Nonfiction

**Description:**
In Breaking Blue, Timothy Egan tells the story of Sheriff Tony Bamonte’s investigation of an unsolved homicide investigation Marshall George Coniff. After coming across the story of the 1935 slaying while researching his master’s thesis, Bamonte encountered the “blue wall” of silence among the Spokane Police force.

**Rationale:**
This book provides mystery while showing students the complexities of real life ethics versus the typical fictional crime drama. The setting is in the Pacific Northwest, may be easier for students to connect to their surroundings. It provides a good transition from fiction to non-fiction and may interest students in reading other non-fiction books. The book also provides an opportunity for aspiring journalists to read the work of an experienced investigative reporter. This novel could be introduced with a social studies unit on law enforcement or the criminal justice system.

**Resources:**
What is Tony Bamonte doing now?

**Timothy Egan: 2010 National Book Festival (30 ins)**
Timothy Egan talks about the life of Teddy Roosevelt, American conservation and American public land. Engaging the viewer with humor, stories and facts. [] (Uploaded by [|LibraryOfCongress] on Oct 12, 2010)

**Description:**
This book tells the story of a young Charles Darwin's decision to marry a rather religious woman. It deals with Darwin's concerns about having such differing views regarding faith, Emma's ability to accept the work of Charles and stand with him through the controversy of his published works. The book also discusses his interaction with his children and his grief over the death of several of his children at young ages.

**Rationale:**
This book received an honor mention on the 2010 American Library Association Michael L. Printz Awards for excellence in young adult literature. The setting is in the Pacific Northwest, may be easier for students to connect to their surroundings. It provides a good transition from fiction to non-fiction and may interest students in reading other non-fiction books. This novel would be a wonderful companion in a biology lesson. A religion unit could also find this novel to be valuable for students.

Resources:
Author Page []-- Heiligman shares what inspired her and how she became a writer: childhood books, specific teachers and her education at Brown as well as her early career experiences. She also talks about the importance of research and citing..
 * Interview with Heiligman **

Description:
In Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel's memoir //Night//, a scholarly, pious teenager is wracked with guilt at having survived the horror of the Holocaust and the genocidal campaign that consumed his family. His memories of the nightmare world of the death camps present him with an intolerable question: how can the God he once so fervently believed in have allowed these monstrous events to occur? There are no easy answers in this harrowing book, which probes life's essential riddles with the lucid anguish only great literature achieves. It marks the crucial first step in Wiesel's lifelong project to bear witness for those who died. (amazon.com)

Themes:
Faith, Inhumanity, Tradition, Faith

Rationale and connections:
While students can read about the Holocaust in their textbooks, Night provides a 1st person narrative from a survivor's perspective that personally connects students to the event. Students follow Elie as he questions his faith in humanity and God. An obvious selection as a companion text for a religions class for its rich religious content. This novel would also be a welcome addition to a WWII unit.

Text Complexity:
Although this novel is written in a simple, first person narrative in chronological order, the text is somewhat complex.The heavy themes of faith and death demand the reader to grasp multiple levels of meaning to navigate the narrator's wavering faith in God, witnessing of death and experiences of guilt.

Lexile:
590

Media Resources:
(First hand witness testimonies of Nazi concentration camps) http://www.library.yale.edu/testimonies/education/singlewitness.html (Photos of Auschwitz) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/05/europe_auschwitz/html/1.stm Schindler's List (1993)

Oprah and Elie Weisel at Auscwitz Part 1 (9 minute documentary/interview)
[] (Uploaded by [|VWSxNBLSliderx] on Feb 25, 2010) Oprah goes to Auscwit with Weisel. Footage of WW2. Needs to be reviewed prior to showing as it has horrific clips of bodies being dumped into graves. Weisel talks about his experience and reads excerpts from his book.

Description:
==== Acclaimed as the definitive illustrated history of Abraham Lincoln's assassination, Lincoln's Assassins, by James L. Swanson and Daniel R. Weinberg, follows the shocking events from the tragic scene at Ford's Theatre to the trial and execution of Booth's co-conspirators. For twelve days after the president was shot, the nation waited breathlessly as manhunters tracked down John Wilkes Booth-the story that was brilliantly told in Swanson's New York Times bestseller, Manhunt. Then, during the spring and summer of 1865, a military commission tried eight people as conspirators in Booth's plot to murder Lincoln and other high officials, including the secretary of state and vice president. Few remember them today, but once the names Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, George Atzerodt, Edman Spangler, Samuel Arnold, Michael O'Laughlin, and Dr. Samuel Mudd were the most reviled and notorious in America. ====

Rationale and connections:
==== Lincoln's Assassins is a unique work that will appeal to anyone interested in American history, Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War, law, crime, assassination, nineteenth-century photographic portraiture, and the history of American photojournalism. ====

Resources:
Video on Lincoln's Assassination: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qAeFjCscRY

**Genre: **Community Plan


The Portland Plan is an inclusive, citywide effort to guide the physical, economic, social, cultural and environmental development of Portland over the next 30 years. The Portland Plan is a current strategic planning document based on priorities expressed through hundreds of community conversations and events. This groundwork of information helps us identify the most pressing needs and focus our efforts and resources in the areas that will bring us closer to our goal of making Portland a thriving, sustainable and equitable city. The Portland Plan Handbook is a guide for citizens to understand the more complex planning document. //www.portlandonline.com//
 * Description: **
 * Topics: **
 * Local Growth and Development
 * Sense of Place
 * Prosperity, Business Success & Equity
 * Education & Skill Development
 * Sustainability & the Natural Environment
 * Human Health, Food & Public Safety
 * Design, Planning & Public Spaces
 * Neighborhoods & Housing
 * Transportation, Technology & Access
 * Quality of Life & Civic Engagement
 * Arts, Culture & Innovation

<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">This document introduces the student to local issues of growth and development. The handbook for Portland's comprehensive city plan offers many opportunities for students to conduct research and analyze relevant topics of importance in their own community. A natural selection to be taught in an economic and government course. This text could also enhance a social studies/science lesson plan on sustainability and environmental impact. [|The Portland Plan Handbook] <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">[|Portland Online]
 * <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Text Complexity: **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">48 pages of technical writing
 * <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Dense reading with a large amount of information on varied community issues
 * <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Rationale and connections: **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Lexile Level: **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Resources: **

[] This short documentary interviews PSU professors and representatives from the bureau of sustainabillity who talk about their work and research. Topics include green roofs, solar panels, storm water reduction.

=Title: The Diary of a Young Girl= = = =Author: Anne Frank= = = =Genre: Autobiography-Holocaust=

Description:
<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">A beloved classic since its initial publication in 1947, this vivid, insightful journal is a fitting memorial to the gifted Jewish teenager who died at Bergen-Belsen, Germany, in 1945. Born in 1929, Anne Frank received a blank diary on her 13th birthday, just weeks before she and her family went into hiding in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. Her marvelously detailed, engagingly personal entries chronicle 25 trying months of claustrophobic, quarrelsome intimacy with her parents, sister, a second family, and a middle-aged dentist who has little tolerance for Anne's vivacity. The diary's universal appeal stems from its riveting blend of the grubby particulars of life during wartime (scant, bad food; shabby, outgrown clothes that can't be replaced; constant fear of discovery) and candid discussion of emotions familiar to every adolescent (everyone criticizes me, no one sees my real nature, when will I be loved?). Yet Frank was no ordinary teen: the later entries reveal a sense of compassion and a spiritual depth remarkable in a girl barely 15. Her death epitomizes the madness of the Holocaust, but for the millions who meet Anne through her diary, it is also a very individual loss. (Amazon)

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Rationale:
<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">While it is very painful to read, this diary of the Holocaust offers an emotional and compelling description of one of humanity’s darkest periods. Very few students will fail to take this text seriously, which makes it a useful tool in classrooms where the students are exceptionally resistant to engagment. To not include this text in a unit on WWII would be a true disservice. It could also be taught with a social studies unit on feminism.

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Text Complexity:
<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">This novel is 304 pages long, and has a very managable vocabulary. However, the intense setting (WWII) and emotions are more appropriate for older readers

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Resources:
[] (interview with one of Anne's childhood friends)

**The Anne Frank Museum**
[] Site has excellent resources and allows viewers to explore the 3D house, pictures of characters in the story, listen to music from the era and view icons, etc. []- This site also has a documentary, "Why go into Hiding," which narrates the history of Anne's family's and life before going into hiding.Film also shows where they hid.