Peekskill Middle School

 a. Online election game – Inspired by “The Game of Life”, eLECTIONS has students role-play virtual presidential candidates and explore how a campaign works. Check it out at http://www.ciconline.org/elections. 

Spotted in American School Board Journal, September 2008 (Vol. 195, #9, p. 55)

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b. Online pre-algebra and Algebra I games – At http://www.dimensionm.com, you can access Tabula Digita’s games, which operate in a futuristic, 3-D virtual world in which students are challenged to use coordinate systems and scatter plots, linear relationships, and data analysis to rid a remote island of a bio-digital virus and defend against mutated species. “Learn math or die trying” is the motto. 

Spotted in American School Board Journal, September 2008 (Vol. 195, #9, p. 55)

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c. Teen Read Week – October 12-18, 2008 is the week for the 11th annual campaign to get adolescents reading. It’s sponsored by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), a division of the American Library Association, in cooperation with corporations and non-profits and the International Reading Association. Last year, more than 4,800 schools and libraries took part: http://www.ala.org/ala/yalsa/teenreading/trw/trw2008/index.cfm. 

Spotted in Reading Today, August/September 2008 (Vol. 26, #1, p. 3)

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d. Banned books – September 27-October 4, 2008 is Banned Books Week, sponsored by the American Library Association. Here are the most frequently challenged books of 2007:

- And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell

- The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

- Olive’s Ocean by Kevin Henkes

- The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

- The Color Purple by Alice Walker

- TTYL by Lauren Myracle

- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

- It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris

- The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

For more information, including the reasons each of these books were challenged and books recently off the list, see http://www.ala.org/ala/pressreleases2008/may2008/penguin.cfm. 

“Banned Books Week Set” in Reading Today, August/September 2008 (Vol. 26, #1, p. 7)

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e. Lesson plans on picture books – These three lesson plans from ReadWriteThink are geared to graphic novels and books with pictures:

• Applying Question-Answer Relationships to Pictures by Leigh Hall and Yongmei Li for middle-elementary students: 

http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=370. 

• Creative Writing Through Wordless Picture Books by Laurie Henry for middle-school students to write their own story lines: 

http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=130. 

• Pictures Tell a Story: Improving Comprehension With Persepolis by Janet Ankiel for high-school students reading graphic novels, focusing on the popular book, Persepolis: 

http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=1102. 

“Inventive Picture Books Help Develop Imagination” in Reading Today, August/September 2008 (Vol. 26, #1, p. 12)