Brown Girl Dreaming

by Torun Sørbøen

Literary analysis

Brown Girl Dreaming is a book written by Jacqueline Wilson. It is a memoir written in a series of free verse poems about the authors’ childhood as an African American girl growing up in the United States in the 1960’s. We hear stories from her childhood growing up in Ohio, visiting and later living with her grandma and grandpa in South Carolina and New York. The book shows pieces of history that illustrate how she, her family and other people around her experienced living in a country during the Civil Rights era.

There are many different themes in this book that can be explored, such as childhood, family, religion, friendship and separation, but I will take on the theme of racial issues in the United States in the 1960’s. Legal segregation ended with the Civil Rights Act in 1964, the year after Jaqueline was born. She was born in Ohio, one of the Northern States, but she lived for some periods with her grandparents who lived in South Carolina, where the segregation was very bad at the time. There are many allusions and references to historic figures and important historic events. A good example is the poem “second daughter’s second day on earth” (Woodson, pp. 14-15).

In the poem “other people’s memory” (Woodson, pp. 26-27 ), she shows how the reader an example of how peoples’ memory can be false, by presenting how her grandmother remembered Jacqueline being born in the morning, her mother saying she was born in the late afternoon, and her father arguing she was born near night. This poem shows us that the book is based on memories, which can be unreliable and are coloured by the person. Still, sometimes peoples’ memories are more important than the factual reports. In this book we might hear stories that are not completely factual, but they capture how events change people and how they are experienced differently from person to person. In historic retellings, one can rarely be completely unbiased, and we seldom hear the voices from children and how they experience difficulties. Further on in the book, we can see how the different characters react to suppression of African Americans, and how their experiences with racism affects them.

Using Brown Girl Dreaming in teaching

This book gives the reader good insight to how segregation and racial issues in the United States could be experienced by African Americans. Reading some poems from the book, or perhaps the whole book if there are some very enthusiastic readers in the class, can be a great starting point for going into discussions about the themes that brought up. I will take into account that my pupils will be mostly speakers of English as a foreign language or lingua franca, and will be at Grade 7 or lower. I will therefore not expect that it will be possible, or productive for such a class to read the whole book, since many may find it daunting and demotivating to read such a thick book. I would rather recommend reading some selected poems in class; and reflect on it individually, in pairs, in larger groups and then have a walkthrough of their thoughts together.

We are presented with different generations’ reaction and response to inequality throughout the book. The grandparents are careful and seem almost indifferent, perhaps because they have lived with the problem for a very long time. They would rather go unnoticed and not cause any trouble than to fight. Let them read the following poems: “greenville, south Carolina, 1963” (pp. 38), “south carolina at war”(pp.72-73), “the training” (pp. 74-75), “miss bell and the marchers” (pp. 77-78) and “what everybody knows now” (pp. 210-211) in Brown Girl Dreaming (Woodson, 2014). Tell the students to find out what they think these poems say about what Jacqueline’s mother, Jacqueline’s grandfather, cousin Dorothy, Miss Bell, Miss Bell’s employer and Jacqueline’s grandmother think about segregation and how that affects their behaviour.

A great thing about this book being written through short pieces of verse, is that it is easy to work with small excerpts in the classroom. As a teacher, you stand very free when it comes to which elements and themes you want to highlight and explore with the pupils. One of the poems that could be interesting to work with is “greenville, south carolina, 1963” (Woodson, p. 38-39), describing Jacqueline’s journey with her mother, brother and sister from Ohio to South Carolina, where Jacqueline’s grandparents live. It describes how segregation in the south affects black people in practical terms, having to sit in the back of the bus, stepping of the curb if they meet a white person and having to express a submissive attitude towards white people in general. The mother makes takes extra care to make sure her children are neat and representable, much more than usual. “Too dangerous to sit closer to the front and dare the driver to make her move. Not with us. Not now.” (Woodson, 2014, p. 38-39). I would discuss this quote and the rest of the poem as a whole with my pupils, and ask what they think it means.

The poem “second daughter’s second day on earth” (Woodson, pp. 14-15) can also be a nice poem to discuss, in relation to learning about the history of race in America. The poem sums up important events and historic figures from the Civil Rights era. The pupils can explore further by researching the names and events. They can also discuss what they think about each person’s approach towards gaining Civil Rights.

Silverman, Kennedy & Rheault (2016, p. 8-9) provides some teaching tips for how to work with Brown Girl Dreaming in the classroom. Some of these ideas can work even if the pupils only read some excerpts in class, such as this: “Jacqueline’s mother tells her children that they will experience a “moment when you walk into a room and/no one there is like you” (14). Have you experienced this? What might this feel like?” (Silverman, Kennedy & Rheault, 2016, p. 8).

In the competence aims after year 7 for the English subject (Utdanningsdirektoratet, u.å), there is little focus on reading for pleasure. Still, I think it is important to take make some room for such activities in connection with learning English, since it is important for the pupils to be motivated to develop their language skills and read English literature. Reading for pleasure is a great way for the pupils to expand their vocabulary and understanding, in an implicit way. According to Ofsted (Gamble, 2013, p. 19), teachers who “read, talk with enthusiasm and recommend books” succeed to a higher extent in developing not only proficient, but also students who are more enthusiastic about reading. It should be a goal to make the students lifelong readers, which according to Gamble (2013, p. 21) is one of the goals one can work towards through reading for pleasure. Some students might learn to read for pleasure on their own, while others might need to be encouraged more.

With its poetic language and moving thematic properties, Brown Girl Dreaming can also be used to read for pleasure. When reading for pleasure, it is important that the students read something that they can be engaged by. As a teacher, I would talk about Brown Girl Dreaming in an animated and enthusiastic language, in addition to showing the students poems from the book that they can enjoy just for the language in itself, to inspire them to want to read this book or any book in general on their own initiative.

Sources:

Gamble, N. (2013). Exploring Children`s Literature; Reading with Pleasure and Purpose. New Dehli: SAGE Publications.

Silverman, E., Kennedy, S., & Rheault, S. (2016). A guide to the works of Jacqueline Woodson (pp. 8-9).

Utdanningsdirektoratet. (u.å). National Curriculum for Knowledge Promotion. Food and Health. Retrieved 30.03.16, from http://www.udir.no/kl06/MHE1-01/Kompetansemaal?arst=372029323&kmsn=1537014183

Woodson, J. (2014). Brown Girl Dreaming (1st ed.). New York: Penguin Group. Retrieved 17.03.16 from https://vk.com/doc14694589_403996308?hash=7d92964de7182d042a&dl=1e1483687f392694e4