Sparking Their Interest–Engaging Students with “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire”!

Today is the day! The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is now playing in theaters everywhere. Whether you're seeing the movie this weekend or later on, the excitement surrounding the release is sure to last a while. Why not take advantage of the buzz to get your students excited about learning?

Students' fascination with The Hunger Games can be more than an obsession with popular culture. Great teachers like yourselves recognize the potential to transform entertainment into education, harnessing students' interests to engage them in productive learning. Tracee Orman, Teach 100 blogger and the mind behind the wildly popular website Hunger Games Lessons has been using Suzanne Collins' popular franchise to add depth and excitement to her lessons since she first di…

The Secret, Part 2 – Permission for an Inner Life

This post was originally published on Wonder of Children, by Lisa Dewey Wells, on October 22, 2013.

Lisa Wells has taught for 20 years in independent schools in MA, NY and MD. She currently writes a blog on child development, teaches yoga and tries to spend as much time with her two high schoolers as they will allow. Lisa’s committed to knowing each learner as an individual, creating a classroom community where the social curriculum is interwoven with the academic fabric and sharing her work with yoga and meditation with teachers and students. As a consulting teacher for the Northeast Foundation for Children’s …

 

Celebrating Banned Books

While it is a popular book used as a teaching tool in schools, The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, was one of the most challenged books of 2010 due to being “sexually explicit, unsuited to [a number of] age [groups], and [violent].” It is often surprising when books are banned from schools, so talking to students about book banning can help spark rich classroom discussions and boost critical thinking skills.

HISTORY OF BOOK BANNING

Books are banned by different organizations for a multitude of reasons. The history of book banning is…

 

Biology, Ecology & Jabberjays: Teaching Science with Science Fiction

SCI-FI IN SCI-ED

The literary genre of science fiction offers a “human lens” to complex scientific ideas, providing readers and learners with a more comprehensive and accessible view into topics such as biology, chemistry and physics. Bringing this genre into the classroom offers an interdisciplinary approach to learning, integrating English-Language Arts (ELA) and History into science lessons, which is especially important with the implementation of the Common Core Standards and its focus on ELA skills across all content areas. Education initiatives such as the

 

The Secret? (We Need Downtime)

This post was originally published on Wonder of Children, by Lisa Dewey Wells, on October 14, 2013.

Lisa Wells has taught for 20 years in independent schools in MA, NY and MD. She currently writes a blog on child development, teaches yoga and tries to spend as much time with her two high schoolers as they will allow. Lisa’s committed to knowing each learner as an individual, creating a classroom community where the social curriculum is interwoven with the academic fabric and sharing her work with yoga and meditation with teachers and students. As a consulting teacher for the Northeast Foundation for Children’s Responsive Classroo…

Rue, Racism, & Reading: Using The Hunger Games to Talk About Comprehension Skills

Last year’s release of The Hunger Games garnered a great deal of media attention. The movie, adapted from Suzanne Collin’s science fiction novel(s), portrays a dystopian future where young children from each ‘district’ are selected to fight to the death as means of entertainment. The movie and novel have received high praise from critics such as Roger Ebert and The New York Times. The Hunger Games, while critically acclaimed, raised controversy in various corners of the Internet — fans of the young-adult novels voiced their concern and disappointment over the characters Rue, Thresh and Cinna being portrayed by African-American actors.

PUBLIC CONTROVERSY

This public discontent raises a number of concerns, including issues of representations of race and diversity in today’s media, and that Lenny Kravi…

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