Rutherford B. Hayes
By: Debbie Levy
Genre: Biography
Award: N/A
Grade Level: The biography of Rutherford B. Hayes is a great informative biography appropriate for fourth grade students. Though the word choice may prove to be below a fourth graders reading level, the concepts and topics of this book are more appropriate for a mature audience.
Summary: This biography was a very informative read. Its attention-grabbing began by recalling the night of the presidential election, and introduced Hayes lifestyle. Its change from describing a normal night for Hayes to an unknown victor of presidency left the first chapter on a cliffhanger enticing readers to learn more. The book continues to develop throughout Hayes’ life going into detail of his family and their losses. It emphasizes all the schooling Hayes chose to complete in order to be successful, a perfect theme for young students. Many photographs are utilized- not only of Hayes, but also of people who entered his life, allowing the reader to visualize who the book is referring to. Additionally, at the start of each chapter a quote from Hayes is listed, giving more insight to how he feels as well as giving the book personality.
Classroom Strategies: After students have read the biography of Rutherford B. Hayes, have them write a letter to him asking questions about his life and how it would be different in modern times. Instruct students to use details from the story such as “People from your family have suffered from so many health related issues, you were even sick your whole life until you were about eight years old. In today’s society our health care has changed tremendously.”
Another classroom strategy for a fourth grade classroom is having the students make an election campaign poster either for or against Rutherford B. Hayes. Instruct students to use details from the book that stood out to them as having an impact for whether they would or would not vote for Hayes. Allow students to draw pictures and be creative.
ESOL: Identifying main ideas and vocabulary, illustrating, summarizing, use student’s experiences, and brainstorming are all ESOL strategies involved with the two classroom strategies.
Read Aloud: I would read page 15 ‘Off to Boarding School’ as well as page 21 ‘Leaning Toward Leadership’ to my fourth grade classroom because it first shows how Hayes did not enjoy his schooling and often blew it off to go sledding. Page 21 then contrasts this showing that Hayes chose to further his education by attending multiple colleges in order to be successful. This can be inspiring to students to know that a president of the United States did not like school at first, but after realizing his passions in life decided to become educated about them.
Personal Opinion: This book is not as boring as I originally thought it would be. That being said I would not recommend it for a read unless a research report was involved. It was informative and written in a light-hearted tone, thus taking the dryness out of a biography. It’s obvious the author tried to spice up the details in order to keep the reader’s attention, and for me it worked. I thought it was very interesting to learn about our nineteenth president.
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