Ashley Bryan is a children’s author and illustrator who wasn’t published until he was forty years old. He mainly focuses on the African American experiences and subjects. He focuses on African American history, folktales, and spirituals. He is the first African American who published a book he wrote and illustrator.
His poems and books are lyrical and use alliteration and onomatopoeia. You can use his work Beat the Story Drum, Pum-Pum to introduce folktales connecting to the Social Studies 1st grade TEKS.
Here is a sound clip of Ashley Bryan explaining his life story and where his inspiration comes from as well as reading words to My Life’s Song.
I absolutely love Ashley Bryan and think his writing and illustrations are amazing! I loved his quote in the youtube video that he says he tries to be like a child in everything he does! He is an extraordinary person and I think you did a good job of encompassing the diverse works that he has created! You were able to showcase his abilities as a poet, illustrator, and author of all tales in your presentation. He is a great author to have for all ages in the classroom because, like you said, he has rich and diverse text. I liked your activities you suggested, but what if there was something a little more specific? Like doing an activity with Beautiful Blackbird specifically and having the students work around the art and folktale to create something that will be showcased in the classroom or passed around school to talk about culture and community.
The author you pick for your presentation is wonderful. I had not heard of any of his work before but after seeing your presentation I was interested. I think you did a great job at giving examples and explaining how to incorporate his work in your classroom. I would definitely use some of his books when teaching African American history or even when having a discussion on folk tales. This would be a good author to use if you wanted to do a lesson on the kinds of writers there are. The fact that he was older when he wrote his first book is an inspiration. I also liked the video you included. This would be great for showing students technology in the classroom.
I really liked the book Beat the Story-Drum Pum-Pum because it projects a different culture which it could be a great source to teach morals and diversity to children.
I really liked the author you chose for your presentation. I had not heard of him before but after seeing your presentation, I can definitely see myself using his literature to teach students about cultural diversity and folktales. I also liked the activities you suggested especially because students would get the opportunity to share their own culture which I think is very important.