Jewell Parker. Rhodes Visits via Skype, Ninth Ward Project Complete

Student asks Jewell P. Rhodes a question

Thursday, the 22nd, may have been the very last day of the school year, and the very last hours of the day, but the seventh graders still had one more piece to complete in the Ninth Ward Project---sitting down and having a chat with the author of the book that started it all, Jewell Parker Rhodes. Jewell and I have become friends, but she is also extremely busy. When I contacted her in early March to set up a skype, she was more than willing, but she had difficulty finding time in her hectic schedule when she could meet with us. She sent me an email right before our last week of school to ask if we still wanted to talk to her. It took a bit of work, but we found 30 minutes in between her packing to go away and the last minutes of school for the skype to happen.




Jewell did some reading of Ninth Ward and Sugar. The first book takes place in 2005 during the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, but the other takes place on a sugar plantation in Louisiana  just after the Civil War. I love hearing her read. She makes the stories really come alive.



The students asked her questions about what was real in the book. Interestingly, Jewell had been to New Orleans before Katrina, but had not been familiar with the Ninth Ward. She walked the sidewalks there after the storm did its damage. The students also asked about the characters and  why she added the paranormal aspect into the story. They also asked where Lanesha got her strength. I thought that was a wonderful question. Jewell said that she sees kids today with an inner strength that she did not possess as a child. Also, as a child, she yearned to read books with characters that were like her, African American. She felt that she had an important story to write because of this, and she was so right.

Thank you Jewell for taking a bit of time to talk to us and let our students know the power that stories can hold in our lives.

Here is a very short clip of Jewell reading from Ninth Ward:

Read more about the Ninth Ward project here.
Student created products are here.
Find the pathfinder and all the resources to complete the pathfinder here. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Happy Holidays from BRiMS and Bookmarked

I run two book groups at Patrick Taylor. My high school book group, Bookmarked , was created in the fall of 2007 which was my second year as librarian at the school. The students really wanted a library club, but the square footage of the library was so small that I could not imagine how any students could do any actual library work. Instead I created a book discussion group. Not only did we meet to talk books, but I tapped these students to help me with fundraisers and special programming like Teen Read Week. Helping me with these special activities seemed to appease the members. I waited until February of 2009 to institute a book discussion group for my middle school students called BRiMS, or Books Rule in Middle School . Both of the groups meet during lunch, and this year, the school added a third lunch. Now BRiMS is made up of only 6th and 7th graders. Bookmarked has 8th-12th grade students. This has actually worked well because in 2014 and 2015, Bookmarked lost a lot of members w
Read more

Banned Book Week: Students Make Comments Pro & Con Censorship

Image
This blog post is being designed as a lesson for the English I students at PFTSTA. The teachers and I have collaborated on an activity to celebrate Banned Book Week (BBW). Many times in the past during BBW, I have invited the 8th graders into the library to discuss the banning and challenging of books in schools and libraries. I usually show some videos and share books owned by our library that have been banned or challenged somewhere in the US. This activity always spurs great discussion among the students and teachers. This year we wanted the students to create a written response to the presentation. We thought there was a real world connection if we had the students post their opinion online as a comment to someone writing about censorship in schools. The teachers and I want the students to learn how to compose a well thought out comment that is supported by evidence and concrete details. How more real world could it be than having the students comment directly on their librar
Read more

Students Weigh in on Banned Books and the Freedom to Read

Image
Every year, for Banned Book Week, I prepare a lesson for our 8th graders. It was always teacher directed with discussion until last year . The English I teachers and I created a lesson for the students that included research and writing. I pulled the materials that I wanted them to read, and the students would write a very short essay declaring their belief in the need for teens to be able to exercise their freedom to read what they want to or the need for certain books to be taken off the shelves of the library or pulled from the English curriculum.  Above is the slide presentation that I have made for the students. Included in the slides are several videos that I thought would get the students thinking. There are slides with links to specific articles that we want the students to read and use for the concrete evidence to support their stance. A rubric is included at the end so the students know exactly what is expected. The teachers and I want the writing to have a rea
Read more