The Bata Shoe Museum in Toront
o recently added a pair of Justin Bieber’s shoes to its collection. The shoes, which he wore in a concert, are on exhibit in a glass case. Dozens of Bieber fans visited the museum last week to look at the famous singer’s shoes.
Bieber’s shoes are in good company. Other shoes in the museum belong to John Lennon, Marilyn Monroe, Queen Victoria and Terry Fox.
Bieber had donated the shoes to a California children’s charity, which put them up for auction to raise money. The Bata Shoe Museum had the winning bid.
It isn’t the first time Bieber’s shoes have been in the news. He recently donated a signed shoe to his old high school, Northwestern Secondary in Stratford, Ont. They sold the bright purple Nike running shoe to raise money for a new broadcast studio.
The highest bid for the shoe was $5,500, by a young girl in Edmonton. One problem: she forgot to ask her mother for permission! The auction was held on eBay and 69 bids were made from all over the world – including Canada, Australia, Poland, England and the United States.
The girl’s mother ended up pulling out of the bid for Bieber’s shoe. The school decided to start another auction, which will run on eBay from March 23 to 30. The school still has the size 7½ left shoe and hasn’t decided what to do with it yet.
Incidentally, Justin Bieber’s shoes have their own Facebook page. And the page has more than 2,500 fans.
CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS
Writing/Discussion Prompt
Why do you think people are interested in Justin Bieber’s shoes? If you had the choice, would you go and see them at the museum? Why or why not?
Is there another celebrity’s shoe that you would like to see? Why would you pick this celebrity? Do you think you could learn anything new about them by seeing their shoe?
Reading Prompt
When we read aloud, we add expression in our voice. This helps the listener become more interested, and it also helps them understand the text.
Pretend you are a news broadcaster and you need to read this article on the news. Practice reading it aloud. Where did you add expression? Why did you add expression in these places and not others?
Primary
read appropriate texts at a sufficient rate and with sufficient expression to convey the sense of the text to the reader and to an audience (e.g., make oral reading sound like spoken language, with the appropriate pauses, stops, and starts indicated by the punctuation) (OME, Reading: 3.3)
Junior
read appropriate texts with expression and confidence, adjusting reading strategies and reading rate to match the form and purpose (e.g., read a poem aloud with appropriate phrasing and emphasis) (OME, Reading: 3.3)
Grammar Feature: Possessive Apostrophe
An apostrophe (’) is used in many ways when we write. One way is to show when a person or an animal owns something.
For example: “It was Sarah’s hat.” In this sentence, the apostrophe followed by the letter ‘s’ shows that the hat belongs to Sarah.
Another example is: “The dog’s bone was hidden in the grass.” The apostrophe followed by the letter ‘s’ shows that the dog owns the bone.
Look through the article about Justin Bieber. Can you find any examples of apostrophes used in this way?
