al-mofhariz

Paul Greenberg recently reviewed D. Graham Burnett's The Sounding of the Whale: Science and Cetaceans in the Twentieth Century in the New York Times . Greenberg traces the arc, as told by Burnett, of the cetacean scientist from standing knee-deep in whale innards at the turn of the century to being newly enlightened by whale-ish complexity in the interwar years to fighting alongside other frustrated technocrats at the dawn of an age of international conservation to expanding the human and Cete mind in groovy ways amidst a backdrop of Cold War science. He comes away fascinated by the experience, but also wonders if the reading public wouldn't benefit from something less that 793 pages, with footnotes for the footnotes (almost) ---or actually, he wonders if the public wouldn't benefit from more: a shortened version to accompany the encyclopedic one. Read the review. You'll encounter the characters who most capture Greenberg's imagination: A. Remington Kellogg (the P...

JigSaw Reading Strategy....       I try to balance investigation with content knowledge in my classroom. Let's face it, sometimes you have to read a book to get the knowledge you need to connect to the investigation, right? But there are effective ways to use a text book and ineffective ways.  One of my favorite ways to use nonfiction text is by using the JigSaw method. This is how it works:  1.  First you need to read the text to make sure it covers what you want your students to know.  2.  I picked these four sections - Pushes and Pulls, Friction, Position & Motion, Acceleration 3.  Next, I prepare four chart papers with the title and the page numbers at the top of each. Put one chart paper and one book at each table.  Give each group a different colored marker to use - group 1 red, group 2 blue, group 3 green, group 4 orange. 4. Finally, give the kids about 5 minutes at each table to read the sectio...