Black History changemakers help eighth graders learn about nonfiction writing

Eighth graders in Joan Warwick’s class at Colonial Middle School are using children’s books about famous people in African American history to get a better understanding of the different tools authors use to tell a nonfiction story.

Jacob Ross can see how the project is serving two purposes. “It’s teaching me about Barack Obama and his early life, but it also helps me understand the author’s point of view.” 

Story structures—like cause and effect, compare and contrast, problem and solution, or chronological order—helps an author communicate the overall purpose of what they’re writing. 

According to Skylar Wawrzynek, different story structures also make reading more interesting. “It adds a lot of variety,” she said.

By using children’s books for the lesson, it’s also easier for students to find some of the other literary devices authors use. Figurative language (like similes and alliteration) and text features (like bold and italics) add emphasis, emotion, and imagery to a story.

Evie Prince saw some of this in the use of repetition in this excerpt from the book Maya’s Song written by Renée Watson.

Words like forgive, like kind
Words like brace, like powerful, like phenomenal
Words like faith, like dream, like free.

“I think it’s trying to show the importance of the words and what they really did for Maya Angelou,” she said.

The fact that the students were able to choose the book they wanted to read and analyze also helped keep the class engaged. 

Cris Chavez picked Bad News for Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, Deputy U.S. Marshal written by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson and illustrated by R. Gregory Christie based on the cover. “It looked pretty interesting to me,” he said. "Seeing his face, it’s pretty intimidating. I thought, ‘what could it possibly be about?’”

Kyla Childers chose a book by Breanna J. McDaniel about Augusta Baker. “I picked Go Forth and Tell, because I wanted to see how she grew up to be a librarian and storyteller, learn what inspired her to do that, and learn how she grew up to be successful,” she said. Kyla's favorite thing about the lesson was seeing the different African American people recognized and their contributions. 

Mrs. Warwick worked with Colonial Middle School’s Reading Specialist Julie Pustilnick to create the lesson and believes it “gets kids thinking deeper about a subject and noticing things that they weren’t noticing before.”

By studying the literary devices authors use to create nonfiction stories, the students will better understand what they read, while adding tools to improve their own writing.