Skip to Main Content

Lesson 4

We will continue working in our expert groups to engage in our first jigsaw reading about the three central figures in Wilkerson’s text: Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, George Swanson Starling, and Robert Joseph Pershing Foster.

Lesson Goals

  • Can I recognize and interpret important relationships among ideas and events within The Warmth of Other Suns?

  • Can I formulate and use questions to establish and deepen my understanding of The Warmth of Other Suns?

Texts

Core

  • Tradebook
    • The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson, Vintage Books, 2010

Materials

Tools

Reference Guides

Editable Google Docs

Activity 1: Read – Discuss

We will continue to work in our expert groups and use the Jigsaw Note-Taking Tool to learn about our assigned focus figure from the first half of part 2 of Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns.

Continue to work with your expert group to read the assigned pages for your assigned focus figure. Discuss what you noted for homework with your expert group, and revise your responses to the guiding questions below on the Jigsaw Note-Taking Tool:

  1. Life Prior to Migration: What do you learn about each person’s life prior to their departure from the South? What questions do you have?

  2. Push-and-Pull Factors Influencing the Decision to Leave: What do you learn about the push-and-pull factors influencing each person’s decision? What questions do you have?

  3. Immediate Impacts of Migration: What do you learn about the immediate impact of each person’s migration and about their life away from the South? What questions do you have?

  4. Long-Term Impacts of Migration: What do you learn about the long-term impact of each person’s migration? What questions do you have?

Activity 2: Write

We will write responses to guiding questions to synthesize information and bring our work with the first half of part 2 of The Warmth of Other Suns to a close.

To help you think about the connections between what you read and the epigraph by Wright, individually compose a quick-write in which you respond to the following questions:

  1. What is the relationship between the epigraph, taken from Richard Wright’s Black Boy, and what you learned about your focus figure during our jigsaw reading?

  2. What do you think Wilkerson is trying to convey by beginning this section with this epigraph?

Be prepared to share your ideas during the whole-class debrief.

Activity 3: Read

For homework, read pages 36–46 and 89–94 in part 2 of The Warmth of Other Suns.

For homework, read pages 36-46 and 89-94 in Part 2ofThe Warmth of Other Suns. Annotate the text with reference to the push factors that encouraged people to leave the South and the pull factors that encouraged people to move north and west.

If necessary, finish reading your jigsaw sections and adding responses to the Jigsaw Note-Taking Tool. Be ready to share in a jigsaw discussion with your home group in the next lesson.

Write new or interesting words you encounter in your Vocabulary Journal.