Girls With Opinions Book Club: Kizzy Ann Stamps- Meeting #21

Our sixth meeting of the 2015-16 school year was on Kizzy Ann Stamps by Jeri Watts. This book was an excellent choice to celebrate Black History month. The story has all the things the girls love like a girl hero and her dog, and really helped them think about what it must have been like for the first African American kids who attended schools with white children after segregation. Kizzy Ann has a very different experience than her older brother, because she has a teacher who is progressive and embracing of all her students. Kizzy's brother becomes increasingly more distraught and angry as his teacher protests by refusing to acknowledge black students in her classroom. Kizzy also has a disfiguring facial scar which brought up themes of beauty standards and stigma, and the girls had an excellent discussion regarding the lack of fairness and how hard it was to overcome the obstacles Kizzy faced.

We used our general discussion questions to help guide the discussion, but these discussion questions specific to the book really helped get deep into the book.
Questions and extension ideas for Kizzy Ann Stamps

The host mama served a good southern meal in honor of the types of food Kizzy would like. They had fried chicken, black eyed peas, biscuits, and okra.

We looked at pictures of a school exterior and auditorium from a black school and a white school during segregation and quickly determined that they were not "separate but equal."
Teaching with Documents- Brown Vs. Board of Education

We then watched a short film about Brown Vs. Board of Education.

They also watched a Scotland sheepdog trial so they could get a sense of what Kizzy was doing with Shag in the competition. Everyone got a kick out of the sneaky sheep in this video.

The girls then made homemade ice cream using plastic bags, heavy cream, sugar, and rock salt.