Connections in First Grade - From A Monarch Butterfly Study to a Beautiful and Powerful Picture Book by Jacqueline Woodson

First grade students listened to the book This is the Rope: A Story From the Great Migration by Jacqueline Woodson during reading workshop. The reading strategy being practiced is making connections to one's life or to another book.

The first graders are learning about the migration of the monarch butterfly. Students in Susan's class asked earlier in the week whether people migrate. What a great connection to Jacqueline Woodson's beautiful and powerful book! Her writing and the illustrations by James Ransome enable the reader to visualize the feelings of the different generations in this young girl's story of her grandmother and her family who started their journey from South Carolina to New York City looking for a life where conditions for African Americans were more just than in the deep South.  Jacqueline Woodson dedicates this book to the more than six million African American families who migrated from the South in the early 1900's - 1970.

A rope is the symbol that binds the family together: as young girls use it to jump rope, a dad shows his daughter how to tie a sailor knot, and then uses the rope to tie her luggage down in the car as he drives her to a far away college. The rope is used again to hold a sign stating "We are All Family" at a picnic reunion in a big park.

I had the privilege to hear Jacqueline Woodson speak at the Philadelphia Free Library on the evening of October 6th. She shared that the emotions of her life are embedded in her books and especially in this book which represents the migration of her own mom who moved from South Carolina to Brooklyn in 1968. If you would like to read more about Jacqueline Woodson just click this link to her website.
http://www.jacquelinewoodson.com/all-about-me/readers/