Traveling Back in Time to 3/2014 – The Warmup

I follow Larry Ferrlazzo and last month, this page caught my attention:
JOHN LEWIS WAS BORN ON THIS DAY IN 1940 – HERE ARE TEACHING & LEARNING RESOURCES ABOUT HIS LIFE. As I clikced on more of the links, I saw VIDEO: MUST-WATCH INTERVIEW WITH JOHN LEWIS ON DAILY SHOW and I knew what my next lesson would be in my Reading 6 class. I would spotlight this amazing American and author and ensure my students knew about his March Trilogy series.

I decided to use a warm-up strategy I learned from the authors Kristin Zeimke and Katie Muhtaris who wrote Read the World. To engage the class, they suggest showing a photo and simply asking: What do you see? LOOK – What makes you think that? Thanks to Larry’s page, I chose this as my warmup photo:

As the clock struck 7:50am, I clicked on the TEAM link for Period 1 on my laptop computer. I then did the same on my iPad to open the chat feature. I then pressed the Share Screen button on the laptop and started to verbally welcome students who had joined my reading class. And I started seeing text appear in the chat box.

2/25 7:56 AM The bald guy looks like he just not having it today ​
2/25 7:56 AM Lots of people ​
2/25 7:56 AM i know him but not his name ​
2/25 7:57 AM It’s during COVID
2/25 7:57 AM I think that this is modern because they are wearing face masks
​2/25 7:57 AM is grampa grumpy?
2/25 7:57 AM The cool COVID mask that the bald guy is wearing
​2/25 7:57 AM] everybody has a mask on ​
2/25 7:58 AM The guy that does not have a mask is holding his fist and it could be him saying Black Lives Matter.
2/25 7:59 AM I see two people maybe protesting
2/25 8:02 AM he’s making the fist? ​
2/25 8:04 AM the black lives matter sign is a fist
2/25 8:04 AM It’s in DC I see the yellow paint on the road

I then showed this slide and revealed that the mask man is the Hononable Representative from Georgia, John Lewis. That this photo was taken this summer in D.C. on Black Lives Matters Plaza. That at that time, John Lewis was sick with terminal pancreatic cancer and would pass away 10 days later. That he spent his entire life protesting when laws were not fair for Black people. That even sick, he still joined in this summer’s Black Lives Matter Protests in D.C. And how he wrote a 3-book series back in 2014 to tell his story. It’s called March.

Next, I explained that we’d be “traveling” today, traveling back in time to the year 2014. That is when his books were first published. The host of The Daily Show invited him on to tell about his books. Let’s Get Ready to Time Travel….

Come back tomorrow, to hear how our trip went.