http://readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/calendar-activities/author-jacqueline-woodson-born-31132.html
Contribute to ReadWriteThink / RSS / FAQs / Site Demonstrations / Contact Us / About Us
What’s Happening This Week
There is much more to explore in our calendar. Find other important events in literary history, authors' birthdays, and a variety of holidays, each with related lessons and resources.
Looking for age-appropriate book recommendations, author interviews, and fun activity ideas? Check out our podcasts.
Home › Classroom Resources › Calendar Activities
February 12
Author Jacqueline Woodson was born today.
Grades | 5 – 9 |
Calendar Activity Type | Author & Text |
|
Author of such titles as Minnie's Boys, Feathers, Locomotion, and After Tupac and D Foster, Jacqueline Woodson won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature for Brown Girl Dreaming in 2014. She is also a recipient of a Newbery Honor, a Coretta Scott King Award and a Margaret Edwards Award.
Read aloud the poem “February 12, 1963,” the first poem in Brown Girl Dreaming, and encourage students to use Woodson’s free verse style to write a poem commemorating their own birthday or the birthday of a friend or relative.
After students draft a collection of images and ideas, encourage them to use the Line Break Explorer to experiment with ways to arrange their words for aural and visual effect. Students can also use the Acrostic Poems or Diamante Poems interactives to find other ways to represent a birthday through verse.
- Jacqueline Woodson: Books for Children and Young Adults
Jacqueline Woodson’s official site offers tips for readers, teachers, and caregivers to get the most out of the resources it offers.
- A Video Interview with Jacqueline Woodson
This thirteen part interview also includes a transcript and other reader resources.
- Jacqueline Woodson: 2014 National Book Award Winner, Young People's Literature
This page on the National Book Foundation site includes video of Sharon Draper presenting the National Book Award to Woodson’s acceptance speech and a reading from Brown Girl Dreaming.
Grades 5 – 9 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Exploring Perspectives on Desegregation Using Brown Girl Dreaming
Students read and discuss a selection of poems from Jacqueline Woodson's Brown Girl Dreaming to explore varying views on the process of desegregation in America.
Grades 3 – 5 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Literature as a Catalyst for Social Action: Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges
Students are invited to confront and discuss issues of injustice and intolerance in response to reading a variety of fiction and nonfiction texts.
Grades 4 – 6 | Lesson Plan | Recurring Lesson
Guided Comprehension: Visualizing Using the Sketch-to-Stretch Strategy
Guided comprehension moves your middle-grade students beyond decoding to become successful, independent readers. The sketch-to-stretch strategy encourages students to use "brain TV" to help them understand a text through visualization.
Grades 6 – 8 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Promoting Diversity in the Classroom and School Library through Social Action
Students explore the effects of stereotypes by analyzing children's books. Then they create bookmarks that encourage readers to question the assumptions of stereotyped books and to seek out matching, balanced texts.