Summer Is For Reading! Jabari Jumps

Oh, be still my heart! Jabari. 💓

I was lucky enough to be able to order a six-pack of Jabari Jumps by Gaia Cornwall (2017) for our school's book room in the spring of 2017.

Teachers, if your school does not have this book, please remedy that!

This is one of those picture books that can be used on multiple levels for Kindergarteners through high school, depending on your instructional purpose. The text is deceptively simple. But don't underestimate Jabari!

For the littlest ones, it's a feel-good story about being brave, rich with family love. I read this to one of my second grade reading groups to test the waters (pun intended). K, a young man with learning and focus challenges who struggled to comprehend and retell most stories, told us everything after I read it to them. He told it all! Not just events, but feelings of the main characters, possible reasons - K made good inferences.

My favorite spread

Representation matters. In this 'simple' book about a little boy facing his fear of jumping off the diving board, bolstered by his father's love and support, K saw himself. He was literally quivering with excitement. This book mattered to him. (Not only that, but let me just point out the obvious - a functional Black family, a Black dad's love and care for his children, a Black family not just at the pool but taking swimming lessons, passing swimming tests - sadly, it's a thing that people think Black families don't do this - all of this matters.)

Above, you see my favorite spread. Look at those sweet characters - Jabari standing there just like little boys do, holding his daddy's hand. That baby girl's arm going around her daddy's back. Daddy has all his kid-care supplies in his backpack for the day.

And then read that last sentence. "But when his dad squeezed his hand, Jabari squeezed back." That is an entire mini-lesson's worth of instruction for third grade through high school right there! That is the pivot point in the book, the author dropping us a clue, the author's choice of character action - can your students analyze that sentence? Did they even notice it?  (This is CCSS R.5)

Those are the discussions you'd want to be sure to have with students reading about on Levels O - Z+ (mid-third grade and up).

You'll also want to use this book as a great model (because of its depth of complexity and its short reading time) for understanding the deeper nuances of character and theme with upper elementary through high schoolers. If you are a fan and user of Jennifer Serravallo's The Reading Strategies Book, Jabari Jumps would be a great mentor text for just about all of Goal 7 that marries character and theme.

Difference between plot and theme? Quick and easy with this book. Also from Serravallo's Goal 7, you can use this text for lessons on what we can learn from how characters treat each other, seed to theme, character change reveals lessons, secondary sages, aha moment, and titles (is "Jabari Jumps" literal or is there more to it?). All of these fall within CCSS R.2 and R.3, theme and characters. Great for small group lessons on all of these skills.

Look at the spread below. We've all been there.

But could we take that more than literally with this story? What could this be a metaphor for, both in the text and in the larger context of community, the world?

And then there's the art.

Look how Cornwall uses what looks to be old book text to form the city buildings. Why did she choose to do that? What is the impact on the story? The reader? CCSS Anchor Standard R.7.

Get Jabari Jumps. You'll love it as much as I do.

Summer is for Reading! Awâsis and the World-Famous Bannock

Teachers, Awâsis and the World-Famous Bannock (2018) is one of those books that will make teaching easier! Quadruple duty: theme/central message, analysis of two or more texts, stories from diverse cultures & global goals, and author's craft.

Awâsis and the World-Famous Bannock by Dallas Hunt, illustrated by Amanda Strong, is an #OwnVoices picture book. It's also recommended by Debbie Reese on her blog American Indians in Children's Literature. The main character, Awâsis, gets help from some animal friends after accidentally dropping her grandmother's bannock. 

Short reads, especially picture books, are great to model think-alouds for K-12. Since they are short, they get across the teaching point through example quickly, and illustrations make them memorable for students all the way through high school (and beyond). Additionally, if you use the same text to help teach multiple standards, students will become more deeply familiar with that text and thus more familiar with how to think deeply about a text.

This short read would be great to model theme and central message (RL.2), especially for 2nd through 8th grades, and even more so if your grade level standard mentions 'diverse cultures' (2nd and 3rd grades here in North Carolina). Awâsis and the World-Famous Bannock also has a guide to included words in the Cree language in the back, and you can also watch this video with your students to learn the words together!

Is your school a global school? If your grade level learns about North America, this would be a perfect text to combine global goals with ELA standards.

Awâsis and the World-Famous Bannock would also be fabulous to use to teach RL.9 - analyzing two or more texts. Below, these grade levels' RL.9 would be a great fit for this book:

RL.2.9 Compare and contrast two or more versions of the same story by different authors or from different cultures.

RL.4.9 Compare and contrast the use of similar themes and topics and patterns of events in stories, myths, and traditional literature from different cultures.

RL.5.9 Compare and contrast stories in the same genre on their approaches to similar themes and topics.

RL.6.9 Compare and contrast texts in different forms or genres in terms of their approaches to similar themes and topics.

RL.8.9 Analyze how a modern work of fiction draws on themes, patterns of events, or character types from myths, traditional stories, or religious works, including describing how the material is rendered new.

There are a couple of texts that students could compare to Awâsis and the World-Famous Bannock. Little Red Riding Hood would be a traditional story that students would find an interesting comparison (mother/grandma sends girl on a mission through the forest to help relatives in both stories, mission fails in both stories, girl meets animal in the forest, animals are helpful in one story, not in the other - lots of possibilities). 

The other great comparison text that springs to mind is Cynthia Leitich Smith's Jingle Dancer, in which the main character goes from relative to relative collecting jingles for her jingle dress to dance in the powwow for her relatives. (If you don't have Jingle Dancer, get it - it's phenomenal!)

Theme comparison would involve differences: listen to your parents, or do as you are told or bad things will happen vs helping others, interdependence, accepting help, working together - many possibilities.

And you know we need to insert Author's Craft whenever we can at every grade level, so check this out:

See what my pencil is pointing to? Yay! Why did the author decide to use a smaller/larger font for this part? What is the effect of the author's use of a smaller/larger font? What does the author want the reader to do when they get to the smaller/larger font? Why? 

Aaaand, the world-famous bannock recipe is in the back so you can actually make it! Science and math standards, anyone? Yum!

This was my March

Wow, March was a busy month! All good things and much appreciated things, but busy.

On the 23rd, I received UNC's 2015 Diversity Award in the Communities category for my work in  my school and district getting more diverse books in our library and educating about appropriate American Indian books, as well as my work with the NC State Advisory Council to create new Culturally Responsive Instructional Resource pages online and advocating for reading of diverse books on this blog.

UNC 2015 Diversity Award recipients with university biggies

I got to hug the chancellor and eat fancy-schmancy, delicious finger foods at the reception. The chancellor is in the front row in the pic, wearing the skirt and jacket. I'm in the back row, second from left. I also knocked over my award right in front of the microphone as I gave my thanks, which I'm sure woke up anyone who had drifted off.


On the 27th, I spoke at the 2015 Native Leadership Symposium as the North Carolina Native Leader Spotlight speaker. The symposium is organized by UNC's First Nations Graduate Circle and holy cow, they do an excellent job! The theme this year was Representation and Empowerment in Indian Country. A huge squeeeee from the symposium? I got to meet and talk with Dr. Adrienne Keene of the ultra fabulous Native Appropriatons blog! Her keynote speech rocked - intelligent and thoughtful commentary on cultural appropriation. I was a little star struck.

Squeeee!

I spoke on action leadership - leadership by taking actions to make meaningful change, specifically using your passions/interests as a springboard to meaningful change in Indian country.

I was completely and fully honored to be asked to speak at this well-organized and thought-provoking event. It was a little nerve-wracking speaking about myself (when I present, it's usually in the form of giving resources or talking about a concept or end result), but I am so grateful to have had this opportunity. What a great experience!

My honor gifts - handmade pottery turtle and tobacco

The next day, I had a great time presenting the North Carolina State Advisory Council's new Culturally Responsive Instructional Resource pages to a group of about 20 teachers at a workshop, "An Indigenous People's History of the United States" at the North Carolina Museum of History. I absolutely love giving teachers resources they want and need - and are specifically there to get! 

The next week, during my spring break, I presented those same resources to teachers for three days at the Collaborative Conference on Student Achievement in Greensboro, North Carolina. This conference is a big, huge, hairy teaching conference deal. I'm not sure how many teachers, administrators and other education people were there, but it felt and looked like thousands (at the conference, not in my sessions, thank goodness!).  Although . . . would I like thousands of teachers and administrators to know about those new webpages? Yes, yes, I would. Yep.

Have I mentioned the North Carolina State Advisory Council's new Culturally Responsive Instructional Resource pages enough? Spread the word! Use and enjoy.

Wow, March was a busy month! All good.