Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Who Says Women Can’t Be Doctors?: The Story of Elizabeth Blackwell

(Image taken from Google.com)

Who Says Women Can’t Be Doctors?: The Story of Elizabeth Blackwell 
Stone, T. L. (2013). Who Says Women Can’t Be Doctors?: The Story of Elizabeth Blackwell. New York: Henry Holt and Co.

Awards: NCTE Orbis Pictus Recommended Title and Amelia Bloomer Project Award Book
Suggested Delivery: Read Aloud or Individual
Lexile Reading Level: AD560L
Age Range: 5-8 years
Grade Level: K-3

About the Book: A young, curious girl named Elizabeth Blackwell grew up in the 1830’s, which was a time when women were only supposed to be mothers, teachers, or seamstresses. However, thanks to a friend’s suggestion, Elizabeth decided she wanted to become a doctor. Despite having to break the stereotypes and face adversity, Elizabeth achieved her goal and helped many people in the process.

Keywords: Selflessness, Strong-willed, Overcoming Obstacles, Women's History, Brave

Electronic Resources:

For any ELL students or struggling readers, this video could be watched and listened to. It is a read aloud of the book that highlights the words in a bold text as they are read and shows the pictures. This could be a model for fluency as well.

Students who would like to do more research on Elizabeth Blackwell can read this biography of her. It provides more information than the book, so it will allow students to get a better sense of the woman who paved the way for so many others.

Vocabulary:
-Seamstress: a woman whose occupation is sewing
-Wisp: a person or thing that is small, delicate, or barely discernible
-Queasy: tending to cause nausea; squeamish
-Repulse: distaste
-Raucous: rowdy; disorderly
-Humanity: the human race; kindness

Reading Strategies:
-Before reading the text, students can do a quick write. The teacher provides a thought provoking question in relation to the text and allows students to write for one to five minutes on it. This will help the teacher asses the students’ prior knowledge.
-During the reading of the text, the teacher can do a Think Aloud. This is when a teacher verbalizes aloud while reading the book. They take this time to describe the things they do as they read to monitor their comprehension. This becomes a modeling strategy that the students can learn to do themselves to enhance their comprehension.
-After reading the text, students can reread the book for Independent Reading. This will help increase reading fluency and decoding skills, as well as their comprehension of the text.

Writing Activity:

Students can write a letter to colleges as Elizabeth Blackwell, stating why she should be allowed in and why she should be able to become a doctor.

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