Pair Brown Girl Dreaming (you can be selective—choosing just one or two poems from the collection) with a contemporary non-fiction text: a news story, photograph, or editorial that touches on similar issues. In your response, discuss how you would pair these two texts in the classroom and what students could gain from such a pairing. How do the texts inform and/or comment on each other or a specific societal issue? Remember: the Common Core puts emphasis on non-fiction and complexity, so this pairing would help on both counts. Be sure to use specific evidence from both Brown Girl Dreaming and the other text you choose. And be specific about what you would do in the classroom. If you choose this approach, provide a link to or copy of your text in both your blog post and your Sakai submission.
Jacqueline Woodson and Alice Walker: A Nonfiction Human Rights Pairing
One of the themes present in Jaqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming is the idea of the civil rights movement. Though the series of poems is told from the point of view of a child, through selected poems, the reader can glean an undercurrent of racism and descriptions about what it was like to be brown in American following forced integration. Poems such as “Sterling High School,” (94) “Stevie and Me,” (190) “What Everybody Knows Now” (198) directly reference prejudices and the environment caused by the civil rights movement, offering a way for teachers to pair them with nonfictional historical texts and contemporary rights texts. One such author that could be paired with these poems is civil rights activist and author, Alice Walker. By pairing Woodson’s poems with Alice Walker’s “In Full Bloom” and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, teachers can open the door up for students to have conversations about human rights both past and present.
One way that to teach this pairing is by encouraging students to explore what both authors say about what it is to be brown women growing up in the South. Though the two authors formated their experiences nearly 20 years apart, both have similar stories about being raised in the Southern part of America. In her essay, Walker admits that she is a lifelong activist, but that she feels her acts are “puny” because “the most committed, most directly confrontational people suffered more. The most ‘revolutionary’ often ended up beaten, in prison or dead. Shot down in front of their children, blown up in cars or in church, run over by racist drunks, raped and thrown in the river” (26). Jackie describes similar violences when she explains that her mother’s school was burned down during a dance, “my mother said it was because / the students had been marching, / and the marching / made some white people in Greenville mad” (94). In both instances, the authors describe violence enacted upon those people who rose up during the civil rights movement. In Walker’s case, she lived through the protests, in Woodson’s case, she is repeating her very near history. As a teacher, these two instances could open up class discussions to talk about the rhetoric of both authors. Specifically, students could find more instances in Woodson’s book that alludes to racism, and then come up with ideas about why Jackie’s narrative maintains only allusions to racism that others around her experience. It would be worth noting to the students that the authors are 20 years apart, and still create similar experiences.
Aside from creating conversations about the American past, linking Walker and Woodson together can allow teachers to create a project that gives students the opportunity to become activists in the current world climate. After reading Woodson and Walker, teachers can have students explore the human rights website at http://www.humanrights.com/#/home in order to gain an understanding about what the 30 universal rights of humans are. When the students have a working knowledge of those rights, they can explore contemporary human rights issues. One website that is an invaluable tool for educators is the Human Rights Watch website at http://www.hrw.org/. This website links to human rights issues all over the globe and categorizes them by theme, making it easier for people to become activists for many world-wide causes. In order to make the learning authentic, teachers could have students create a project on their own that supports a topic from this website that is important to them.
By pairing Woodson with nonfiction pieces such as Walker’s In Full Bloom and integrating contemporary human rights topics, teachers can encourage students to explore the experiences of the world around them and to become activists for their chosen causes. This pairing, in addition to activating conversations and projects, also satisfies a multitude of state standards that deal with nonfictional texts as well as diversity in the classroom. This idea is not limited to just these two texts, though; teachers can use a multitude of texts that deal with social and civil rights in order to create an authentic learning experience for their students.
Works Cited
United Nations. United for Human Rights: Making Human Rights a Fact. 2015. Web 22 June, 2015. <http://www.humanrights.com/#/home>.
Walker, Alice. “In Full Bloom.” The Nation, September 20, 2004. 26. Web. 22 June, 2015. <https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4Z7FG60ezvwQVh1QTROTXJfX2c/view?usp=sharin>
Woodson, Jaqueline. Brown Girl Dreaming. Nancy Paulsen Books, 2014. e-Book.
This is a great pairing. I like how you have both the poetry and prose. That will make both texts accessible to students. I also really like how you brought in the human rights websites. This is very important because students need to understand what all humans have a right to and view cases in which those rights have been violated. By opening their eyes we are not only engaging them in critical thinking of literature but also critical thinking about society and themselves.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great pairing. I like how you have both the poetry and prose. That will make both texts accessible to students. I also really like how you brought in the human rights websites. This is very important because students need to understand what all humans have a right to and view cases in which those rights have been violated. By opening their eyes we are not only engaging them in critical thinking of literature but also critical thinking about society and themselves.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Ashley--great pairing! I think Alice Walker is a great choice, and that the fact that the pieces were written 20 years apart, yet they echo the same experiences, is significant. Also, I thought the human rights project was a great idea. Americans don't seem to talk about human rights in the same manner that other countries do. The idea of categorizing the human rights issues was ingenious and something I want to borrow from you. The more global awareness the students have the better--I feel like pairing literature and nonfiction as much as possible is the pathway for creating world-wise young citizens.
ReplyDeleteI love how you paired it with a nonfiction text. What a great article and pairing! I agree with Dawn that "pairing literature and nonfiction as much as possible is the pathway for creating world-wise young citizens." Can I come be a student in your high school English class? Haha
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