffered from many of the demands and expectations that controlled the rest of the school’s curricula. Because many of the students in electives were seniors, the college pressure was lessened, and there were more opportunities to engage in a learning rather than a performance orientation.” (p.237)

“One of the schools’ prized gems was an elective called “Philosophy as Literature.”… Much of what Mr. Fields did in his Philosophy of Literature class he could and did do in his regular disciplinary classes. Yet the fact that this was an elective made the learning environment more powerful here than in his English I classes, which we also witnessed. That students had chosen to be here was key— there was a kind of rapt, shared attention in this class that we did not see to the same degree in his regular classes…” (p. 237)

 

Can Electives Replace Core Survey Courses?

The electives that they describe were additions to the standard prescribed content in the high schools they visited. In Maryland where I live, the state requires 3 credits of history: US History, a National, State, and Local  Government requirement–which is a civics course, and World History. And there are the AP electives. The textbook in  Local, State, and National Government is horrible. A more boring book could not be written. (See McGruder’s American Government.)

People are missing in the book. There are no portraits of legislators, or judges or activists, just page after page about the structure of government. Not a word about the people who build governments but local of details about regulatory agencies. It also did not bother to write even a paragraph about Thurgood Marshall who more than did his bit to improve our world . In fact, his name does not appear even once in the book. This is so because experts in the Maryland State Education Department decided that NSL is to be about the structure of government, the branches etc. rather that people who supported or challenged the status quo.

Students have told me that this course is boring. This boring course is taught year after year to every 10th grader in Maryland. Every five years or so, Montgomery County in Maryland fires its superintendent for his or her failure to close the achievement gap in the county. But of course, the curriculum never changes. If textbooks are boring or written at a reading level beyond that of some students, it’s OK. The curriculum never even gets examined. Local principals, and school board members at the Montgomery County Board of Education lack the courage to challenge and replace the state’s horrible choices in reading materials.

It’s Time for Replacements

What would happen locally if a high school started offering the Civil Rights movement either within the NSL course or replacing the NSL course. Would bureaucrats from the state capitol in Annapolis arrive at high schools and arrest local principals for skipping the state’s requirements?

Actual Ebooks for Electives

The titles I suggest below are not a replacement for the titles teachers themselves would choose, but in each topic, I think these ebooks provide much better narratives than what is available in textbooks. Of course,  it is hard to find a lower bar for narratives than the language which appears in textbooks.

The Civil Rights Movement in a Civics Course.

Mary McLeod Bethune by Emma Gelders Sterne. While Bethune is usually thought of as an educator rather than a civil rights activist, education is a fundamental civil right, of course. And readers of this book will see Bethune’s courage as she fights with the K.K.K. The book also offers many opportunities for students to compare obstacles in education then and now in writing.

Freedom Ride, Civil Rights and Non-Violent Resistance by James Peck. This book actually speaks to the conflict between federal laws and local customs that could be part of a civics course. The Supreme Court outlawed segregation in interstate travel in Boynton v. Virginia in 1960, but when activists tested this federal regulation in a bus trip through the South 1961, violence occurred. They were almost beaten to death in an Alabama bus station. The writer received 53 stitches in a hospital after the attack by a mob. What was the response of the federal government to these attacks?

Thurgood Marshall: From His Early Years to Brown by Michael D. Davis and Hunter R. Clark. In this book, readers will see how Thurgood Marshall and his colleagues in the N.A.A.C.P. spent years nudging the Supreme Court toward the Brown decision by bringing a series of earlier court cases. Readers will also learn much about Marshall’s youth in Jim Crow Baltimore. This is only one of the three books in this elective that I have taught, and my students–most of whom were immigrants–said the book helped them learn about race in America. The second biography of Marshall describes the Brown case, and the aftermath to Brown, and Marshall’s work on the Supreme Court. See Thurgood Marshall: His Triumph in Brown, His Years on the Supreme Court.

Study World War II in US History

Serenade to the Big Bird with Maps and a Study Guide by Bert Stiles. “A book of terrific impact. Perhaps the best to come out of World War II.” Philadelphia Inquirer. And this book is easy reading at a 6.2 grade level on the Flesch-Kincaid grade level scale.

Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific by Robert Leckie. This book is a page turner. A young Marine fights with bravery on island after island in the Pacific War. It is one of  our most popular free downloads, and it sells very well on Amazon. It is one of the two books used to tell the story in the HBO series “War in the Pacific.” One caution. There is a brief reference to a sexual connection with an Australian woman while he is on leave in Australia which may or may not offend your students and their parents. Easy reading at 7.2 grade level.

An Army of Amateurs and Escape from Corregidor are also exciting books at the 7th grade reading level.

 

Study Revolutions in Europe in World History

Two witnesses to the Russian revolution brought back quite different opinions about the value of the revolution to the Russians and the world. Both accounts are highly readable. See Runaway Russia on this site with a grade level of 6.4, and Ten Days that Shook the World by John Reed on Project Gutenberg. Reed’s book has a reading level of 8.1.

In The Mad Dog of Europe, readers will see the strategies Hitler used to take power in Germany. The back story to this novel is fascinating but in a sad way. Why did Hollywood suppress this story in its original version as a film script in the early 30s? The introduction explains. Easy reading at 6.3.

Photo of James Weldon Johnson

The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man by James Weldon Johnson

Epub or Mobi?
The epub format below is for your Apple and Android devices and in one case for Amazon devices. As you may know, Amazon has changed to the epub format to use with the Send to Kindle program. A great feature of the Send to Kindle program is that the file will go directly to your Library folder, and not have to be searched for in ES File Explorer or another app. If you use the mobi format in Send to Kindle, you will now get an error message. You can see instructions about Send to Kindle at https://www.amazon.com/gp/sendtokindle/email.

So if you are using this ebook on Apple, or Android devices, or in the Send to Kindle program, you can download this epub file below.

If you or your students want to download directly from this web site to an Amazon device, you can use the mobi format below. When you find the mobi file in ES File Explorer, it will then open in the Kindle app on your tablet. If you download an epub file to your Amazon tablet, it will also open if you have an app such as Overdrive on your tablet. The Kindle app offers an excellent reading experience to start with. Overdrive may need some customization of font size.

From Reviewers on Goodreads:

I have to admit, for a good while I had no idea that this was a novel. It is so convincing as an “autobiography” that I believed this to be Johnson’s own story. Some of it is, from what I glean off the back cover blurb. Whatever the case, it is a book that is immediately engrossing; a remarkably evocative time capsule that whisks and immerses the reader into the world of early 20th-century America…

…The book is a vibrant and fulsomely descriptive evocation of black American life in the early 20th century and is at the same time an exuberant celebration of black culture and of the often unremarked contributions to the world of black Americans and their ancestors.

The novel is honest, flavorful and lovingly rendered, and even with all that has come to pass it remains relevant.

I loved nearly every word of it.

********

This is a book where a lot of things happen one right after the other and yet it didn’t strike me as episodic. It flowed very naturally. Overall, I’m very happy to have read this classic and would recommend highly to everyone. The curiosity and amusement which led to my picking up the book was anthropological in nature but I also ended up just enjoying a very good and interesting story. This really is an outstanding book.

********

James Weldon Johnson wrote two autobiographies, this fictional one of a character referred to only as the Ex-Colored Man, which he published anonymously in 1912, and Along This Way, relating his own remarkable life and career, published only four years before his tragic death in 1938, when the car he was riding in, driven by his wife, was hit by a train.

The Autobiography of An Ex-Colored Man is his most famous book and it recounts the life of a biracial man born in a small town in Georgia just after the Civil War. He benefits from his black mother’s nurturing and guidance, his absent white father’s financial support of them both, and his innate intelligence and musical abilities. His discovery at school that he is not white shocks him and casts a shadow over his future. He can “pass” for white, however, and the main theme of the book is his struggle over whether to identify as white or black.

Johnson was born in 1871 in Jacksonville, Florida; unlike the Ex-Colored Man, who planned to attend Atlanta University but never did, he graduated from there in 1894. Among other achievements are his admission to the Florida State Bar in 1897 as the first African-American to do so since Reconstruction, successful Broadway music career with his brother Rosamond, service as U.S. Consul to Puerto Cabello, Venezuela and Corinto, Nicaragua, appointment as first executive secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and career as professor of literature at Fisk University in Nashville and New York University.

I highly recommend this book and plan to read Johnson’s own autobiography, as well. I have to give a shout out to James K. White, whose narration of the free LibriVox audiobook I listened to was outstanding. (Here is the audiobook.)

Book Cover with Photographs of Frank Howley

Berlin Command by General Frank L. Howley

The epub format below is for your Apple and Android devices including Send-to-Kindle.

If you or your students want to download directly from this web site to  an Amazon device, you can use the mobi format below. When you find the mobi file  in ES File Explorer, it will then open in the Kindle app on your tablet. If you download an epub file to your Amazon tablet, it will also open if you have an app such as Overdrive on your tablet. The Kindle app offers an excellent reading experience to start with. Overdrive may need some customization of font size.

Download mobi file here.

The New York Times did not love Berlin Command by General Frank L. Howley. The Times suggested that Howley was a little full of himself. It did not like his arguments with his superiors, and his criticisms of other officials involved in the Berlin Airlift. I disagree with the Times. I enjoyed the narrative. It was energetic and straightforward, if at times a little opinionated. But General Howley had the right to take some of the credit for the success of the Airlift.

He was the military manager of the American sector of Berlin. With the airlift of food and coal from West Germany to Berlin, he and his colleagues rescued the over 2 million people in the Allied sectors of Berlin from lives under Soviet tyranny after the Russians had stopped road, rail, and waterway traffic to Berlin in 1948 and 1949.

I would suggest that you advise your students to skip most of the first chapters where Howley talks about the division and administration of Germany before the airlift was necessary. I think that Howley produced an interesting introduction to the Cold War. He shows how the distrust between the U.S. and Russia came about. The tension created by the Berlin Airlift influenced American politicians and military leaders for decades.

The grade level is 10.3.

Cover with Soldier with Rifle

The Road to Stalingrad by Benno Zieser

The epub format below is for your Apple and Android devices including Send-to-Kindle.

If you or your students want to download directly from this web site to  an Amazon device, you can use the mobi format below. When you find the mobi file  in ES File Explorer, it will then open in the Kindle app on your tablet. If you download an epub file to your Amazon tablet, it will also open if you have an app such as Overdrive on your tablet. The Kindle app offers an excellent reading experience to start with. Overdrive may need some customization of font size.

Download mobi file here.

 

On the last day of January, 1943, the German Sixth Army surrendered to the Russians at Stalingrad. After a winter cam­paign of unparalleled horror and hardship, the Wehrmacht was beaten.

THE ROAD TO STALINGRAD is a shattering eyewitness account of that lost battle-written by a survivor. Benno Zieser was drafted at the age of nineteen and fought in the infantry at Stalingrad, in this book he tells of his first naive enthusiasm—then the shocking realities:

The frozen wastes of an unconquerable continent . . . gutted roads strewn with abandoned equipment . . . the anonymous graves by the wayside . . . the colossal fraud behind Hitler’s promise of victory.

Not since ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT has a German author written such a powerful indictment of war—but Benno Zieser’s book is fact, not fiction.

The Penicillin Man: The Story of Alexander Fleming by John Rowland

The epub format below is for your Apple and Android devices including Send-to-Kindle.

As you may know, Amazon has changed to the epub format to use with the Send-to-Kindle program. A great feature of the Send-to-Kindle program is that the file will go directly to your Library folder, and not have to be searched for in ES File Explorer or another app. If you use the mobi format in Send-to-Kindle, you will now get an error message. You can see instructions about Send to Kindle at https://www.amazon.com/gp/sendtokindle/email.

If you or your students want to download directly from this web site to an Amazon device, you can use the mobi format below. When you find the mobi file in ES File Explorer, it will then open in the Kindle app on your tablet. If you download an epub file to your Amazon tablet, it will also open if you have an app such as Overdrive on your tablet. The Kindle app offers an excellent reading experience to start with. Overdrive may need some customization of font size.

Download mobi file here.

Reviews

“This book is more than the story of a great discovery. It is an inspiring account of the rewards, both in fame and personal satisfaction, that a scientific career offers.”—New York Times.

“A readable story about a great personality.”—Virginia Kirkus.

“From Scottish farm boy to Nobel Prize winner, this book traces the events that led a brilliant mind to a new concept in the treatment of disease: the body has natural defenses against disease that must be discovered and enhanced. Teenagers who have grown up in the security of antibiotics will gain a perspective on medicine’s swift progress in the few years since Fleming discovered the bacteria-killing mold “—Scholastic Teacher.

Blurb

One morning in September 1928 a scientist at St. Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, noticed that an experiment he was working on had been ruined by an accident. Some bacteria he was studying had been damaged by a colony of mould spores.

The scientist was Alexander Fleming. The mould contained the substance from which the drug penicillin is made. The accident led to one of the greatest medical discoveries of modern times. It cost Fleming and the scientists who followed up his discovery many years of labor ; but the result was a life-saving substance which even cautious scientists called a miracle.

This is the story of how the miracle worked, and of the man who made it possible.