For my work in revising the Grades 7 & 8 curriculum at my current school in India, I wanted students to deeply interact with longer works of nonfiction. For Grade 8, I built a unit plan around Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science by John Fleischman.
Student interest in the book was high from the beginning, with several students picking up the book early and reading it during the summer break. If you haven't heard of the man Phineas Gage, he was a railroad foreman in Vermont who in 1848 had an iron rod blast through his skull and his brain. He survived, but his personality drastically changed. He became unable to manage social interactions and control his anger. He may or may not have joined Barnum's circus as a human exhibit, and he did end up in Chile driving stagecoaches prior to his death. His body was exhumed and his skull is still studied today. It's a fascinating story about the early days of neuroscience and what we have learned since.
Fleischman masterfully integrates history and science with this compelling narrative. The book is filled with stunning visuals demonstrating 19th-century beliefs about science and medicine. We spend about six weeks on the unit, culminating in an individual research project about a part of the brain.
Unit Plan Materials
We start with an overview of various parts of the brain, including the difference between the left and right hemispheres. Students complete an anticipation prompt considering what their brains do for them, and how they might be affected by a brain injury.
I delve into the text by reading Chapter 1 aloud to the class, making sure they understand the main events. Then students re-read the chapter independently using Guided Reading questions.
Chapter 1 Guided Reading Questions
I then continue the unit by having students work in groups to work through chapters 2 and 3 with the guided reading questions. We extend chapter 2 by making a chart of the philosophies of the Whole Brainers and the Localizers. This is done using primary source visuals that I place on a bulletin board.
Chapter 2 Guided Reading Questions
Chapter 3 Guided Reading Questions
To tackle Chapter 4, I teach students the technique of making a dialogic journal. We do 2 or 3 entries together using a think-aloud demonstration on the board, and then they continue reading the chapter and writing 5 original dialogic journal entries. This works well, as the final chapter is more reflective. I use the letters QTC to help remind students what can go on the right side of their dialogic journals. Question - Thought - Connection.
Throughout the reading assignments, I intersperse vocabulary work with words related to academic research. For example: plagiarize, cite, parenthetical citation, analyze, works cited. Students choose a part of the brain and start working on a research project using the library databases and physical resources. This project involves a lot of steps, so I'll share the process and the results in another post.
Have you taught Phineas Gage? What did you use for a unit assessment?
Student interest in the book was high from the beginning, with several students picking up the book early and reading it during the summer break. If you haven't heard of the man Phineas Gage, he was a railroad foreman in Vermont who in 1848 had an iron rod blast through his skull and his brain. He survived, but his personality drastically changed. He became unable to manage social interactions and control his anger. He may or may not have joined Barnum's circus as a human exhibit, and he did end up in Chile driving stagecoaches prior to his death. His body was exhumed and his skull is still studied today. It's a fascinating story about the early days of neuroscience and what we have learned since.
Fleischman masterfully integrates history and science with this compelling narrative. The book is filled with stunning visuals demonstrating 19th-century beliefs about science and medicine. We spend about six weeks on the unit, culminating in an individual research project about a part of the brain.
Unit Plan Materials
We start with an overview of various parts of the brain, including the difference between the left and right hemispheres. Students complete an anticipation prompt considering what their brains do for them, and how they might be affected by a brain injury.
I delve into the text by reading Chapter 1 aloud to the class, making sure they understand the main events. Then students re-read the chapter independently using Guided Reading questions.
Chapter 1 Guided Reading Questions
I then continue the unit by having students work in groups to work through chapters 2 and 3 with the guided reading questions. We extend chapter 2 by making a chart of the philosophies of the Whole Brainers and the Localizers. This is done using primary source visuals that I place on a bulletin board.
Chapter 2 Guided Reading Questions
Chapter 3 Guided Reading Questions
To tackle Chapter 4, I teach students the technique of making a dialogic journal. We do 2 or 3 entries together using a think-aloud demonstration on the board, and then they continue reading the chapter and writing 5 original dialogic journal entries. This works well, as the final chapter is more reflective. I use the letters QTC to help remind students what can go on the right side of their dialogic journals. Question - Thought - Connection.
Throughout the reading assignments, I intersperse vocabulary work with words related to academic research. For example: plagiarize, cite, parenthetical citation, analyze, works cited. Students choose a part of the brain and start working on a research project using the library databases and physical resources. This project involves a lot of steps, so I'll share the process and the results in another post.
Have you taught Phineas Gage? What did you use for a unit assessment?
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