Diane Shaughnessy

These books were included in the Non-Fiction genre group's text sets. I took interest to this author because I noticed that she wrote two of the picture books about racism and the other about a parent who does not speak English. Both of these books would be great to read to a class because it gets them informed about important issues that they may think is embarrassing and no one in the World goes through the same thing. I would read this to class but I also think it is somewhat of a hard subject because sometimes kids can be shy about things like this and I would hate to embarrass a student who might have an issue with race.… (plus d'informations)

This book is about the Sioux Chief, Sitting Bull. It tells about growing up in the tribe. It discusses the interaction with the U.S. government and his encounter with Buffalo Bill Cody. The end of the book describes Sitting Bull as courageous and full of strength.

I thought this was a good biography. I thought that it would be a good biography to introduce to younger students. It has many pictures that go along with what is being read. Each illustration has a caption describing what it is of. There are a few words that are highlighted throughout the book; these words are ones that may be unfamiliar to students. There is a glossary located in the back of the book that has each of these words so that students can look up. There is also an index located in the back of the book for students to look up key words and find them quickly in the book. The book seemed to be informative as well as interesting. I find that some biographies seem to be a bit boring; however this was not at all. I enjoyed this book!
An activity in which I would like to use along with this book would be a web quest. I would personally create one myself, allowing students to read different things about Sitting Bull. One particular website I found that I would use is http://www.indigenouspeople.net/sittbull.htm. I find that web quests are a great way to use the internet as a resource, while being able to monitor and somewhat limit what students are exposed too. Another activity would be to discuss ancestry. There may be some students who are Indian or who have Indian ancestry. This would be a great way to introduce Indians into a cultural study.… (plus d'informations)