Young Readers' Series: The Right Stuff-Nonfiction

Course Description

Description

This Young Readers' Series nonfiction theme examines the importance of having “the right stuff” at the right time. In The Wright Brothers: How They Invented the Airplane, two seemingly ordinary bicycle mechanics overcome previously unsolvable engineering problems to build the world’s first powered, controlled airplane in a race against a field of wealthy, international competitors. Two years before a Soviet cosmonaut became the first woman in space (and 20 years before American Sally Ride made the journey), Jerrie Cobb and twelve other women pilots were denied the opportunity to join the NASA’s Mercury Space program, despite having more flight hours and superior test results than the male candidates.  Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream tells their little known story. In Electric Dreams, high school students from a poor rural community attempt to assemble an electric automobile from a Ford Escort rescued from a junkyard that can win a race against competitors from wealthier schools.

In addition to being entertaining and inspiring, the three books discuss scientific principles and the importance of perseverance, ingenuity, and good timing in achieving success against the odds. While many primary sources are included, this course will require internet research for students to find additional images, documents, videos, and other free media to complete writing and multimedia assignments.

[For an example of how instructors and students create their own asynchronous social network in the classroom by typing their comments or speaking into a microphone or webcam, view a 3-minute VoiceThread video icebreaker.]

Readability

The easiest method to check readability for your child is the “Five Finger Rule.” Have the child begin reading aloud any page of a book at random and raise your finger each time he or she struggles with a word. If your child reaches the end of the page before you have raised five fingers, your child should be able to read the book independently.

CTYOnline simplifies this informal assessment by linking to pages of almost every book in the Look inside the books section. Please perform this “Five Finger Rule” assessment on the last or next to last book of any course you are considering.

Appropriateness

Parents should be aware that each theme contains books with humor, suspense, mystery, sadness, adventure, and heroism. Overall, while our courses contain advanced grade-level material, we strive to select materials appropriate to the ages of the students. Please look inside the books and read reviews to decide whether these books are appropriate for your child. If you are still uncertain whether your child is ready for a course, please email ctyonline@jhu.edu or call 410-735-6144. 

Look inside the books. To assess readability level, click on  the bottom two book titles and perform the Five Finger Rule.

Look insideThe Wright Brothers: How They Invented the Airplane (no look inside view available)
Look inside Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream
Look inside Electric Dreams

Read reviews. Parents are urged to review for appropriate content.

Reviews of The Wright Brothers: How They Invented the Airplane
Reviews of Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream
Reviews of Electric Dreams 

Materials Needed

• The Wright Brothers: How They Invented the Airplane by  (Kingfisher, 2007) ISBN 0823-41082-X
• Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream by Tanya Lee Stone  (Candlewick Press, 2009) ISBN 978-0-7636-3611-1
• Electric Dreams by  Caroline Kettlewell (Da Capo Press, 2006) ISBN 978-0786714858

Detailed Course Information

Course Details

Lesson 1:

Begin reading The Wright Brothers: How They Invented the Airplane

Watch an introductory video

Read the Differences Between Primary & Secondary Sources

Read the article “Who Was First”

Vote your Opinion in a Poll

Post ONE writing assignment of your choice to the Blog Forum

Contribute two (or more) thoughtful posts to the Discussion Board

Lesson 2:

Continue reading The Wright Brothers: How They Invented the Airplane

Watch a video on The Wright Brothers Early Flight

Vote your Opinion in a Poll

Post ONE writing assignment of your choice to the Blog Forum

Contribute two (or more) thoughtful posts to the Discussion Board

Lesson 3:

Finish reading The Wright Brothers: How They Invented the Airplane

Read two articles on the patent battles the Wright brothers face

Read an interview about the Wright brothers’ unique personalities

Watch a video about the life of the Wright brothers

Vote your Opinion in a Poll

Post ONE writing assignment of your choice to the Blog Forum

Contribute two (or more) thoughtful posts to the Discussion Board

Lesson 4:

Begin reading Almost Astronauts

Read about the Mercury Space Program presented in Prezi

Vote your Opinion in a Poll

Watch videos about Ham the Space Chimp and Chuck Yeager, the first person to break the sound barrier

Post ONE writing assignment of your choice to the Blog Forum

Contribute two (or more) thoughtful posts to the Discussion Board

Lesson 5:

Continue reading Almost Astronauts

Read “The Many Sides of Jackie Cochran” presented in Prezi

Vote your Opinion in a Poll

Watch a video on the 1962 congressional hearings on whether women should be allowed to be astronauts

Post ONE writing assignment of your choice to the Blog Forum

Contribute two (or more) thoughtful posts to the Discussion Board

Lesson 6: 

Finish reading Almost Astronauts

Read NASA’s article about “Lovelace’s Women in Space Program”

Read an account of “The Mercury 13 Story”

Vote your Opinion in a Poll

Watch a video about women in space

Complete the first Quest [Quest=More questions than a quiz, but fewer questions than most tests!]

Post ONE writing assignment of your choice to the Blog Forum

Contribute two (or more) thoughtful posts to the Discussion Board

Lesson 7:

Start reading Electric Dreams

Vote your Opinion in a Poll

Watch a video on electric vehicles

Post ONE writing assignment of your choice to the Blog Forum

Contribute two (or more) thoughtful posts to the Discussion Board

View and comment on a VoiceThread

Lesson 8:  

Continue reading Electric Dreams

Vote your Opinion in a Poll

Watch a video on “Who Killed the Electric Car?”

Contribute to the Electric Car VoiceThread or create your own VoiceThread

Contribute two (or more) thoughtful posts to the Discussion Board

Lesson 9:

Finish reading Electric Dreams

Vote your Opinion in a Poll

Watch a video “Revenge of the Electric Car”

Contribute to the Electric Car VoiceThread or create your own VoiceThread

Contribute two (or more) thoughtful posts to the Discussion Board

Contribute two posts to The Right Stuff Summary Discussion Forum

Lesson 10:

Summary Assignments covering all three books

Vote your opinion in the Poll

Post ONE of the Blog assignments (your choice) to the Blog forum.

Complete the second Quest [Quest=More questions than a quiz, but fewer questions than most tests!]

Note: You are provided with a list of “Mind-Expanding Vocabulary Words” from each book that you can use to help better understand the book and increase your knowledge of vocabulary words in general.

Time Required

This course requires approximately three hours for each of the ten lessons. Students should expect to spend:

• approximately 3 hours per week during the fall, early spring, mid spring, and early summer sessions
• approximately 6 hours per week during the 5 week intensive midsummer session
  
  Note: Students do not have to meet in the classroom at the same time. A student's written work can be posted in the virtual classroom at the student's convenience as long as deadlines are met.
  
  Learn more about the summer sessions.

Sample Assignment

Demo

The Right Stuff  Sample Assignment

To give you an idea of the type of assignments involved, the following is the first of ten lessons:

Instructions for Lesson One

IMPORTANT MESSAGE About Course DUE DATES:
All work is due by the following Sunday at midnight. (That's the end of Sunday, not the beginning!) This means that we strongly advise you to start your assigned reading and video watching early and complete both by Thursday night to allow you enough time to finish all the assignments (reading, videos, poll, blog, discussion forum, research, and optional games, crossword puzzles, and wikis) by Sunday night.

Let's Watch a Video
1. Click on the play button on the middle, click on the 4-arrow button on the bottom right to switch to full screen, and then view this brief video about the Wright Brothers:
Reading Assignments

2. Begin reading The Wright Brothers: How They Invented the Airplane, preferably reading in the following reading chunks:
Chapters 1 & 2 (1-13) Chapter 3 (14-25) Chapter 4 (25-45)
Read Differences Between Primary and Secondary Sources.
Read an article about "Who Was First? found in Wright-Brothers.org [http://www.wright-brothers.org/History_Wing/History_of_the_Airplane/Who_Was_First/Who_Was_First_Intro/Who_Was_First_Intro.html]

Poll
3. Vote your opinion in the Poll.

Writing Assignment
4. Post ONE of the following blog assignments (your choice) to the Blog forum:
a) Look at the pictures of the Tate family on pages 33 and 43. Imagine what it must have been like for these people, living in this remote part of North Carolina, to meet and interact with the Wright brothers during those experiments in 1900 and 1901. Then, write a 150-300 word dialogue between two members of this family, OR a 150-300 word letter from one member of this family to a relative who lives far away from Kitty Hawk, discussing his or her impressions of the Wright brothers and their project.
b) Many other people claim credit for creating the first controlled, powered airplane flights including Gustave Whitehead (aka Weisskopf), Karl Jatho, Alberto Santos-Dumont, Louis Bleriot, Glenn Curtiss, and even Samuel Langley. Using resources on the internet (in addition to the article "Who Was First" in the assigned readings), conduct some further research about two or more of these men and their accomplishments. Then write a 150-300 word paragraph or paragraphs explaining who you think best earns the title of being the "father of aviation." Be sure to include evidence for your opinion and mention the sources you are relying upon--sources that must include more than simply Wikipedia.
c) The year is 2096. David Lilienthal, a descendant of Otto Lilienthal, has just died while pursuing a feat thought impossible for humans in the 21st Century. Write a 150-300 word newspaper account of his death covering the details of his death. Questions you might consider: What was he trying to do? Why was it so important? How did he die? What were his final words?

Discussion Forum Assignments
5. Contribute two (or more) thoughtful posts to the Discussion Board in response to any of the following questions. (Remember! At least one of your two thoughtful posts should be in reply to a discussion post made by another student.)
a) On page 3, Freedman writes, "[The Wright brothers] learned more by teaching themselves than through formal schooling." How does Freedman support this claim in the rest of the chapter? What else do we learn while he supports this claim?
b) Nonfiction writing is, of course grounded in facts, but it still needs to tell a story. All stories need to have start somewhere. Why do you think Russell Freedman might have chosen to start this story with Amos Root's account of what he saw on that farmer's field in Huffman Prairie?
c) On page 23, the reader is told that "newspapers around the country had a field day poking fun and Langley and his soggy Aerodrome. What were some of the comments? Using the internet, can you find any quotes from the Boston Herald, The New York Times, or any other newspaper or magazine of the day? If you were the Wright brothers, do you think you would be more encouraged by Langley's failure to "beat" you or discouraged by the mocking that Langley received?
d) One of the difficult things about writing nonfiction is the question of what to leave out or condense. Read http://www.sil.si.edu/ondisplay/langley/intro.htm and compare the information to Freedman's description of Langley's efforts on pages 22-23. Do you think Freedman presented Langley's efforts fairly? Why or why not?
e) At the beginning of Chapter 4, there is a quote from Wilber Wright that "We knew that men had by common consent adopted human flight as the standard of impossibility...When a man said, 'It can't be done, a man might as well learn to fly, he was understood as expressing the final limit of impossibility'" (27). Considering how many men at that time were trying to create the first airplane, do you think that Wright's quote is accurate? Why or why not? Can you think of any similar challenge that serves now as people's " standard of impossibility? Explain.
f) At the end of Chapter 4, there is another quote from Wilber Wright that "We doubted that we would ever resume our experiments...When we looked at the time and money which we had expended, and considered the progress made and the distance yet to go, we considered our experiments a failure. At this
time I made the prediction that man would sometime fly, but that it would not be in our lifetime." What had happened that had discouraged Wilber Wright to the point that he was considering giving up? Do you think that you (or any other reasonable human being) would have given up, given these circumstances? Why, then, do you think that the Wright brothers continued their quest? Were they just too stubborn to quit?

Resources and Activities
Sorting Activity

Differences between Primary and Secondary Sources
What are Primary Sources?

Optional Vocabulary Activities
Note: You are provided with a list of "Mind-Expanding Vocabulary Words from The Wright Brothers" and vocabulary crossword puzzles that you can print out and complete to increase your knowledge of vocabulary words. You can also use the Right Stuff Vocabulary Words Review Games to help learn vocabulary words in a fun way.

Optional Fun and Challenges:

• Share your favorite stories and authors with other students in the Recommended Reading Wiki.
• Play some of the Literary Terms games.
• Participate in The Right Stuff Adventure Wiki, an optional group writing activity.
• Carry out some of the suggested activities and experiments contained in many lessons.

System Requirements

• CTYOnline courses require a properly-maintained computer with Internet access and a recent-version web browser (such as Firefox, Safari, or Internet Explorer) with the Adobe Flash plugin.
• Students are expected to be familiar with standard computer operations (e.g. login, cut & paste, email attachments, etc).
• Spam blockers, parental controls, and other internet filtering software must allow email from JHU (jhu.edu & jhem.jhu.edu), and from the instructor's email address (provided at start of course).
• Since this course uses a web-based classroom for assignments and group discussion, your browser will need to allow cookies, javascript, and popup windows from the classroom web site.

Reviews

"It is refreshing and motivating for my daughter to read the instructor's specific remarks (She is accustomed to receiving "good" as the sole comment on her efforts!)."

"The instructor was extremely attentive and very encouraging. We thoroughly enjoyed working with her this summer.  She was able to direct my son in such a positive way and leave him empowered to dig deeper into his thinking and writing based on what he read. He was always left more inspired to read more and write more after he read her constructive and encouraging words each week. My husband and I were extremely impressed by the caliber of this course (our very first CTYOnline ever!)."

"I really liked how my instructor gave me detailed feedback, which helped me improve further each week. She was very approachable (albeit via email).  I can tell she enjoys teaching and is very kind. I've learned to analyze books in more depth and write thoughtful discussions."

"The instructor’s feedback and instruction have increased my daughter's confidence with regard to her writing skills. My daughter is expressing a strong desire to become an author and wants to continue learning more about writing. She has always excelled in writing at school; however, after taking this course, her middle school teachers have commented on how much more advanced she is than others in her honors courses because of her style of writing."

"The feedback on the writing assignments was incredibly thorough and comprehensive. My son started the course and submitted disorganized work. The instructor's detailed commentary helped him to improve his work dramatically."

"The instructor provides positive feedback, individualized attention and tips that do not overwhelm the children. She motivated my child and gave her the confidence to express herself."

"My instructor's feedback was very helpful - always taking my thinking to a new level. She was thorough and asked good questions. She also was good at sending reminders regarding the work that was due. She made me a better writer and critical thinker. She taught me to ask more questions."

"The instructor’s feedback explained the strong and weak points in my work.  She did this by first mentioning the things she liked, but she wasn't completely fussy, saying my work was amazing just to make me happy. Then, she would point out things I could improve. She does this not by yelling and screaming (you know what I mean), but pointing it out politely, but in a way that I could understand what to do.  She was nice, but also challenges us.  She was also particular not only about the contents of my writing, but about the spelling and grammar.  Even though she challenged us, she also wasn't too hard. People do not learn when things are too easy. When things are too hard, their brains get confused and they don't learn either. My instructor wasn't too hard, but she wasn't too soft.  She really was an outstanding teacher."

"Before I started my young readers’ course, I both disliked writing, and was bad at it. Whenever possible I avoided it. When I started my course with my instructor, I realized a talent for writing I never had before.  As the course went on I realized I was actually getting impatient, waiting for the next lesson so I could write more.  Before I thought of writing as a chore, the way most people think of school (not me!). Now I like to write and do it like it's something fun, which it is. My instructor taught me not only how to write, but also how to like to write."