Skip to main content

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. 


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Balloons Over Broadway

   Summary of Book: Balloons over Broadway was written and illustrated by Melissa Sweet. The story starts with talking about Tony Sarg and that he became a Marionette man when he was only 6 years old. When he grew uo he moved to London to continue to create his marionettes and eventually moved to New York where his popularity continued to grow. Macy's asked Sarg to create a "puppet parade" for his holiday window. And his mechanical marionettes danced and thrilled the little children who passed. Macy's decided to create a parade for immigrants that would include a street carnival from all over the world. As the parade went on, it grew more and more until it had grown to much and the real animals scared the children to much. So Macy's requested Tony to change the animals. So he decided to make much larger marionettes that could be held up in the sky. However, to make sure they were not to heavy, he made them balloons and filled them with helium. He made sure they we...
Post a Comment
Read more

Drummer Boy At Bull Run

    Summary of Book: In this series of 10 books written by Gilbert Morris, Drummer Boy at Bull Run is the first one we see of the series. In this series it follows the families of the Majors and Carters during the civil war. The Majors support the South and the Carters support the North and both families are involved in the war. The series center around Jeff Majors and Leah Carter. These two are best friends. Jeff follows his older brother and father to fight on the side of the South as a drummer boy, and Leah joins her father and follows the North army with her father in a wagon with food and supplies. In this story it follows the effects the war has on both families and also involves talking about wars and seeing the effects of death. At the end of the story we see Jeff go back home to celebrate his birthday with Leah as they share the same birthday. Why you would/would not use this book in your classroom? I would have this book in my school library because it is a really in...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Tale of Despereaux

    Summary of Book: The Tale of Despereaux was written by Katie Dicamillo and is the recipient of the Newberry Award. The story follows the very brave, noble mouse Despereaux. He does not fit in with the rest of his family as he is able to see and actually enjoys reading. This story follows several intertwining stories involving a rat in a dungeon that plots to get revenge on the princess and uses a girl that was sold by her father to do so. And we see that Despereaux is in love with the princess and wants to save her from the rats evil plot. In the end, we see Despereaux was able to save the princess and they remain best friends, the rat is given free range of the castle, and the girl is reunited with the father that sold her and he is so remorseful.  Why you would/would not use this book in your classroom? I don't think I would use this book in my classroom because I'm not sure I see the value of having my students read this book. The fairytale aspect wasn't really the...
Post a Comment
Read more