Now I know I live in Canada but I'm pretty sure this book is of great importance to read to our students. September 11, 2001 is the day the world changed, or at least from my view the day the bubble I lived in popped. Up until that day I had never heard of these terrorist. I was in my first week of classes in university which was exciting. I had just finished an hour class moved onto a two hour lecture where the four professors that were team teaching the English literature class told us that despite the tragic events of the day they were going to go on with the scheduled lecture. I had no idea what they were talking about (smart phones weren't exactly popular back then and laptops were just becoming popular amongst the student population and thus I didn't have one) but when I walked outside of the university with planes flying over head someone said to me "I wonder if they will fall out of the sky as well" by this time I was getting a little worried as to what was happening in the world. And from there I went home and I guess as they say the rest is history. This is an event that changed history as we know and Eric Walters most certainly does it justice with his book We All Fall Down. This book revolves around his main character Will, whose father works at the World Trade Centre and it just so happens that September 11, 2001 is take your child to work day! Walters uses vivid descriptions and pure emotion to tell the story of Will and his father that faithful day.
What I have found is that the first few chapters students don't really get what's going on. It is a little slow but there are plenty of events that foreshadow the possible outcome of the book and as a teacher these are very teachable moments. Using good read aloud techniques, pointing out passages, making connections, writing down key phrases, visualizing, will all help your students with concepts later on in the book. One of my favourite lines from the book is from Will's teacher on September 10, 2001, "All of you have a great day tomorrow. Who knows, it might be an experience that changes your entire life!" This quote can be read into so much. I even display it on my bulletin board in the classroom.
If anyone has ever been to NYC then you will have a wealth of information to share with your students. I have been to NYC twice since 9/11. I have shared with my students my experiences from my visits as well as my pictures. I have a map of Manhattan that I also display in the classroom when we read this book. We locate areas on the map that they are familiar with from movies or shows with little sticky notes. We also locate where the World Trade Centres were. This year my students are to gather information about New York and pictures for the first day of school we will do a round robin where students will share their ideas and I will copy them down onto chart paper and we will also create a NYC collage.
A book review is also a good way to work on explaining their thinking. So if you ask your students did you like this book and then ask them to explain and if you want to get real technical think of the EQAO testing where it asks for ideas from the text and their own ideas.
There are a variety of articles and books out there as well as videos, movies, songs, etc that you can make connections with that relate to 9/11. A simple google search or YouTube search can retrieve you more websites, articles and such that you will ever need. In the current issues of Our Canada (August/September 2011 issue) there is an article on page 39 about Forgotten Victims of 9/11 all the animals that were on the planes that were diverted and grounded by the no fly restrictions. In the August 1 People magazine there is a section dedicated to the tragedy. Here is a great article on how steel from the WTC was used to make a new US Naval Ship http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=4365449&page=1.
No doubt media coverage of the 10th anniversary will be huge ( I can't believe it's been 10 years already!) and a great way to include media literacy into your classroom. The Ottawa Citizen has it's own site dedicated to the 10th anniversary http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/9-11-anniversary/index.html.
If you want to do a visual arts lesson, bring in pictures or paints that deal with 9/11 and get students to talk about emotions, colours, lines, light, etc.
If you want to do a music lesson there are songs out there that have been written in memory of that horrible day. Alan Jackson Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvj6zdWLUuk is one that I can think of. You can look at the lyrics, etc.
A nice writing tribute might be having students write letters to a person that was involved that day, or to a family member that lost a love one (just because it happened in the USA doesn't mean it didn't affect us here in Canada!).
There is a sequel to this wonderful book called United We Stand where I will later review and provide suggestions on lesson ideas as well.
I definitely give this book two thumbs up and am excitingly looking forward to starting this book with my grade 6/7 class in September.
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