The teacher resources provided on this site are courtesy of Cathryn Berger Kaye, author and leading international expert in service learning, with some additional links provided by RandomKid ("rk")
EDUCATION
• Sample Lesson Plans
Visit GoToServiceLearning and Learn and Serve for a range of water-related lesson plans.
• Curriculum Webs
Education/Literacy Across the Curriculum
• Book Recommendations
How Lincoln Learned to Read by Daniel Wolff (Bloomsbury, 2009). How has education mattered in the lives of twelve influential people? Read about Ben Franklin finding “his own way to what he needed to know” and becoming a champion of schooling. Learn about Belle, born in 1797, whose “main school would be slavery.” Follow the story of Helen Keller who wrote in her autobiography, “Knowledge is love and light and vision.” Learn how Elvis attended school in “the poorest white neighborhood in town [with] electricity, indoor plumbing, and heating: ‘a shared source of pride and joy.’” And for Lincoln, just read the book! 345pp., grades 10–12, nonfiction
In Our Village: Kambi ya Simba through the Eyes of Its Youth by Students of Awet Secondary School, edited by Barbara Cervone (Next Generation Press, 2006). Equipped with digital cameras and tape recorders, students recorded their daily lives in a remote village in Tanzania. As we read these brief detailed chapters, drawn from essays by 350 students and interviews with villagers, our sense of global literacy is increased. In a world where education is far from being uniform and in a place without books, these young authors’ achievement is astonishing. 64 pp., all ages, nonfiction
My Life as a Book by Janet Tashjian (Henry Holt, 2010). Derek wants to enjoy summer and escape from the diabolical summer reading list that threatens to make his life miserable. What he does read is a newspaper article about a mysterious drowning that seems to involve him when he was a baby. Along the way Derek illustrates his vocabulary words with amusing images. This technique helps him demystify the hard words and makes reading fun. Filled with action, humor, a heartfelt resolution, and plenty of drawings by the author’s teenage son. 211pp., grades 4–6, fiction
Our Library by Eve Bunting (Clarion Books, 2008). When devotees of a local library learn that it will close, they read their way to a solution and manage to save this important community center. 32 pp., picture book
A School Like Mine: A Unique Celebration of Schools Around the World: A Unique Celebration of Schools Around the World by Penny Smith and Zahavit Shalev (DK Publishing, 2008). Images of vivacious children from all over the world accompany facts about the active lives of forty-one students and the schools they attend. This book serves as a reminder that education must be available everywhere, that equity in education needs to be a priority, and that the dreams and aspirations of those who pursue education are more similar than we might imagine.78 pp., all ages, nonfiction
• Service-Learning Guides
For information about Strategies for Success with Literacy: A Learning Curriculum that Serves, a comprehensive program aimed at providing essential skills through high level literacy, social and emotional development, and civic engagement through service learning, contact Cathryn Berger Kaye at cbkaye@aol.com and www.abcdbooks.org. This research-based program has been implemented with over 45,000 students in the Los Angeles Unified School District as part of its dropout prevention plan.
• Articles and additional links
The In Our Global Village international literacy program invites youth worldwide to write a book about their “village,” their community, in whatever form that is—and contribute both tangible books to be shared near and far along with a virtual copy that can be viewed on the program website. The concept began with a book In Our Village: Kambi ya Simba through the Eyes of Its Youth written by students in a small village in Tanzania. Learn more at www.inourvillage.org and click on the box “See Also In Our Global Village Program.” Visitors are welcome to view and download the “village” books and to create their own. Curriculum materials provided.
