Using Picture Books in Middle School Classrooms

Using Picture Books in Middle School Classrooms:

                   Pink and Say by Patricia Polacco

A rich, often overlooked, resource for middle school curriculum and instruction is The Picture Book.  No, sixth, seventh, and eighth graders are not “too old” to be captivated by a story of only 32 to 48 pages. Not to mention the visual power of the illustrations. 

            Once Pink and Say by Patricia Polacco was published, I read it aloud to my seventh graders every year when they studied the Civil War in Social Studies.

This is a true story, the story of Sheldon Russell Curtis, Patricia Polacco’s great-grandfather. Nicknamed Say, he was a white teenage soldier in the Union army.

After a battle Pinkus Aylee, a black teenager and Union soldier, found Say lying in a field badly wounded and abandoned in a Georgia meadow.  Without hesitation, Pink carried Say to his home.  To the tender care of his mother, Moe Moe Bay, who comforted a frightened boy with loving acceptance.

Say recovers.  Both boys realize that being Union soldiers in Confederate territory compromises the safety of Pink’s mother and make plans to leave.

            The rest of the story is best left to your discovery.  The racial violence of Andersonville, a Confederate war prison. The aftermath of the war.  Every time I read this story and speak the name, “Pinkus Aylee,” I still fight to control my emotions. 

Each year on 9/11, the names of almost 3,000 people who were killed in the attack on the twin towers are read aloud. Why?

There is power in remembering.