Web of Respect
Contents Lesson Plans Anti-Bias Books Resources Weblinks Evaluation Student Work
Grade Level : 4Objectives
- To learn about racial discrimination.
- To understand the power of autobiographical writing.
Vocabulary
Richard Wright and the Library Card is a fictionalized account taken from the autobiography, Black Boy, written by Richard Wright and published in 1945.
Autobiography
Jim Crow (laws)
Rebel
Segregation
Fictionalized account
Colored boy
Discrimination
Ticket to Freedom
Pre-assessment
Ask students what they know about the free public library system in the United States? Ask students what they know about Jim Crow laws and segregation? Discuss how the impact that Jim Crow laws had on the fair use of public libraries?
Read and discuss some sample Jim Crow Laws or types of Jim Crow Laws.
Reading
Richard Wright and the Library Card by William Miller.
Lee and Low, 1997Based on a scene from Wright's autobiography, Black Boy, in which the seventeen-year-old African-American borrows a white man's library card and devours every book as a ticket to freedom. His story vividly illustrates the power of determination in making a dream into reality.Learn more about the book and illustrator.
Activities
A teacher's guide and a series of activities are available at the publisher's website. Included are:
- Prereading Focus Questions
- Vocabulary
- Discussion Questions
- Reader's Response journal
- Writing Activities
- Social Studies Activities
- Library Skills Activities
- Language Arts Activities
For background information on Richard Wright and his book Black Boy, check the websites listed below.
Websites
Lee and Low Books: Publisher of multicultural books for children. Well-crafted lesson plans for many titles are available at the Lee and Low teacher's center . [commercial website].It is interesting to look at the variety of reviews that accompanied the publication of Black Boy [Clayton College & State University, Georgia]. The book was very controversial when it was first published. It became a best seller in 1945 and was later made into a film that was censored in the United States.
The children's version has been significantly watered down. According to one reviewer, "background details are softened and 'colored boy' is the worst epithet in the book" Check out these book reviews. [HallKidsFiction.com].
Exerpt from the original chapter, The Library Card written by Richard Wright. [Wayne State University]
Resource Guide to Richard Wright [University of North Alabama]
What Was Jim Crow? In-depth background information about Jim Crow Laws [Michigan Radio]
Film Guide to the movie which was shown in 1995 on public television.[PBS]
Children of Promise: African American Literature & Art by Charles Sullivan. Poems, prose, photographs, and paintings explore the African-American experience as seen through art and literature by blacks or about black subjects. Harry Abrams, 1991.Frederick Douglass in His Own Words by Frederick Douglass. The most renowned and influential black leader of the nineteenth century, his writings chronicle the effects of slavery and the struggle to overthrow it, as well as the conditions of free blacks both before and after Emancipation. Harcourt Brace, 1995. (305.8)
Richard Wright and the Library Card by William Miller. A seventeen-year-old African-American borrows a white man's library card and devours every book as a ticket to freedom. Lee & Low Books, 1997. (FIC)
Sweet Words So Brave by Barbara Curry. A survey of the history of African American literature, from slave narratives to the present, told in the voice of a grandfather speaking to his granddaughter. Zeno Press, 1996. (810.9)
