Did you know that Neil Armstrong took a piece of the Wright Brothers’ Flyer to the moon!!?? How cool is that! I was teaching a lesson on the Wright Brothers in my American Inventors class and came across this link during my research. It’s a History Channel article called “10 Things You May Not Know About the Wright Brothers.” This sucker is full of fascinating info that will grab your students’ interest and make them want to know more. As with most US history classes, I’m sure you probably won’t have time to spend a whole class period on the Wright Brothers, but this would be a great article to have your students read after they finish an assignment or test. Remember, the more interesting you can make something or someone, the more likely your students will remember it and read more about it on their own time.
On a side note, how can you actually remember to fit this random article into your lessons/curriculum? Take one afternoon and print off copies of all of the interesting articles that you would like to squeeze in to your curriculum throughout the year. Put them in a folder and keep them someplace handy (or at least bookmark them or put them in a digital folder). Whenever you have an extra 5 or 10 minutes to fill, pull out an article to cover. But what if it’s not chronologically appropriate? What if you don’t have any articles that fit the time period you are covering? SO WHAT! Who says history has to be covered chronologically? As long as an article or activity leads to learning of some kind, it’s valid! (Plus, over time, you can collect more and more articles like these and eventually have a nice assortment from various time periods.)