Book Detail

Miss Crandall's School

Publication Information
Author:  Alexander, Elizabeth & Nelson, Marilyn Illustrator:  Cooper, Floyd
Title:  Miss Crandall's School Date:  2007
Publisher:  Wordsong City:  Honesdale, PA
ISBN, paperback:  978-1-59078-456-3 ISBN, hardback:  

Recommended audience:
ABE/ABLE:   Yes ESOL:  
Family:   Young Adult:   Yes
Picture:   Yes

General Information:
Book Type(s):    poetry, biography and autobiography, true story

HSE Descriptor(s):    language arts - reading| social studies

Summary:
In innovative sonnet form, the authors tell the story of Prudence Crandall who ran a school for "young ladies and little misses of color" in Canterbury, Connecticut, in 1831 until boycotts, vandalism and persecution forced the school to close. An introduction gives the history of the school and the authors' notes describe the process of writing the book.

Teaching Ideas:
Teachers will want to pair this book with Suzanne Jurmain's Forbidden Schoolhouse on this database for a fuller chronological account. The Introduction also provides historical and contextual information for pre-reading activities which could include the development of a timeline. Teachers may use the book as an occasion for teaching the sonnet form and its variations to see what innovations the authors employed. Since the poems are divided into six sections, readers could create topics for each as a categorizing/generalizing activity. Because the story requires the ability to combine/synthesize the different points of view, small groups might work on poems portraying students, Miss Crandall, the townspeople, and supporters, perhaps to prepare a Readers' Theater presentation. Readers curious about what happened to the students after the school closed could conjecture and research using Jurmain's book and the student list from this book.

Teaching Strategies:
bullet Agree? Disagree? Why?
   http://literacy.kent.edu/eureka/strategies/agree_disagree_why.pdf
bullet Bleich's Heuristic for Responding to Reading
   http://literacy.kent.edu/eureka/strategies/bleichs_heuristic.pdf
bullet Discussion Webs
   http://literacy.kent.edu/eureka/strategies/discussion_webs.pdf
bullet Reader's Theater
   http://literacy.kent.edu/eureka/strategies/readers_theater.pdf
bullet Unsent Letters
   http://literacy.kent.edu/eureka/strategies/unsent_letters.pdf

Keywords: select any link below for a list of resources which also have that keyword
bullet Education
bullet Emotions-Personal Issues > personal issues > individual > hopes/dreams
bullet Geography > locations > U.S. states/regions > New England
bullet History > time period > 19th Century
bullet Social Studies > sociology > social issues > civil disobedience
bullet Social Studies > sociology > social issues > racism
bullet Social Studies > sociology > social issues > racism > integration
bullet History > topic > Black History
bullet Literature and Language > poetry


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