Learning About Timelines through Team Hoyt

Our class has been working to learn about timelines lately as part of a social studies and ELA (English/Language Arts) integrated unit.  The Boston Marathon was perfectly timed to be a valuable teaching tool for this study.  Each year, I talk to the kids about two remarkable athletes: Dick and Rick Hoyt.  Dick Hoyt is a father who, each year, runs in the Boston Marathon and pushes his son, Rick, who has cerebral palsy.  They are true inspirations, just like the athletes yesterday who found a fellow marathon runner who had collapsed just shy of of the marathon’s end and carried him across the finish line.   The Boston Marathon is full of remarkable athletes who model outstanding character, sportsmanship, and integrity!

I came across an article that taught a bit about Dick and Rick Hoyt’s amazing history, and I immediately saw the potential for it to be used as a learning tool for our study of timelines.  We read the article in class today, and for homework, kids are identifying and writing short blurbs about the different events listed in the article.  (Just a couple of words per event is fine.)  We’ll use the kids’ ideas as a jumping off point for making a timeline tomorrow.

The article does mention (in general terms) the attacks that happened at last year’s Boston Marathon.  We discussed in class only that something sad happened and that some people were injured or lost their lives, although some students (on their own) brought up more detail about what had happened when we discussed the marathon yesterday.  I didn’t want to go into any significant detail about what had happened, and I refocused the discussion to the message of perseverance and honoring others (since Dick and Rick ran the marathon yesterday as a tribute to those who were affected by the attacks last year.

You can except, over the next few years, to see an ongoing integration of ELA and social studies.  The two fit together very well since the Common Core places an increased emphasis on non-fiction reading and writing, and articles such as this give teachers a wonderful opportunity to bridge social studies work with literacy work.  Our next step in our timelines study will have the kids partner up to read articles about a famous figure from history and to develop a timeline based upon the information they pull from the article.  Stay tuned!

Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss