Molly Sandling

I received this book as an Early Reviewers prize. I have to say it took me forever to read this book. I tried to approach it as if I was studying the topic by reading all the incidental material and viewing the suggested web sites, and listening to the music suggestions. There were a lot of typo's and mistakes, also a lot of the links mentioned were outdated and didn't work too well.
I found the book to extremely liberal and left leaning and was disappointed in some of the language in some of the readings they suggested for Grades 6-8.
The only reason I give this two stars is there were a couple of the suggested books that I did enjoy and would not have read if not directed by this book.
Otherwise I don't see much redeeming quality in this as a teaching tool for kids.… (mehr)

When I studied history and social studies in middle school, I was continually frustrated at the lack of coverage of more modern history. Our lessons tended to end around the first World War, either through inefficient use of classroom time, or because of mandated lesson plans that had not been updated for far too long.

I was intrigued by this book specifically because I wanted to see how the decade in which I grew up might be presented in a historical context. Unfortunately, that is not what this book contains.

Instead, it is geared completely toward teachers, providing basic lesson plans for how to approach various topics from the 1980s, but critically without any text or historical content. There are lesson plans and worksheets, but virtually nothing else. All of the actual information about the 1980s must be provided by the instructor.

As such, this is a mere skeleton of a book, an outline onto which real learning can be hung. It might be very useful for a teacher, but as someone who was looking to consume information, I was left wanting more.… (mehr)

I m not sure I was expecting a middle school supplementary textbook, when I did the Early Reviewer book request. I am from an era when current event topics were a little less formalized and handled by subscriptions to periodicals like Junior Scholastic. The ten topics selected were: 9-11 (2 chapters), Iraq & Afghanistan wars, Hurricane Katrina, Rap and Hip-hop, street art, going green, self-expression, recessions, and the present and future (a summing up). Th presumption of this book is to involve students in way to be aware and personally involved in what's going. My own system at this age was dibble in lots and lots things in a much more laissez-faire manner that may or may not have involved teachers. So I am not sure of how one might want to understand the moral value of this approach.… (mehr)