Stall High SchoolWe All ReadSchoolwide Book ProjectThere Are No Children Here 2007-2008

Why a school wide reading project?

Reading/Writing Across the Curriculum

Build Community Increase Interest in Non-fiction

Reading

Quick Literacy Statistics

50 percent of American adults are unable to read an eighth grade level book. 

Out-of-school reading habits of students has shown that even 15 minutes a day of independent reading can expose students to more than a million words of text in a year. 

46% of American adults cannot understand the label on their prescription medicine. 

When the State of Arizona projects how many prison beds it will need, it factors in the number of kids who read well in fourth grade. 

The educational careers of 25 to 40 percent of American

children are imperiled because they don't read well enough, quickly enough, or easily enough. 

Stall High School

We All Read: There Are No Children Here At A Glance

Everyone gets a book Students Teachers Administrators Office Staff Student Concern Specialists Cafeteria Workers/ Janitorial Staff/ Bus

Drivers

Housing Projects Video

www.youtube.com/watch?v=frg6gY6qXxI

The Evans family lived in the Cabrini Green Projects... down the street from where our novel is set.

ELA/ Writing Ties

Poetry Letter to the Author

Editorials Journaling

Interviews Book Review

Proposal Memoir

ELA/ Literature TiesThe Grapes of Wrath J. Steinbeck

Manchild in the Promised Land Claude Brown

Scorpions, Monster W.D. Myers

Life In Prison Tookie Williams

“Chicago” Carl Sandburg

The House on Mango St. Sandra Cisneros

A Raisin the SunLorraineHansberry

Comparing Texts:Those who don’t know any better come into our

neighborhood scared. They think we’re dangerous. They think we will attack them with shiny knives. They are stupid people who are lost and got here by mistake.

But we aren’t afraid. We know the guy with the crooked eye is Davey the Baby’s brother, and the tall one next to him in the straw brim, that’s Rosa’s Eddie V. and the big one that looks like a dumb grown man, he’s Fat Boy, though he’s not fat anymore nor a boy.

All brown, all around, we are safe. But watch us drive into a neighborhood of a different color and our knees go shakity-shake and our car windows get rolled up tight and our eyes look straight ahead. Yeah. That’s how it goes and goes.

The House on Mango Street

The youngsters had heard that the suburb-bound commuters, from behind the tinted train windows, would shoot at them for trespassing on the tracks. One of the boys, certain that the commuters were crack shots, burst into tears as the train whisked by. Some of the commuters had heard similar rumors about the neighborhood children and worried that, like the cardboard lions at the carnival shooting gallery, they might be the target of talented snipers. Indeed, some sat away from the windows as the train passed through Chicago’s blighted core. For both the boys and the commuters, the unknown was the enemy.

There Are No Children Here

ELA/ Research ConnectionsResearch Projects Topically Related to the text: Overpopulation in Prisons Juvenile Justice Welfare Reform Police Brutality Economics of the Drug Trade Teen Pregnancy

Gangs

RiDonteCalvary

English IIMrs. Gilbert

October 9, 2007

Survey resultsDo you think gangs are a problem in North

Charleston?Yes 75% No 25%

Have you lost a friend or loved one to street violence?

Yes 63% No 28% Unsure9%70 Stall High School students survey

Sociology

Using the radio documentary Ghetto Life 101as a model, students will create an oral or visual record of a typical

week in their

neighborhoods/homes.

Me and my friend Lloyd Newman just did a description of our life for a week, and we want to give you kids in America a message: Don’t look at ghetto kids as different. You might not want to invite us to your parties, you might think we’ll rob you blind when you got your back turned. But don’t look at us like that. Don’t look at us like we’re an alien or an android or an animal or something. We have a hard life, but we’re sensitive. Ghetto kids are not a different breed-we’re human. Some people might say, “That boy don’t know what he’s talkin’ about!” But I know what I’m talking about. I’m dealing from the heart because I’ve been dealing with this for thirteen years. These are my final words, but you’ll be hearing from me again, ‘cause I’m an up-and-rising activist. Peace Out

LeAIan Jones 13 years old, recording Ghetto Life 101.

Family Life/ Budgeting: Given $542, plan a grocery list to

feed 11 people for 4 weeks. Use grocery store flyers/ go on a field

trip to a local supermarket & price items.

Create a presentation on how you will budget your money

P. 140-142 TANCH

“Once a month, when LaJoe received her public aid check, she hired a cab to take her shopping...LaJoe bought enough to feed herself, Lafeyette, Pharoah, the triplets, and Lashawn, Lashawn’s boyfriend and his brother, Lashawn’s two children, Terence, and Weasel.”

Economics: Use the novel as a tie in to Freakonomics:

“Why Do Drug Dealers Live with Their Moms?”.

An analysis of a crack dealing gang in Chicago (the Black Nation Disciples). It covers economic topics such as fixed & variable costs of production, labor markets, supply & demand, and monopolies.

Freakonomics Text Excerpt:“A 1-in-4 chance of being killed! Compare these odds to being a timber cutter, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics calls the most dangerous job in the United States. Over four years' time, a timber cutter would stand only a 1-in-200 chance of being killed. Or compare the crack dealer's odds to those of a death row inmate in Texas, which executes more prisoners than any other state. In 2003, Texas put to death twenty-four inmates—or just 5 percent of the nearly 500 inmates on its death row during that time. Which means that you stand a greater chance of dying while dealing crack in a Chicago housing project than you do while sitting on death row in Texas. So if crack dealing is the most dangerous job in America, and if the salary is only $3.30 an hour, why on earth would anyone take such a job?”

Math

Use the Cook County Criminal Courts Inventory to create a pie chart showing the percentage breakdown of the crimes committed by the inmates for the year 1988.

P. 131 TANCH

“The 1988 inventory of the Cook County Criminal Courts included 14 perjuries; 103 bribes...8419 rapes; 1584 armed robberies; 1351 accused of unlawful use of a weapon...”

ESOL/ Language Arts

Read a novel with Hispanic characters facing similar struggles, such as Parrot in the Oven or Trino’s Choice. Students create a visual project comparing the two works.

Psychology: Mazlow’s Heirarchy of Needs

Urica p. 134/ Growing Up in a “War Zone”

Schoolwide Community Service Partnering with the Lowcountry Food Bank

Canned/ Non-perishable food drive sponsored by Student Government

Saturday Food Packaging/ Family Activity

Author Visit 3 assemblies Author luncheon Student performance Project display