During a unit on the Civil Rights Movement, a fourth grade class worked with award-winning author Andrea Pinkney. In commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Greensboro Four, the class read Ms. Pinkney's book, Sit In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down, which recounts how four black students integrated a Woolworth’s lunch counter in North Carolina through the use of sit-ins. Their success help spread this non-violent form of protest throughout the South.
Over the course of two workshops, Ms. Pinkney spoke to the students about her book, the Civil Rights Movement and the process of publishing. Ms. Pinkney emphasized how important it is for writers to edit and rewrite many times and to believe in themselves and in their work. She also led a class discussion on the importance of having children’s books about the Civil Rights Movement and how history is still relevant today. Ms. Pinkney explained why it is important for students to know and write about their own history.
Prior to Ms. Pinkney’s visits, each student had chosen one event or person from the civil right era to research and write about. Inspired by Ms. Pinkney’s presentation, students began to work on their writing projects. Each student wrote a story about the civil rights topic they had researched. Stories could be written from the point of view of a fictional character or from a real historical figure.
Having completed the final drafts of their stories, the class explored another important aspect of children’s books with Behind the Book teaching artist Barbara Korein: illustration. Ms. Korein led two illustration workshops: one where the students learned about the role of illustrations and how they relate to the text of a book and another on the specific style of illustration found in Sit-In. By the end of the workshops, each student had created a cover for their book and several illustrations for their stories. Each young author-illustrator put their illustrations and texts together with the covers to create an original book about the Civil Rights Movement.
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