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brown girl dreaming

   Summary of Book: brown girl dreaming was written by Jacqueline Woodson. The book follows a little girl and her family. Her parents are married, but then they get divorced because the mom does not want to live in the North and the dad does, so he leaves. Then Woodson lives with her grandparents in the South and her mom leaves them for New York, then calls for the rest of her kids to come live with her in New York and informs them they have a new baby brother. Baby brother ends up dying, Woodson's Aunt dies, and then her grandpa dies, so their Jehovah witness grandma comes and lives with them in New York. The transition is hard for Woodson from South to North, but she befriends a Spanish girl. Then her uncle gets out of jail and during that time has become a Muslim. He then then teaches Woodson the Mecca and teaches her a lot about the Black Panther and Black rights. He then informs her about the Black revolution and Woodson is so moved by the hardships pf her people that she has no other outlet than to write it down in a poem. When she recites it in class, her teacher is shocked and says she is a natural born writer. She then figures that she can write and her stories and the influences on her life can be her base and she has a freedom in her own world. 

Why you would/would not use this book in your classroom? I would not because I do not see the value that this story would have to offer my classroom, other than the fact the story is written in verse. The value it would have for my students in content wasn't apparent to me. 

Appropriate age group for this book: 10+

Ideas for unit of study to include this book or how you might use this book in the classroom: The students could try their own hands at writing their own poems following the same style as this author. The teacher could use examples of places where Woodson is using words, have the students analyze the text to really see what she is maybe not saying or what more she is saying. From there the students could create their own poems based off these examples from the books writings. 


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