Text #3 - My Granny Went to Market
My Granny Went to Market is a children’s book about a grandmother’s journey across the world. She travels to different countries on her magic carpet and buys souvenirs along the way. This book is filled with pictures of her journey and the items that she purchases. More importantly her souvenirs are icons of their culture and therefore exposing readers to cultural differences from around the world. Not only is this book visually appealing but it also uses rhyming to grab the attention of it’s young readers.
After asking for volunteers to read from the book we will discuss the different countries that were mentioned and the souvenirs that were purchased. If there are any students from other countries in the classroom then this would be a great opportunity for them to share an interesting fact or two about their country or culture. After the class discussion they will choose a partner for their “All Around the World” project and decide on a country that they would like to research. Once they have chosen their country they will need to look up the cost of the flight for both of them, staying in a hotel for 4 nights, touring 1 attraction, and a recipe for a signature dish in that country. They must also tweak the recipe to feed all 27 students. They will also be required to create a presentation that includes all of this information and try to convince the class why their country would be the best place to visit. All of the travel expenses should be calculated to the nearest cent (NO ROUNDING TO THE NEAREST DOLLAR) and the recipe must be written in fraction form. Their least favorite part about this project is that they are not allowed to use a calculator. This project is done at the end of our unit on decimals and fractions.
Blackstone, S., & Corr, C. (2005). My granny went to market: A round-the-world counting rhyme. Cambridge, Mass.: Barefoot Books.
This book reminds me of the video that I posted on my blog that goes over the themes and summary of The House on Mango street which is a book that we will read in my classroom. Even though this is a children's book and has a much simpler plot than the House on Mango street they can be related in what they do for students. The House on mango street follows heavy themes such as abuse and feminism, but also looks at various cultures and teaches students to appreciate people for their differences. Your children's book does the same thing and I think that speaks a lot for the power of literature. They are from two different realms of teaching. Young students vs older students, but they provide the opportunity to for these two different age groups to learn and appreciate other cultures. I will put a heavy enfaces on this in my classroom.
ReplyDeleteRenee,
ReplyDeleteI really like the text you've chosen. In the lesson plan that I'm using for this class, I'm using Romeo & Juliet. However, in my current internship, the students are reading To Kill a Mockingbird. Some may consider the text you're using to be for a younger audience than high school, but it made me think of a fun activity I could do with my class. My idea stems from your choice to use a culturally diverse text. Considering that To Kill a Mockingbird deals with matters of racism, I think that having students bring in/select books from the library that deal with cultural diversity would be awesome. I could bring in the text you've suggested!