Black American writers

Join over a million readers as part of the Twenty-Seventh National African American Read-In in February 2016! Learn more about what happens at a Read-In in the English Journal article “The African American Read-In: Celebrating Black Writers and Supporting Youth“.

The following links can get you started and provide resources as your students read and explore the works of these African American writers.

• “Jacqueline Woodson: Real Characters, Real Voices“, from, explores the people and experiences that influence the writing of Jacqueline Woodson. from this lesson gives students an introduction to Jacqueline Woodson’s verse memoir, Brown Girl Dreaming.
• Christopher Paul Curtis’s The Watsons Go to Birmingham — 1963 is the focus of the lesson plan, which invites students to graph the journey of the family while exploring the plot and character development in the novel.
• Nikki Giovanni’s poem “The Funeral of Martin Luther King Jr.” is paired with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech, taking students on a quest through time to the civil rights movement in the ReadWriteThink.org lesson . To learn more about authors with cultural backgrounds that parallel many of the lives of our students, check out, the NCTE book that inspired the lesson plan.
• Walter Dean Myers believes that a primary cause of lack of inspiration in readers is their difficulty decoding meaning because of language and societal differences. In his article “ shared how his own experiences as a reader shaped his approach to storytelling.
• Nikki Grimes stresses the power of poetry in “An Interview with Poet Nikki Grimes” from . Listen to a where her writing process and what inspires the characters in her books is shared. Also shared is her philosophy about writing for children and how her life has influenced her writing.
• Langston Hughes’s poetry is explored alongside rap lyrics and jazz and blues music in the article “Culturally Responsive Teaching: The Harlem Renaissance in an Urban English Class.” Read more about Hughes in .
• Alice Walker, bell hooks, and Nikki Giovanni are all explored in “Becoming a Writerly Self: College Writers Engaging Black Feminist Essays” from, which asserts that personal essays by Black feminist writers can be used to teach writers how to connect their personal and social identities. Learn more in the NCTE text