Booktalk Presentation Idea: "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall"

This year, I started incorporating more music and video into my book talk presentations. The students LOVE it, and I have a blast presenting them. The books all center on a theme, which I choose based on a seasonal or current event.

I am late posting this one because it was on my school computer, and I only blog from home. I used it back in October, when Hurricane Sandy slammed the east coast. I did this presentation with sixth graders, who were toddlers when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans back in 2005. I figure they have probably at least heard of Katrina, so I used this presentation as an opportunity to teach them about Katrina and compare it to Sandy.

The black and white photos on slides 7-8 are purportedly from the Galveston Hurricane of 1900. I cannot authenticate the validity of the photos or say they are definitely from Galveston in 1900. They may be from Galveston at another time, or they may be from somewhere else entirely. Nevertheless, I used them to illustrate the widespread devastation hurricanes can cause. I take every opportunity to talk to the students about questioning the validity of online sources, so that was a sidebar for this presentation.

Please feel free to use or modify this presentation as you need. I included a link for download under the slide show below.



Click here to download PowerPoint file