Sunday is International Women's Day, and what better way to celebrate than to inject women into the Common Core Standards, where they're woefully missing. Women's roles are mentioned briefly in regards to the "home front" in WWII Social Studies standards for 8th grade, and there are no standards for teaching women authors, specifically, in the English Language Arts standards for grades 6-8.
We finished reading Fly Girls: The Daring American Women Pilots Who Helped Win WWII, by P. O'Connell Pearson, and immediately thought that pairing it with historical fiction about female WWII pilots was the way to go in the Social Studies classroom!
The publisher offers a free, CC aligned teaching guide for it. It hits many of the 8th grade WWII standards, and, if you dig a bit deeper on the website, the publisher also offers "promotional" freebies, like a free copy for teachers and book posters, etc.
It pairs wonderfully with Code Name Verity, by Elizabeth Wein, which is historical fiction and a real tear-jerker, but might a bit too mature for some middle school students (and their parents). As always, send home a parental permission slip first, and have alternatives ready for students to read, in case anyone objects. I've written about Verity on this blog before, specifically about Wein's expert use of the unreliable narrator.
Wein also offers amazing, thoughtful (and free!) study guides for several of her works on her website, including Code Name Verity.
