Autobiography of Ruby Bridges

Through My Eyes: The Autobiography of Ruby Bridges
By, (duh) Ruby Bridges
http://www.parents-chttp://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0590189239/parentschoice-20hoice.org/product.cfm?product_id=251&StepNum=1

This book is about Ruby Bridges, who was integrated an all white school in New Orleans. She was just a little first grader who was taught in a separate classroom, but this book illustrates her childhood, upbringing, family, and beliefs through child-like prose and amazing black and white photos. The book goes through what it was like for Ruby to go through these events, including being escorted in by US Marshals, but the books is so powerful because it isn't told in overly academic writing, but rather through her own first hand experience.
I would use this book in several ways. I would definitely do a Read Aloud and Turn and Talk, as well as journal entries about what my students though about integration, and why it was so important and controversial for Ruby to integrate her school. I would also have them brainstorm other 'firsts' (i.e. first black president Barack Obama, first woman president of a country... this could require research) I may also introduce a research project about the Civil Rights Period. I really enjoy this time period, so I do not feel that research projects about this period would be rote or boring at all. I may also ask students to brainstorm social justice issues that they feel passionate about now.
This book addresses SJE 3. Exploring Issues of Social Justice, because it explores segregation/integration in schools and the institutional racism that caused it as well as SJE 4. Social Movements and Social Change- Students learn about how people, such as 6 year old Ruby Bridges, struggled for social change.

- Mila Ghose aka pork dumpling :)