Ruby Bridges: One Week Wonder

This marks week number two of our biography unit, and we have been busy learning with my Ruby Bridges: One Week Wonder study! We read The Story of Ruby Bridges (a biography), and Through My Eyes (an autobiography), and it led to so many A-ha moments and amazing conversations! (You could certainly do 99.9% of this unit with The Story of Ruby Bridges, but I do feel like Through My Eyes adds so much content to the discussions and enhances the unit, for what it's worth.)

I love being able to provide my students with thought-provoking, deep texts that mirror real life and help teach important life lessons.  This fits the bill.  It's definitely one of my favorite text pairings, and you'll see why! It's perfect for a biography study, Black History month, and really anytime you want to teach tolerance and respect through literature.  Here's a little peek at some of the activities we did this week!

I wanted my students to understand the elements of biographies, so we made a Ruby Bridges lap book using large construction paper and interactive notebook templates.  This was so much fun, and I really think it's great preparation for our Biography Wax Museum.  (It's almost that time already!)

I love using eggs to represent diversity because the lesson is so simple and straightforward.  Just draw a few smiley faces, crack them open, and observe how they are the same inside.  This is such a great lesson on symbolism, and it really helps relay the idea that no matter our color, we are all people.  We are all the same on the inside, just like those eggs! This year, I decided to have my kiddos do a writing egg-tivity reflecting on how this demonstration relates back to the text.  It was really powerful, and they made really adorable egg people in the process.  LOVE!  (Just a note... if you have a child with egg allergies, especially severe allergies, you may want to make a video of this process ahead of time. Safety first!)

 

 

I always love a good Read the Room activity because it's so versatile and allows my students to get up and move about.  This week, the focus was on writing compound sentences and reviewing coordinating conjunctions like and, or, but, and so.  This was a big success!

I didn't take photos of all of our vocabulary activities, but they were fun, fun, fun!  As you can see, we were focused on integrate, anxious, segregation, irritable, marshals, and mob this week.  We did a cloze activity, a Frayer model book for direct instruction, the colorful vocabulary activity, a vocabulary lanyard activity, and PowerPoint portrayals (where kids use clip art and use each word in a sentence as part of a short slideshow).  Who says learning vocabulary has to be mundane and basic?

The students discussed several predetermined comprehension questions in their mini-booklets this week, and they also generated their own thought-provoking questions.  I really enjoyed seeing how deeply they were thinking about the events that unfolded in New Orleans in 1960.  They were completely engaged and engrossed by  the discussions.

We reviewed nouns, adjectives, verbs, and pronouns using the SMARTboard and clickers.  This could make a great activity with Plickers or as a 4 Corners game though!  Quick, interactive,  and no prep!

We talked about primary and secondary sources, and the kiddos did a game of SCOOT to demonstrate understanding.  (I didn't snap a photo, unfortunately!)  You can see some of this learning reflected in the Comparing Accounts Venn Diagram though.  I love seeing them looking beyond the content at the craft and structure. 

We played a game of Thumbs Up or Down to review subject-verb agreement, and it was simplicity as its best.  The kids really enjoyed this, and it was a piece of cake to implement!

Although I didn't include any specific plans for anchor charts in the lesson plans in this file, I did want to share how I made a very simple chart for lingering questions.  I like being able to glance back throughout the week to tackle those tough questions.  This is great for student buy-in and ownership as well.

I asked each student to create a special award for Ruby Bridges, and I wanted them to write an opinion-based text about why she was deserving of this award.  This is a snapshot of the organizer they used to plan their texts before writing.  I loved seeing how creative their awards were, but I loved seeing the evidence from the text SO much more!

I think I mentioned this in my Snowflake Bentley post, but I really wanted to create centers that I could use on a weekly basis that fit into my weekly themes.  This week the Mentor Corner focused on Black History, and students could pick a famous African-American to research.  They played MOB, a twist to the game Bang to review irregular past-tense verbs, they completed "What is the Question?" to work on asking and answering questions, they did a synonym match-up with emotions, and they also sorted pronouns into 1st person or 3rd person pockets.  It was a blast!

This blog post doesn't include every single activity, but it includes many of my favorites.  Here's a more comprehensive list of the contents:

What's Included:

Lesson Plans
Cloze Vocabulary Introduction
Vocabulary Book with Frayer Models
Vocabulary Cards for Focus Wall/Pocket Chart
Ruby Bridges Discussion Questions Mini-Book
That's What It's All About Main Idea/Key Details Organizer
Point of View T-Chart
Compound Sentences Read the Room Activity
Opinion-Based Text: Create an Award and Tell Why She Deserves It
Extra, Extra! Newspaper Template (Summarizing)
Biography Lap Book Interactive Templates
Ruby Bridges Traits, Motivations, and Feelings Organizer
Vocabulary Lanyard Vocabulary Cards
Primary and Secondary Sources SCOOT
Connections to Ruby and Reaction to Books T-Chart
Event Timeline Organizer
Example of Vocabulary PowerPoint Portrayals
Biographies and Autobiographies Posters
Comparing Accounts Venn (Through My Eyes too)
Drawing Information From Photos and Illustrations T-Chart
Subject-Verb Agreement: Thumbs Up or Down?
We're All Alike on the Inside Writing and Egg-Tivity
Colorful Vocabulary Templates
Determining Importance Flap Book for Interactive Notebooks
Summarizing Flap Book for Interactive Notebooks
Book Review "Jot Spot" Writing Prompt for Interactive Notebooks
Parts of Speech 4 Corners/Clicker Activity
Shaping Up Formative Assessment
Vocabulary Quiz
Comprehension Quiz (with paired text and writing prompt)
MOB: Irregular Past-Tense Verbs Center (A Twist on BANG!)
Emotional Synonyms Center (Emotions Match-Up)
What's the Question? Center
Point of View Pronouns Center
Mentor Corner: Black History

Mentor Corner covers Jackie Robinson, Jesse Owens, Thurgood Marshall, Sarah E. Goode, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglas, Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Ruby Bridges, and Coretta Scott King.

Note: There are several references to prayer in "The Story of Ruby Bridges". I read it matter-of-factly. (Even though I do definitely think faith is important, I never want to push it on anyone).  In this text, it is a reflection of her culture, her upbringing, and it's what helped her draw inner-strength.

Another note:  When reading "Through My Eyes", you may want to pick and choose what you read aloud due to time constraints and a few details included in the text that may be a bit heavy for your students, depending on your population. I use Post-Its to mark my spots, and I'd say I read 90% of it.  I skipped parts about the KKK and threatening to poison Ruby, for example, but honestly those parts are so few and far between, and it is a truly fabulous book with so many details that help students empathize with Ruby and understand her experience so much better. You don't want to skip this.  You just want to know what you want to read ahead of time.  I am, in general, a big fan of reading excerpts to teach in Reader's Workshop.  You can get a lot of bang for your buck that way!

So, there you have it!  I am personally LOVING this approach to teaching literature.  What's next in the biography unit?  Abraham Lincoln and The Boy on Fairfield Street!  Stay tuned for more One Week Wonders!