Tar Beach

Title: Tar Beach
Author: Faith Ringgold
Genre: Multicultural Literature

Tar Beach is a beautifully written and illustrated book about an African American family in Harlem, New York. The main character, Cassie, gathers with family and friends atop the roof of their Harlem apartment for a summertime get together. While the adults sit and talk together, Cassie lies on a mattress on her back and gazes at the night sky. The book details the imaginative scenes that Cassie sees as she imagines that she is flying high over the city. She recalls stories about her family during her journey, such as how her grandfather helped to build the Washington Bridge long ago. Tar Beach is full of descriptive and beautiful language as well as illustrations that paint an imaginative picture verbally and visually.

As Tar Beach is such a spellbinding book with its use of words and imagery, I believe that a fitting lesson to follow this book would be to have students construct a Wordle using adjectives that describe a specifically poignant time for them, much like Tar Beach illustrates a specifically poignant moment for Cassie Lightfoot. They can then write a reflection about the time they chose to Wordle about, and describe why those adjectives fit that story. Below I have created a Wordle with such adjectives to describe the first time I "flew" about two years ago.... flew in an airplane, that is.

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/1851379/Flight