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, 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, Ohio, and 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: Schools will need to purchase Brown Girl Dreaming, by Jacqueline Woodson, Penguin Young Readers Group, ISBN 9780147515827.
Number of Lessons: 15
Lesson Time: 90 minutes each. Each lesson may be divided into shorter segments
Additional Search Terms: audience • memoir • author • narrative • tolerance • Civil Rights Movemen • 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
