Anytime I can use a children's book to help students connect with content, it's a good thing. When teaching about the Civil War and the role slavery played into it, The Wagon by Tony Johnston is one of my very favorites. Not only does it show the lives of slaves, but it does it through a 12-year old slave boy. Coupled with the author's beautiful use of words, this book is, also, a mentor text to use when teaching students about voice and word choice. From the beginning, students start reacting to the use of language and the injustices of slavery, "One Carolina morning, I was born. Everything was beautiful that day, Mama said, especially my skin like smooth dark wood. But like all my family, birth to grave, my skin made me a slave."
In our first read, I ask students to listen for facts shared as the story is read by "reading between the lines." In their reader's log, students create a page and I create an anchor chart to record our thinking:
Source: The Wagon, Tony Johnston
And the story says… Response:
“birth to grave, skin made me a slave” born a slave just because of skin color?
“could not go where I pleased” not free
“8 plantings” – 8 yr old had to work I guess no playing for him
My Thoughts...
The first 3 or 4 pages are slow moving because I stop reading at the end of each page to model, discuss, and record. After students, understand what I want them to do, I stop after 3 pages and have them turn and talk to a partner about what they recorded. I ask for volunteers to share and we continue adding to our group chart. After reading the story, students, individually, finish by recording their thoughts.
The next day students practice this same skill by working in cooperative groups using other picture books: Henry’s Freedom Box by Helen Levine, From Slave Ship to Freedom Road by Julius Lester, Under the Quilt of Night by Deborah Hopkinson, Almost to Freedom by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson.
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