by Margaret Peterson Haddix Published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers ISBN: 978-1416911722 352 pages Uprising is a riveting book. Haddix does an excellent job describing the terrible events leading up to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that took the lives of 146 people, mostly poor working girls. Until September 11, 2001, it was the greatest workplace disaster in New York City history. What makes the book especially moving is that it is told through the voices of three very different girls whose paths crossed due to the Shirtwaist Strike of 1909. Called the Uprising of the 20,000, female garment workers went on the picket line for better working conditions, wages, and union protection. The strike grabbed the attention of many around the country and helped re-energize the women's suffrage movement. Through the characters of Yetta, a feisty union supporter, Bella, a new immigrant trying to survive and send money to her family in Italy, and Jane, a rich socialite who is struggling to find where she belongs, the story highlights the strike and fire from several perspectives. The true tragedy is that so much of what happened was preventable. While reading the book, so many problems foreshadow the disaster; lack of fire escapes, locked doors on the working floors, lack of enforcement of fire safety rules such as smoking in work areas. The legacy of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire is that it helped create many of the laws that protect workplaces today. Uprising is filled with triump and tragedy and is a fascinating look at a period of American history that still impacts us today. |
I had one of those moments this weekend that makes you stop and think about how much times have changed. Our last day of classes was Wednesday, and as I've sat at home grading papers and projects this weekend I realize that in many ways the school year hasn't ended. I've had numerous emails from students and parents asking about summer reading and I've emailed some of them about other issues. Here's an example... My students finished a book trailer project last Friday, but because I was out of town for a family wedding, I am just now looking at what was submitted. They are great and I will be posting some of them in the coming days, but for some reason, a few students' projects were not submitted. Additionally, two other students turned in videos that appeared cut short, perhaps due to some network glitch while they were uploading. In the past, if this had been a lab-based project, I would have to decide whether to grade on work I saw done during the process or even to give a zero. Now that our tools have moved to the cloud, this is what I did. I emailed the parents of each student and wrote that I was missing their child's video. I asked if the child could download the project again from Animoto.com (the video-creation site we used) and resubmit it to me in Google Docs for grading. I sent those messages out on Saturday afternoon. Here's one of the email messages from the parents that struck me the most,
It is now Sunday afternoon and I have all of the missing videos in hand, including Riya's video.
Using tools like Google Docs, Schoology, and Edmodo over the past two years has definitely made me feel like the walls of my classroom have lowered and learning can happen at anytime, but this experience has certainly cemented that feeling for me. What could have been a major problem has instead become a small hiccup in my workflow thanks to the cloud. Now back to grading... |
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I am a middle school English teacher integrating literacy & technology and building awesome readers. Archives
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