Distruction of a City in America

An American Plague: The true and terrifying story of the yellow fever epidemic of 1793 by Tim Murphy, reminds me of the book Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks. This book was about yellow fever, as it states in the title but like the Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks, there is a doctor who is one of the main characters. Both books tell how when the plague and the fever started that there were sick rats and other animals on the streets before the people became infected. Through all the similarities the biggest difference aside from actual disease and the year is that this book was written for children. 

 I liked that this book was written so children can understand what happened in Philadelphia when the yellow fever hit.  I also enjoyed learning about something I actually had never learned much about in school. As I read the book I thought of many learning activities that you could use to teach this book. Overall I think that this book would be a good resource when teaching students about other diseases that happened in the world before we had modern medicine. I even think this would be good to show students how recently when H1N1 broke out and we thought it was going to really effect the world that it causes minimal damage as compared to the yellow fever.

Web Resources for Teachers:

• The Author's Page, basically just has a summary of the book and has other elements such as an “about the author” and a blog.
• This is a PDF which has some vocabulary, which you could teach. It also has a few activities such as a word search and a worksheet for students to identify primary and seconday sources.
• I think this article would be a good one to have the students read after reading the book, so they could reinforce what they read in the book.

Vocabulary: Chapter 1- Benjamin Rush, Philadelphia, refurbished, George Washington, General Cornwallis, surrender, capitulation, revolution, Proclamation of Neutrality, “Diplomatic cold shoulder”, speculated. Chapter 2- laudanum, preeminent, malignity, Greek Humeral Theory, Chapter 3- pestilence, amiable, prestigious, William Currie, quarantine, acquaintances, fetid, exodus, camphor, melancholy, Vinegar of the four thieves, Chapter 4-5- apothecaries, legislature, paupers, almshouse,  putrefaction, insufficient, resignation, neutrality policy, consternation, Free African Society, erect, exorbitant, mobilized, shunned, peculiarly, battalion, Chapter 6-  pestilence, scrupulousness, malicious, conspiring, valiantly, Chapter 7- ingenuity, daunting, condemned, quinine, Chapter 8- Conviction, alleviation, rioting, Chapter 9- militia, parliament, quorum, abated, apace, emaciated, Chapter 10-end- inadvertently, squalid, privy pit, tepid, squabbles, sedulously, and pious.

Before:  I would make sure that the students know the main people in the book, such as President Washington and other common social studies words like legislature and parliament, so there will be less to teach when it comes to the words, but considering I would use this book in 5th or 6th grade in using the Connecticut Social Studies standards, they should know these terms if they were taught State history in 4th grade and U.S. History in 5th grade. 

During: I will give a list of words for each chapter or chapters as listed above and go over what is the importance of the word or the meaning as in the book. I would have the students write the words down and keep it with them as they read.

After/writing: I thought of many writing ideas for this book.

• First I thought that I could have students write a series of journal entries about what they think life would be like during the yellow fever, but they would have to write in the point of view of one of the other characters from the book, such as Washington. 
• Another writing activity would be to have the students write about what they think life would be like if the yellow fever struck in their town today. I would have the students make connections as to what would be different. I would give the example that in the book that all of the mail took two weeks to get to its destination, when it used to only take 5-7 days because they had to sterilize the mail. Then I would say, since most mail is sent through the internet, maybe we would have sterilization wipes next to every computer to be wiped down after use. I would then tell the students to write about other differences they could think of.