Lori: 2nd Grade - Writing Ideas

Second Grade : Writing Ideas


By: Lori Gentry



If A Bus Could Talk by Faith Ringgold

Mentor Text: If A Bus Could Talk is a book based on the Civil Rights movement and the story of Rosa Parks. In the book a bus talks, and a child named Marcie learns how Rosa Parks became the mother of the Civil Rights Movement. Readers are exposed to the cruel reality of segregation and how Rosa refused to give her seat up to a white man. The story ends with Marcie getting to meet Rosa at a birthday party.

Purpose: I chose this book because it is a great way to educate and get young writers to generate ideas of their feelings. I believe this to be a very important part of our history, and it stirs ideas within student's minds to how they would feel in the same position. When teaching young children to write using a real life situation generates their idea process and gives them the ability to write a clear message from their own feeling.

About the Author:

Faith Ringgold, began her artistic career more than 35 years ago as a painter. Today, she is best known for her painted story quilts. She has exhibited in major museums in the USA, Europe, South America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Her first book, Tar Beach was a Caldecott Honor Book and winner of the Coretta Scott King Award for Illustration, among numerous other honors. She has written and illustrated eleven children's books. She has received more than 75 awards, fellowships, citations and honors, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Fellowship for painting, two National Endowment for the Arts Awards and seventeen honorary doctorates.
Faith Ringgold is married to Burdette Ringgold and has two daughters, Michele and Barbara Wallace; and three granddaughters, Faith, Theodora and Martha. She is a professor of art at the University Of California.

Lesson: Describe to the your students the pain of segregation. In particular describe the bus situation in Alabama cities like Birmingham. How would you feel if you had to sit at the back of the bus?? If possible conduct your lesson on a local school bus. Ask some students to sit in the back. Talk about how it makes you feel.

Read: If A Bus Could Talk

Then have students think about what they feel about their experience on the bus. Generate a list of ideas on their feelings.
Write about those feelings and what it means to have or not have civil rights.
Together, or alone have your students come up with a list of their own civil rights.

Content Standard: Writing Process Standard A. Generate ideas for written compositions.