“Stacey’s Extraordinary Words” by Stacey Abrams, illustrated by Kitt Thomas
Synopsis: This story centers around a young black girl named Stacey, who loves words and has an exceptional vocabulary and spelling ability. At school, there is a bully named jake who always says mean things to both Stacy and Stacy’s friends After scoring a 100% on her spelling quiz Stacey’s teacher invites her to participate in a spelling bee competition, which jake was also participating in. Although nervous, Stacy worked hard, and on the day of the spelling she gave it her all until it was only her and jake in the final rounds. During her big moment Stacey confidently spells instantaneously, but unfortunately gets it wrong. Jake wins the spelling and makes fun of Stacey for getting the word wrong, but Stacey stands up for herself, calling out Jake’s rude behavior. Dwelling on her loss, Stacey comes to the realization that this one loss didn’t matter as long as she kept persevering. The story ends with Stacey’s commitment to perseverance, learning, and the use of words to stand up for herself and others.
https://youtu.be/pi4SNXC4rSY (Link to read aloud of the story)
How I’d use it in a lesson:
Using the text “Stacy’s Extraordinary Words” I would probably teach a lesson aimed toward students from kindergarten to second grade that focuses on social-emotional development, more specifically, how to navigate positive and negative emotions, experiences, and peer relationships. The learning objective of my lesson would center around students critically analyzing the actions, dynamics, and emotions of the character’s for students to gain an understanding of their own interpersonal relationships. Additionally, I believe that this book engages with an element of Critical Literacy introduced in the Jones Stanbrough reading, in which “The equity framework includes ….[one being] Identity Development: Helping youth to make sense of themselves and others” (J75). This book engages in critical literacy as it creates representation and mirrors for diverse students in its portrayal of diverse students from different racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds; as well as young Black female protagonist who illustrates a student of color who is committed to education, experiences achievements of academic excellence, and is recognized for these things by her teacher.
Lesson Overview:
In introducing the book I would open my lesson up by asking the class a series of general questions: “what’s something that really makes you happy?”, “what’s something that makes you sad?”, “has there ever been a time when you were really frustrated?”.
While reading the book I would pause in moments of conflict, emotion, and scenes of challenging peer dynamics and ask students questions to promote their critical thinking and reflect/examine these social dynamics and emotional responses . For example: when Stacy talk about how jake isn’t her friend and is in fact a bully I would ask students “What do you think it means to be a good friend”. Or when Stacy sees jake being a bully and wishes she would’ve spoken up I would ask students “why do you think Stacey did use her extrodinanry words to defend her friends? What might you have said if you were Stacey’s shoes”
Work Cited
Jones Stanbrough, Raven (2022) “Book Review Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework For Culturally And Historically Responsive Literacy,” Michigan Reading Journal: Vol. 54: Iss. 2, Article 16.
Available at: https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/mrj/vol54/iss2/16
Contributor: Briyani Mercedes