Literacy Matters Winter 2022

Title

Author

Instructional Recommendations

Where Are You From?

Yamile Saied Méndez

Tell and/or write about where you are from. We encourage teachers to share their own as a model. The book states that the day you begin is the day you tell your story. What is your story? Tell us all about yourself. What is the story of your name? Who selected your name? How was your name chosen? Are you named for someone? Someplace? Something? Does your name have a significant meaning? How do you feel about your name? Tell/write your name story. What is the story of your name? Who selected your name? How was your name chosen? Are you named for someone? Someplace? Something? Does your name have a significant meaning? How do you feel about your name? Who are you on the inside? Share about your inside or hidden identities. Discuss what it means to be your truest self. Explore the notion of considering others’ perspectives and experiences. Discuss the assumptions Milo, the main character, makes about strangers’ identities. Then share how he reimagined the strangers’ identities. Draw a self-portrait and write about your personal characteristics and traits. Stop and jot about what makes a family and what makes a good neighbor. Then after reading the book, add more information about families and neighbors in a new color. Brainstorm affirmation statements to use as class mantras. Select your own to write on a sticky note and to share with others. Figure 2 Identify Self-Portraits Grace Mather is currently a Senior Educational Studies major at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. She was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, where her parents and sister currently live. She hopes to complete a Masters of Arts in Teaching and get certified to teach following her graduation in the Spring. She is passionate about social justice and elementary education and was able to conduct research on those very topics with Dr. Katie Kelly and three other Education majors from Furman as an undergraduate research fellow over the Summer of 2021. Outside of her life as a student, she loves going outdoors, cooking, and spending time with loved ones. Grace can be contacted at grace.mather@furman.edu . Helena Sherman is a senior education major at Furman University. She believes that literacy should be a place for all to feel welcome. She appreciated the opportunity to work with Dr. Kelly and her peers on this ABAR research. Helena can be contacted at helena.sherman@furman.edu . Use the sentence frame: I Am… to share more about you. Draw or photograph the best part of you and explain why.

The Day You Begin

Jacqueline Woodson

Your Name is a Song

Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow Tell/write your name story.

Alma and How She Got Her Name

Juana Martinez Neal

Literacy Matters Feature Article I Am Every Good Thing

Derrick Barnes

The Best Part of Me: Children Talk and Write about Their Bodies in Pictures and Words

Wendy Ewald

Red: A Crayon’s Story

Michael Hall

Three Hens and a Peacock

Lester Laminack

Milo Imagines The World

Matt De La Peña

Eyes That Kiss in the Corner

Joanna Ho

In Our Mothers’ House

Patricia Polacco

I Am Enough

Grace Byers

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Katie Kelly is an Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Literacy Graduate Program at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. As a former teacher and literacy coach, Katie’s teaching and research interests include engaging children in authentic meaningful reading and writing experiences and literacy practices to foster equity and social justice. Katie can be contacted at katie.kelly@furman.edu . Kate Massey is a senior elementary education major at Furman University, and originally from Commerce, GA. Kate can be contacted at kate.massey@furman.edu . Madison Siekman is a student at Furman University in Greenville, SC studying elementary education. She is interested in incorporating a social justice mindset into the classroom. Madison can be contacted at madison.siekman@furman.edu .

| 14 | Literacy Matters | Volume 22 • Winter 2022

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