An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793

 An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793

http://notesfromthewood.blogspot.com/2012/04/american-plague-true-and-terrifying.html

Author  

• Jim Murphy

Genre 

• Non- Fiction

Grade level(s) appropriateness 

• 5th grade and up

A brief synopsis or review 

• In 1793, there was a plague that had no cause. The residents of the city of Philadelphia fled in fear. This book traces the devastating course of the path of the epidemic in an interesting way for others to understand the events of the plague.

Theme/skill 

• disease, plague, death, history

Noteworthy features or issues with text 

• The readable content 
• Primary source documents from newspapers at the beginning of each chapter

Teaching ideas 

• Group poster project about after more research on the plague itself
• Have students have a discussion on what they believe was the cause of the plague
• Have students write diary entries as the people of Philadelphia at the time of the plague
• Have students compare today's newspapers to those of newspapers of years ago

Curriculum tie-ins and/or related activities 

• history topics

Read aloud suitability

• Better as an independent read

Connections to other texts/content areas 

• history class topics
• science
• ELA
• the book 1793

Other additional comments

• This book is a great way to help kids get into reading non-fiction text