Oak Forest HS Literature Students Meet Author Jaqueline Woodson

Oak Forest High School American Literature students and their teacher Jennifer Schanz met famous author Jaqueline Woodson at the EdLab Program sponsored by the Chicago Humanities Festival. Woodson is the winner of the National Book Award for the book Brown Girl Dreaming, a memoir written in verse. She told the students, that she chose verse because a memoir is “memory on a page.”

Woodsen gave interesting insights on students’ dreams. During the program, she asked students if they knew what they wanted to be when they grow up; only about a third of the students in the audience had made a decision. She told the crowd that when she asks a group of young children what they want to be, all of them raise their hands. Woodson said, “Almost all of them have a dream but many are talked out of their dreams by the time they reach high school.”

Junior Elisa Zolna asked Woodson about her favorite quote. The author shot the question back at her. While Woodson said that her favorite quote was “Carpe Diem, or Seize the Day,” Zolna said that her favorite quote was “Live in the moment.” Jessica Marks told Woodson they were reading some Sherman Alexie work in American Literature class and asked her if she had ever read anything he wrote. Woodson said, “I loved The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, along with his poetry.”

During the session, Woodson read slowly and deliberately. She told the group that “asking why and connecting with the story is living inside her dream of being a writer. A writer has to have the passion to push through the agony [of writing] when it gets difficult.” She said, “Every book I have ever written has fallen apart, and my passion gives me the guts to work through it. Art is a muscle that you have to flex so it doesn’t atrophy.”

Junior Imara Rogers thanked the author for her appearance and told her how much she and her fellow classmates loved reading Brown Girl Dreaming. She asked, “What inspired you to write it?” Woodson revealed that the death of her mother made her want to learn more about her family and that was the reason she wrote the book.