Literacy Now

THE CART THAT CARRIED MARTIN (Charlesbridge, 2013)
Written by Eve Bunting and illustrated by Don Tate
Pre-K through Grade 4 

THE CART THAT CARRIED MARTIN is an easy to understand look at the funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr.  The story follows the funeral processions of King that happened in an unusual way. A man of great principles and convictions had a humble beginning and his funeral procession mirrored this fact. The story begins simply with a used cart that is for sale. The owner can never be found so the men wanting to purchase it for King’s funeral procession borrow it to return it. They fix it up, paint it, and use it to carry King’s body.

Each item on the cart had a very specific meaning. They painted it green for grass after a rain because Martin liked that. The mules chosen symbolized the fact that he was “ordinary” and were a symbol of freedom for slaves. As the cart was drawn through crowds, history is recorded in the text and illustrations showing the large outpouring of people who attended his funeral at Ebenezer Baptist Church and the procession with the cart through Atlanta and to Morehouse College.

The crowds overwhelmed the college quad and a second memorial service was held. The illustrations are soft and inviting and pull the reader into the greatness of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the great legacy left behind. The coffin was then transferred to a hearse to be taken to the cemetery. The mules were set back out to pasture and the wagon returned, to be later placed in the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site. The cart that was old and unwanted became a holder of greatness.

This book can be used as a simple, yet moving, introduction to the life of King and his continued legacy that “could not be kept in a coffin.”

Cross-curricular connections: Math, Art, Social Studies, English

Ideas for Classroom Use: 

Route Mapping

The purpose of this activity is to use map and routing skills to determine the best ways to travel and study distances. This activity incorporates math skills into reading and history.

Use old road maps or an atlas and find the route the cart could have taken when King’s funeral happened. Could he still take the same route today? What is the difference in how he was travelling for today’s route? Be sure to include stops at the church, the capital, and Morehouse College and then on to the cemetery. How many miles, feet, inches, etc. would the mules have traveled? How many miles did the hearse travel? Draw a new route and calculate the distance for King to travel today to be seen by a maximum amount of people.

Finding Greatness

The purpose of this activity is to expand on the influence King had in American history and culture. Adjust the story to fit the age of children in the classroom for their best grasp of the material. Find books that tell about how King changed the culture of America and how he still affects life today.

After reading these stories, have students write a “dream” that they may have about how America can be stronger and better in the future. Have younger students dictate their story and illustrate what changes they would make for America. Share these in large groups or in classroom-made books to build exposure to print, and story processes.

Everyone but you...

The purpose of this activity is to encourage students to think about the difference that King made in America. Have students of certain color shirts only stand at the back of the line for a day, children with brown hair cannot use the water fountain, etc.  Discuss in large or small groups how that exclusion makes the children feel, and how things should happen instead.

After this discussion, have students write a list of conduct rules to help everyone feel included and post it in the classroom.

Additional Resources and Activities:

Interactive Maps of Atlanta
This site has several interactive maps of the Atlanta area that students can look at to determine routes and distances. The current transportation available in Atlanta is linked on this page as well.

Martin Luther King Jr.
This video created by Brain Pop gives a quick overview of Martin Luther King Jr.’s life. The video discusses the topics King worked to make changes for, his life, and his long term reach. The page includes links to famous quotes, laws that have changed based on his contribution to America, and many other items. A quick quiz for understanding is included on the video.

Eve Bunting Author Study
This page at ReadWriteThink.org is an overview of Eve Bunting’s work and biography. The page includes links to external sites giving more information including a link to Scholastic’s author study page for kids.

Kathy Prater is a Reading Specialist who works with students with dyslexia, an Adjunct Professor at Mississippi University for Women in Columbus, Mississippi, and a full time pre-kindergarten teacher at Starkville Academy in Starkville, Mississippi. Her passions include reading, writing, tending her flock of chickens, and helping students at all levels to find motivation for lifelong reading and learning. She believes that every child can become a successful reader if given the right tools and encouragement. 

As with most folks, when the New Year strikes I reach down deep, look into my heart and make commitments to the twelve months ahead that I hope won’t implode by Martin Luther King Day.

p: thomasstache via photopin cc

This year is no different. And being that we are now in Annum Comminus Summa (that’s Latin for Year of Common Core, btw…or so says Google Translate), here’s a list of a few things I hope to gain mastery over before the clock strikes twelve ending the twelve months which will comprise the year 2014.

1. I resolve to deepen and expand my ability to deliver non-fiction content to learners of all stripes. Of course this will mean I am going to need to check my sources, do a ton of research, carefully select grade appropriate texts and try to harmonize them with both cross-disciplinary aims as well as within intertextual, multi-media, appropriately scaffolded and differentiated units. But it’s still early in the year so my faith is strong that I will be up to the challenge. (At least more up to it than I am when it comes to eliminating my egregious need to soothe myself during trying times with chocolate.)

2. I resolve to remain steadfastly committed to literature. Fiction still matters a GREAT deal. Classic books, YA fiction, stories of all types, and even though I can already foresee ill-informed checklist checkers sweating me for not chronically pimping non-fiction, as research shows (and as my teacher’s heart/mind knows), the benefits of reading fiction for young minds is irrefutable and irreplaceable.

3. I resolve to help develop strong, competent writers. Yes, Common Core is placing an unprecedented premium on writing, but as a thoughtful educator I have always felt that our schools have needed to place much more oomph on a student’s ability to write well (and much less oomph on a kid’s ability to choose A, B, C, or D in order to get credit for knowing things).
   
   By MLK Day my diet might already be shot (but that’s not due to willpower; biology has cursed me with a scientifically provable chemical infatuation with chocolate) and might already be on life support (I did walk to the fridge for the chocolate brownies, after all, as opposed to simply asking someone else to go get it for me, but the caloric expenditure probably didn’t balance out the caloric intake) yet doubling down on building better writers in 2014 is one that I believe has a lot of gas in the tank.

Okay, so I have three goodies. However, it’s time for the million dollar New Year question: Do I dare expand the list? To add more things builds more pressure on me. After all, I can swear off chocolate and vow to exercise, but if I take on meditation, philanthropy, learning Chinese and joining a crochet club (y’all do know how hard the crochet circuit parties, right?) then I am setting myself up for trouble.

Yet, when I look at the Common Core I know I also really need to deepen and expand my skills in areas such as:

• Amplifying Text Complexity for Low Achieving Readers
• The World of Essential Questions
• Building Authentic Student Engagement
• Closing the Close Reading Gap
• Providing Bulletproof Textual Evidence
• Elevating Visual Literacy
• Speaking and Listening (ten times over)
• Refining Argumentation and Rhetoric

Gulp…it’s a lot to tackle. And that’s not even all of it by any stretch. But yes I do. I will go for it.

Why? Because while I know obscene amounts of chocolate are bad for me I also know owning a wide variety of skillsets in the world of literacy instruction is good for me.

Thank goodness Annum Comminus Summa is also going to be the year of Annum Lorem Ipsum Auxilium, the year of intense professional development.

Alan Lawrence Sitomer is a California Teacher of the Year award winner and the founder of The Writer’s Success Academy. In addition to having been an inner-city high school English teacher and former professor in the Graduate School Of Education at Loyola Marymount University, Mr. Sitomer is a nationally renowned keynote speaker who specializes in engaging underperforming students. To date, Mr. Sitomer has authored 16 books with works ranging from hard-hitting YA novels like HOMEBOYZ, THE HOOPSTER and HIP-HOP HIGH SCHOOL to humorous and warm children’s picture books such as DADDIES DO IT DIFFERENT. Alan has two new books hitting the shelves in spring 2014: CAGED WARRIOR, a gritty tale about the underground world of teen mixed martial arts fighting, and DADDY AND THE ZIGZAGGING BEDTIME STORY, the next in his series of beloved children's picture books.

When I meet up with a group of teachers it is difficult to get us off the topic of teaching in today’s classroom. There are so many opinions about new standards, testing, teacher evaluations…the list goes on. We have a hard time talking about anything else because we are so consumed by the changes we see in our work lives. Many of my colleagues believe we have lost sight of what is most important in our schools—the children.

Having taught pre-K and kindergarten for many years I can’t lie, I am definitely concerned about the push for more direct instruction and testing in our classes. I find it is harder every year to infuse play into my lessons. In many school districts teachers are given the exact amount of minutes per day to teach each subject. Which content area wants the teacher to include the housekeeping center? Which content area should be used for play with blocks?

p: woodleywonderworks via photopin cc

As educators we can make an argument for most social centers and how they fit into our day. But we also see the list of standards, the curriculum and supplements that are supplied to us, the curriculum calendars, and the testing schedules and we may second-guess ourselves and whether we should include those social centers into our day. But I do feel it is our job as early childhood educators to continue to incorporate play-based learning into every content area.

Why is it so important?

In early childhood we have a responsibility to help continue, or in many cases, start that love of learning and school that is so important for our youngsters to have. I fear, as do many of my colleagues, if we push direct instruction all day and every day in early childhood we will hinder the enjoyment of learning. Many of us have also seen an increase in behavior issues in our classrooms. There are a multitude of reasons that we are seeing an increase in negative behaviors. I believe one of the biggest reasons is that our students are pushed too hard and do not have an opportunity to learn to self-regulate through play and social interaction.

The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) states that children learn in a variety of ways, play is an important vehicle for developing self-regulation, and promoting language, cognition, and social competence. It also states that children’s experiences shape their motivation and approaches to learning (NAEYC, 2013).

Play-based learning helps children to learn from their peers. Children learn to take turns, be flexible in their interactions, solve problems, negotiate conflict, create common goals, delay gratification and build stronger oral language skills. In the play-based classroom a science lesson on the life cycle of a butterfly may first involve reading many books on the topic and then allowing children to explore this topic in small groups. Let the students decide how they want to explore this topic further. It might mean a group project creating a model of the life cycle, and/or creating a poster about the topic. This type of exploration will not only reach many subject areas (math, science, reading, and writing) but will also reinforce strong social skills. Students will learn through interactions with peers how to work together, create goals, and create a shared project.

Compare these activities with a more teacher-directed approach where a student will listen to information about the life cycle, write about it, and finish a sequencing worksheet on the different parts of the life cycle of the butterfly. It isn’t difficult to see which one will engage students in multiple disciplines and build stronger social skills.

What can we do?

The first step, and probably the most difficult, is to be vocal about our concerns about the lack of play in our classrooms. We, as teachers, need to talk about why play is important. We need to let our administrators, school boards, unions, evaluators, and even those in the department of education hear from us about this topic. We also must be able to articulate the key points to our arguments. We can’t just say “it is important for kids to play.” We have to be able to cite the research, know the stages of development, and supply the statistics. Being well-versed and educated on this topic will make our argument more viable and will get the attention of the decision makers.

Now it is our job to start putting our words into action. Let’s start putting play into action in our classrooms. A few simple suggestions to get more play-based learning in our classrooms:

• Centers with a multitude of manipulatives (tiles, cubes, blocks, counters, beans, bottle caps, etc.)—allow the students completely free choice in manipulatives. Once you have used manipulatives in whole group instruction allow children to use free exploration with them. It is amazing how often they will choose to do math in their centers. Modeling of how to record their math in journals and allowing them to use their journals freely during centers will provide open play time as well.
• Math tool time—give students access to scales, weights, chart paper, manipulatives, measuring cups, measuring spoons, beakers, graduated cylinders and allow students to freely explore. Again once you have modeled recording data students are so interested and willing to do this on their own.
• Measuring time—let students measure anything they want with anything they choose. They love this exploration and they learn so much about length and comparison when they get to choose what they want to measure and what tools they want to use.
• Dramatic play—we have done dramatic play for years and unfortunately we use it less and less now. Provide students with costumes, masks, paper, markers, and crayons to make their own scenes, props, and masks. My students love nursery rhymes because they are something they can read on their own after I have introduced them in whole group instruction many times. They love to act out the nursery rhymes. I never asked them to act out nursery rhymes; they just decided one day that it would be a fun thing to do. They make the decisions on which rhyme they want to do and who will play each part.  
• Co-author a book—I love giving students chart paper, construction paper, and a collection of writing tools and allowing them to work in groups and write in any way they want. They come up with many more creative stories and purposes for writing then if I tell them what to write.
• Open literacy centers—allowing students to use lots of manipulatives and different mediums to explore literacy. Give children play-dough, craft sticks, wikki stix, chenille stems, paint, etc. to explore the alphabet and make words. When you allow students to use these tools freely they will be more open to explore inventive spelling and making words in their own way.
• Open science investigations or experiments—once you have done a science investigation or experiment in the class, allow the students access to the science tools and let them choose their own investigation. My students wanted to record their own investigations in their science journals and several of them followed up with their investigations over several days.
• Outside play—after we have played several games together as a group I allow my students to choose their own games. I am always amazed as they set up their own system of rules: who is going to play, who will be “it” first, and even how to win the game. I constantly hear them working through problems on the playground when they set up their own games.

Obviously there are many more ways to incorporate play into our classrooms. We need to give ourselves permission to let free play happen in our classes. Read more about developmentally appropriate play and be able to answer “why are the students using blocks during math time?”

When I started teaching more than 15 years ago early childhood was more about preparing students with the social skills they need to succeed. Today, it seems that we are spending the majority of our time preparing students for academic life. I believe we can successfully do both. I believe with more play-based learning in our classrooms we can instill a love of learning that will last a lifetime and still reach every single standard. I want my students to be prepared for academic success but as they are leaving my class I also want to hear “I had fun today!”

Sam Williams is a kindergarten teacher in Tampa, Florida. He is also a published author, and is a professional development writer and trainer. He owns an educational resource company that supplies resources and professional development for teachers around the country.  You can find Sam at www.sharpenyoungminds.org.

The culmination of a dream of two life-long educators, Mark Condon and Michael McGuffee, Unite for Literacy (UfL) is a website dedicated to the idea of “Book Abundance, where all children have access to books that celebrate their cultures and honor their home languages.” UfL achieves this vision within the “Wondrously Infinite Global Library,” which contains more than 100 books that can be read or listened to anytime and anywhere an Internet connection is available. While these capabilities may be present on a variety of websites that you may already use, what makes UfL unique is the potential to address the diverse range of language found in today’s classrooms. For example, one book, Counting Sheep, includes narration in ten different languages, including Chinese, Hindi, and Spanish. On the other hand, Can You See the Wind? features additional languages such as Arabic, Korean, and Tagalog among the fourteen languages available for narration. In fact, there are 15 languages included across the spectrum of the titles offered with narration. This is just the tip of the iceberg, however, as the goal for the site is to eventually be able to support readers in 300 languages. Think about the possibilities for discussions, not only among the learners in your classroom, but with students across the world who have access to the same book!

Additional unique features of Unite for Literacy include the use of all original books in the library and, interestingly, an across the board focus on non-fiction. According to a blog post by Mark Condon, Vice President of Unite for Literacy, this is not an accident. Acknowledging that the website is designed to be a tool for children worldwide, nonfiction was deemed necessary to ensure the books had relevance and meaning across cultures and continents. Children (and adults) can spend time learning about unique foods in books such as My Navajo Taco, personal hygiene in Let’s Brush Our Teeth, or interesting locales in Conservation in Botswana. The library also includes multiple books that focus on universally-applicable math concepts like sorting and counting. These books engage learners using Violet, a character who has a bit of a sweet tooth and a habit of eating the manipulatives, especially candy and cookies!

For users who want more than access to the library, Mark blogs several times a month on a variety of topics applicable to literacy. Furthermore, there is a Facebook page associated with Unite for Literacy that is updated regularly, allowing people to stay abreast of news about Unite for Literacy. In sum, UfL provides unique, engaging materials that can support the range of learners across your classroom as well as open possibilities for communication and collaboration among teachers and students across the world!

Michael Putman is from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Michael.Putman@uncc.edu. 

This article is part of a series from the Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).