Are You As Smart As My Fourth Graders?

Actually, they may not be all that smart, either. But tonight watching Jeopardy! I did discover a category they might be able to pass. Any of my students, from all my classes in the last 14 years. I forget exactly the name of it, but it was something like, The Second Line...Each of the five items was about a famous piece of writing, but you had to identify it from a less well-known quote they gave from the body of the piece -- not the famous First Line.

The pieces were the Gettysburg Address, the Declaration of Independence, the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech, and the poem by Emma Lazarus that is written on the base of the Statue of Liberty.

I knew the question to each answer because each year I teach my students about these pieces of historical literature. I teach them a lot of other things, too. But I always work in these five. We learn about the six promises of the Preamble on Constitution Day. (Did you know there is a federally mandated day to teach it? Sept. 17th) We spend a week on Dr. King's life and words in January. I always have Abraham Lincoln week in February, as well as George Washington week. I think President's Day is too mushy, and it contributes to the confusion many students have that makes these two American leaders indistinguishable from one another. AAAGGHH! It is a pet-peeve of mine that people can't remember the basic facts about those two, so I belabor it with my classes every year. But...I use them to teach writing, history and math, because it doesn't really matter what the context for the learning is, as long as you are learning. I knock off the two birds that way: cultural literacy and my content standards.

Then, the next answer on Jeopardy! was about the Declaration of Independence. That just fits right in with George Washington week so nicely. It also was part of Maryland history when I lived there. The final Americana writing was the poem The New Colossus. There was a unit in my previous reading anthology about immigrants, including a magazine article about the Statue of Liberty. I have found a good substitute for those stories out here in Nevada and I still have the fact piece, so we read all about it, and read the poem and learn why it was important. And then, we write poetry ourselves as though we are Liberty Enlightening the World, looking down on the country, each telling what is going through their copper brain. They write really lovely poetry when they have something they know about as a topic.

So, I was very proud of myself tonight as I watched t.v. to realize that I've taught my students about these pieces of Americana consistently through the years. I'm a shameless propagandist as a teacher. I want my students to know about this really awesome nation and our historical icons and develop a love for it all. It's my little contribution to the future.