Author Jacqueline Woodson was born today.
Event Description
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.
Classroom Activity
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.
Websites
Jacqueline Woodson’s official site offers tips for readers, teachers, and caregivers to get the most out of the resources it offers.
This thirteen part interview also includes a transcript and other reader resources.
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.