Literature and Information

Strategies

I plan to use the entire book in my curriculum unit. After much deliberation and many conversations with some English teachers, I have finally decided how I want to use Brown Girl Dreaming. I will present a few examples of how I am going to use the text and weave in the history component and other resources.

In my class, I plan to work through about 80 pages a week. Some will be read independently, some in small groups, and others as close reads. The whole class will participate in the close reads. The close reads are the sections that I will examine closely with my students and connect the text to other resources to support their understanding of the historical references. When the class is not engaged in a close read, I will likely meet with three small reading groups in order to provide support and enrichment. While I meet with one group, the other groups will read the daily assignment independently or will have a workstation task to complete. In the activities section, there is tentative daily schedule and a list of activities that will be used throughout the rotations.

Second Daughter’s Second Day on Earth

This verse is about Jacqueline Woodson’s second day on Earth. It begins on page 3, with her birth information. It quickly speaks to many of the Civil Rights leaders and what are today considered historical events. Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, and Malcolm X are mentioned. Martin Luther King Jr. led the peaceful fight for civil rights, Kennedy was president at the time, and Malcolm X wanted to have a revolution in order to gain equal rights. The verse goes on to mention Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her seat, and Freedom Singers who sang hymns to educate the community, and James Baldwin, an author who wrote about racial tension. Then the poem arrives at Ruby Bridges.

Not even three years have passed since a brown girl

named Ruby Bridges

walked into an all-white school.

Armed guards surrounded her while hundreds

of white people spat and called her names.

She was six years old.¹⁴

Woodson writes, “…Ruby Bridges walked into an all-white school. Armed guards surrounded her while hundreds of white people spat and called her names.”¹⁵ At this point, I plan to launch into some historic information about the desegregation and integration of schools. In addition to Ruby Bridges, the Little Rock Nine are also famous on a national level for the bravery they showed in order to integrate into white schools. But, Ruby Bridges and the Little Rock Nine were not the only ones.

In fact, in my encounter outside the coffee shop in New Haven, Connecticut, I met the husband of a lesser-known figure in history. Martha Dye (Walton) was a 12 year-old black student in Farmville, Virginia, when the high school students organized a strike to protest the unfair conditions of their black school. But, it was more than just a strike. It was much, much more. I will recount the events as they are laid out in the background section of this unit.

At this point I will tell the story of Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County. I will tell my students of my encounter in New Haven and of my meeting with Martha Dye (Walton). Her older brothers and sisters sent away so they could continue their education. Martha Dye did not go to school for five years. She regrets that she never had a traditional high school experience. I will tell details Martha shared with me as a part of the story of the Prince Edward County Schools. We will look at John Lewis’ March Book One pages, 99-105. On these pages the graphic novel depicts Congressman John Lewis’s experience at a sit-in at Woolworth’s through his subsequent arrest. My students will work in teams to create a page of a graphic novel to depict one aspect of the historic event in Farmville. As a class, we will break the event into segments and collectively tell the story of Prince Edward County Schools in a graphic novel format.

I chose to tie in the graphic novel because it is an amazing resource, it is accessible for my nine-year-old students, and because I want my students to think critically about the information. I did not choose a school scene because some of my students will rely too heavily on the visuals provided in the graphic novel and will not tap into their creativity. However, I plan to share pages 70-73 in March Book One which shows John Lewis’s decision to enroll at Troy State in Mississippi once the students have completed their graphic novel depictions. We will make connection between a free verse poem and events in our nation’s and state’s history. Then we will examine another non-fiction text, the graphic novel, which is in a different format and transfer the historic event from Prince Edward County into that format. They need to visualize the event, utilize the writing process, and generate an original idea. They also need to work collaboratively. The value of students working in this manner builds multiple skills at the same time when instructional time is so limited.

The Journey

The next verse I chose for a close read is on page 29. Woodson’s father speaks of bringing his wife up north. He does not want his family to be raised in the South. He says, “There is never going to be a Woodson that sits at the back of the bus,” referring to the Jim Crow Laws that separated blacks and whites in public facilities. Father continues, “Never gonna be a Woodson that has to ‘Yes, sir’ and ‘No, sir’ white people. Never gonna be a Woodson made to look down at the ground.”¹⁶ In this poem Father explains some of the standard practices in the South during the era of Jim Crow Laws. I plan to have my students experience Jim Crow Laws first hand through a scavenger hunt that uses QR codes, (the square shaped symbol that is read by QR readers). For this particular activity, I do not want the students to have a lot of background and understanding prior to the hunt. Upon completion, the students will work on a reflective writing assignment.

Following the scavenger hunt and the writing activity the class will come together and discuss the activity. I will read Ruth and the Green Book to the class. This picture book tells the story of a black family traveling from Chicago to Alabama. They encounter racism and Jim Crow Laws in the south. I will stop when Mother is denied access to the restroom and when Daddy is turned away at the hotel. I will also stop when Ruth questions, “Why don’t they want our business? Wasn’t our money just the same?”¹⁷ At this point, I’ll ask how Ruth is feeling and the students can draw on their personal experience from the scavenger hunt. Toward the end of the story, Ruth’s family finds an Esso service station and purchases a pamphlet called, “The Negro Motorist Green Book,” a guide to help black people find places that would welcome their business.

This interactive, engaging activity comes at the beginning of the unit and will set the stage. Students typically have a hard time understanding Jim Crow Laws. The concept is so foreign and abstract for them. With the use of the scavenger hunt, the students will get a vivid image of the prejudice faced as a result of Jim Crow Laws. I hope to captivate students’ interest by using technology while moving around the school. I do not want the strategy to stand alone, as it could seem like a game. With the writing and reading activities, the students will reflect on the activity and empathize with the characters in Ruth and the Green Book. I want to incorporate different genres of literature to all of the close readings that we do, and I want to make sure my students understand the deeper meaning behind Woodson’s words.

South Carolina at War

My third example comes from South Carolina at War on pages 72-73. Grandfather is telling his grandchildren a story. He says, “First they brought us here. Then we worked for free.”¹⁸ Grandfather is talking about slavery. As he continues to explain, “Then it was 1863, and we were supposed to be free but we weren’t.”¹⁹ The year 1863 is a reference to Abraham Lincoln issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed the slaves. Some of my fourth graders will pick up on this, but many of them will not. I would explain to my students that the Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves and was issued by Abraham Lincoln. Then I would project a copy of the document, so we could delve into the primary resource. Then I would play a YouTube video that reads the Emancipation Proclamation (See Resources for Activity 3). I would pause the video at the 45-second mark to discuss the line “all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall then be then, thenceforward be forever free;” to break it down into common language. Any person held as a slave in a state or part of a state that is rebelling, or fighting against the United States of America shall be free. These words mean that all slaves in the Confederate states were free. The speech continues, “and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons,” meaning that the President of the United States and the Army and Navy will recognize and protect their freedom. I would continue to go through the speech in this way. If interest wanes, I would shorten the video clip. The purpose of using the clip is to tie in a primary resource and another genre of non-fiction, so the students learn to think critically as they examine all different kinds of text. After viewing the Emancipation Proclamation we will return to page 72 of the text.

We will discuss Grandfather’s words, “we were supposed to be free but we weren’t.”²⁰ I would discuss this line, and probe my fourth graders for the meaning of this line. The class should know about Jim Crow Laws and the prejudice blacks faced particularly in the south since they have already participated in the scavenger hunt. After they share their responses, we will watch a video clip to enhance their understanding (See Resources for Activity 3).

Then we would return to the verse where Jacqueline Woodson writes, “We can’t go to downtown Greenville without seeing teenagers walking into stores, sitting where brown people still aren’t allowed to sit and getting carried out, their bodies limp, their faces calm.”²¹ At this point I would project a few images from the Sit-Ins that took place in Richmond. Using photographs from our city will make the content even more meaningful for my students. The first photograph shows some college students from Virginia Union University sitting at the lunch counter at Murphy’s Lunch Counter 1960.

Courtesy of The Library of Virginia

Foto by Malcolm O. Carpenter, Library of Congress, Prints & Photographic Division

I will read aloud the rest of South Carolina at War and will briefly discuss Grandfather’s words, “You just can’t put your fist up. You have to insist on something gently. Walk toward a thing slowly.”²² The class will discuss how Grandfather spoke of fighting peacefully as Martin Luther King, Jr. did. We will stop after Grandfather says, “Be ready to die, for everything you believe in,”²³ and talk about the importance of the fight for justice and equality. Then we will make our last pause when we reach the last stanza, “Because you’re colored, and just as good and bright and beautiful and free as anybody…”²⁴ I will ask my students to explain Woodson’s words.

These types of strategies and many others will be used during the close readings throughout the book. By the end of the Brown Girl Dreaming, I anticipate students will have a robust knowledge of the Jim Crow and Civil Rights Era that they gained from exploring a wide variety of fictional and non-fictional texts.