Blurring the Edges: Integrated Curriculum Through Writing and Children's Literature
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The current emphasis on interdisciplinary teaching offers exciting opportunities to create dynamic literacy experiences across the curriculum. Through a unique approach to curriculum integration that combines quality literature, the writing process, and content-area instruction, Blurring the Edges helps you make the most of these opportunities. Barbara Chatton and Lynne Decker Collins blur subject-area and genre distinctions, presenting dozens of ideas on thematic units.Blurring the Edges embraces three central themes:play as a model for learningexperimentation as a way of knowinglanguage as a vehicle for moving in and out of traditional subject area domains.Each activity provides students with diverse opportunities to read and write in a variety of forms and for authentic purposes. The goal is to encourage students to express themselves more freely-as poets, scientists, historians, journalists, mathematicians, artists. At the end of each activity, the authors provide extensive annotated lists of appropriate literature to get you started. Each annotation includes a helpful grade level designation and the book concludes with a comprehensive index to help you locate specific authors, titles, and subjects.Blurring the Edges challenges you to broaden the lens of instruction to create unique viewing experiences for your students. You'll find that just as the edges blur, your students' vision of themselves as competent readers, writers, and thinkers will come sharply into focus.Children's LiteratureBarbara Chatton and N. Lynne Decker Collins are professors at the University of Wyoming. Their book offers ideas, activities and specific book titles to help teachers enrich their reading and writing curriculum. Their emphasis is on encouraging students to think and to wonder as well as providing writing examples. This is no cookie cutter method but as good cooks know, the original recipe is merely a guide, the real fun comes from the personal seasonings that make a dish your own. The process can be messy since classes are never the same but with Barbara and Lynne's ideas, your reading and writing program will be greatly enhanced. 1999, Heinemann, Ages Adult, $19.00. Reviewer: Jan Lieberman
1. Messing Around: Sharing the Writing Process with Our Favorite AuthorsBlurring the Edges Through a Thematic Unit on Mystery, Magic and HistoryLetters and Diaries as a Unifying Form Across DisciplinesWho's Counting? Using Writing and Literature to Understand MathematicsJust Look: Observing the World Around Us as Scientists and Creative WritersTextures of ThingsConclusion Blurring the Edges: Modeling Reading, Writing, and Thinking Across the Curriculum
