CKLA Unit 1: Brown Girl Dreaming
Focus:
Students begin the year identifying, describing, and using elements of a memoir—both in reading and writing—through the study of the award-winning memoir, Brown Girl Dreaming. Students will begin to explore the issues of individual identity, and connections to family and the wider community as they follow author Jacqueline Woodson through her free verse exploration of her early years in the segregated South, in Ohio, and in New York. Throughout the unit, students review the writing process and engage in an extended writing project, exploring their own sense of identity and personal values. The unit includes a Beginning of Year Assessment.
Note: This unit uses Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson, a trade book published by Penguin Young Reader Group, an imprint of Penguin Random House (ISBN 9780147515827). This is not available as a free download. Schools will need to purchase this book.
Number of Lessons: 15
Instruction Time:
90 minutes (Each lesson may be divided into shorter segments.)
Additional Search Terms:
audience • memoir • author • narrative • tolerance • Civil Rights Movement • Rosa Parks • Montgomery Bus Boycott • Martin Luther King, Jr. • NAACP • enslaved • emancipated • Ruby Bridges • James Baldwin • descriptive language • segregation • show vs. tell • sensory details • setting
