Stall High School We All Read Schoolwide Book Project There Are No Children Here 2007-2008

1. Stall High SchoolWe All ReadSchoolwide Book ProjectThere Are No Children Here 2007-2008

2. Why a school wide reading project? • Reading/Writing Across the Curriculum • Build Community • Increase Interest in Non-fiction Reading

3. Quick Literacy Statistics • 50 percent of American adults are unable to read an eighth grade level book.  • Out-of-school reading habits of students has shown that even 15 minutes a day of independent reading can expose students to more than a million words of text in a year.  • 46% of American adults cannot understand the label on their prescription medicine.  • When the State of Arizona projects how many prison beds it will need, it factors in the number of kids who read well in fourth grade. 

4. The educational careers of 25 to 40 percent of American children are imperiled because they don't read well enough, quickly enough, or easily enough. 

5. Stall High School We All Read: There Are No Children Here At A Glance

6. Everyone gets a book • Students • Teachers • Administrators • Office Staff • Student Concern Specialists • Cafeteria Workers/ Janitorial Staff/ Bus Drivers

8. Housing Projects Video www.youtube.com/watch?v=frg6gY6qXxI

11. The Evans family lived in the Cabrini Green Projects... down the street from where our novel is set.

12. ELA/ Writing Ties Poetry Letter to the Author Editorials Journaling Interviews Book Review Proposal Memoir

13. ELA/ Literature Ties The Grapes of Wrath J. Steinbeck Manchild in the Promised Land Claude Brown Scorpions, Monster W.D. Myers Life In Prison Tookie Williams “Chicago” Carl Sandburg The House on Mango St. Sandra Cisneros A Raisin the Sun LorraineHansberry

15. Those who don’t know any better come into our neighborhood scared. They think we’re dangerous. They think we will attack them with shiny knives. They are stupid people who are lost and got here by mistake. But we aren’t afraid. We know the guy with the crooked eye is Davey the Baby’s brother, and the tall one next to him in the straw brim, that’s Rosa’s Eddie V. and the big one that looks like a dumb grown man, he’s Fat Boy, though he’s not fat anymore nor a boy. All brown, all around, we are safe. But watch us drive into a neighborhood of a different color and our knees go shakity-shake and our car windows get rolled up tight and our eyes look straight ahead. Yeah. That’s how it goes and goes. The House on Mango Street The youngsters had heard that the suburb-bound commuters, from behind the tinted train windows, would shoot at them for trespassing on the tracks. One of the boys, certain that the commuters were crack shots, burst into tears as the train whisked by. Some of the commuters had heard similar rumors about the neighborhood children and worried that, like the cardboard lions at the carnival shooting gallery, they might be the target of talented snipers. Indeed, some sat away from the windows as the train passed through Chicago’s blighted core. For both the boys and the commuters, the unknown was the enemy. There Are No Children Here Comparing Texts:

16. ELA/ Research Connections Research Projects Topically Related to the text: • Overpopulation in Prisons • Juvenile Justice • Welfare Reform • Police Brutality • Economics of the Drug Trade • Teen Pregnancy

17. Gangs RiDonte Calvary English II Mrs. Gilbert October 9, 2007

18. Survey results Do you think gangs are a problem in North Charleston? Yes 75% No 25% Have you lost a friend or loved one to street violence? Yes 63% No 28% Unsure 9% 70 Stall High School students survey

19. Sociology Using the radio documentary Ghetto Life 101as a model, students will create an oral or visual record of a typical week in their neighborhoods/homes.

20. LeAIan Jones 13 years old, recording Ghetto Life 101. Me and my friend Lloyd Newman just did a description of our life for a week, and we want to give you kids in America a message: Don’t look at ghetto kids as different. You might not want to invite us to your parties, you might think we’ll rob you blind when you got your back turned. But don’t look at us like that. Don’t look at us like we’re an alien or an android or an animal or something. We have a hard life, but we’re sensitive. Ghetto kids are not a different breed- we’re human. Some people might say, “That boy don’t know what he’s talkin’ about!” But I know what I’m talking about. I’m dealing from the heart because I’ve been dealing with this for thirteen years. These are my final words, but you’ll be hearing from me again, ‘cause I’m an up-and-rising activist. Peace Out

21. Family Life/ Budgeting: • Given $542, plan a grocery list to feed 11 people for 4 weeks. • Use grocery store flyers/ go on a field trip to a local supermarket & price items. • Create a presentation on how you will budget your money

22. P. 140-142 TANCH “Once a month, when LaJoe received her public aid check, she hired a cab to take her shopping...LaJoe bought enough to feed herself, Lafeyette, Pharoah, the triplets, and Lashawn, Lashawn’s boyfriend and his brother, Lashawn’s two children, Terence, and Weasel.”

23. Economics: Use the novel as a tie in to Freakonomics: “Why Do Drug Dealers Live with Their Moms?”. An analysis of a crack dealing gang in Chicago (the Black Nation Disciples). It covers economic topics such as fixed & variable costs of production, labor markets, supply & demand, and monopolies.

24. Freakonomics Text Excerpt: “A 1-in-4 chance of being killed! Compare these odds to being a timber cutter, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics calls the most dangerous job in the United States. Over four years' time, a timber cutter would stand only a 1-in-200 chance of being killed. Or compare the crack dealer's odds to those of a death row inmate in Texas, which executes more prisoners than any other state. In 2003, Texas put to death twenty-four inmates—or just 5 percent of the nearly 500 inmates on its death row during that time. Which means that you stand a greater chance of dying while dealing crack in a Chicago housing project than you do while sitting on death row in Texas. So if crack dealing is the most dangerous job in America, and if the salary is only $3.30 an hour, why on earth would anyone take such a job?”

25. Math Use the Cook County Criminal Courts Inventory to create a pie chart showing the percentage breakdown of the crimes committed by the inmates for the year 1988.

26. P. 131 TANCH “The 1988 inventory of the Cook County Criminal Courts included 14 perjuries; 103 bribes...8419 rapes; 1584 armed robberies; 1351 accused of unlawful use of a weapon...”

27. ESOL/ Language Arts Read a novel with Hispanic characters facing similar struggles, such as Parrot in the Oven or Trino’s Choice. Students create a visual project comparing the two works.

28. Psychology: Mazlow’s Heirarchy of Needs Urica p. 134/ Growing Up in a “War Zone”

29. Schoolwide Community Service • Partnering with the Lowcountry Food Bank • Canned/ Non-perishable food drive sponsored by Student Government • Saturday Food Packaging/ Family Activity

31. Author Visit • 3 assemblies • Author luncheon • Student performance • Project display