Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

Mildred D. Taylor

Introduction

Mildred D. Taylor has written a story of the racial discrimination that existed in the South in the 1930's through the eyes and ears of Cassie Logan, a proud but innocent nine-year-old black girl. Cassie has shared with you the many incidents of prejudice and discrimination faced by members of her family and other families.

Imagine you and your partner are writers from a major northern city newspaper. You have been assigned to write an editorial opinion on the subject using the incidents in the novel as your guide. You will be expected to offer solutions and predict results.

An editorial is the opinion of the newspaper staff. It presents the details of a problem or issue and suggests solutions for change. It attempts to convince the reader to agree with the writer's opinion or change the reader's attitude on the subject.

The Task: Write a Editorial (Problem/Solution Essay)

Working with a partner, you will cluster incidents and examples of prejudice and discrimination from Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and view a Website to write an editorial. 

The Process: Exploring the Web, Creating a Product

You will work as a team and submit a polished product involving these steps:

1. Take the National Civil Rights Museum Virtual Tour  to read and view the kinds of racial prejudice experienced in the south. Cluster incidents of racism from the Website that relate to the topic.

2. Brainstorm with your partner examples of prejudice and discrimination faced by different characters in the novel. Generate a bank of four to six incidents.

3. Create a cluster of your examples. Your cluster must reflect the experiences of four different characters. (Keep in mind that each character may have been exposed to many racial incidents.)

4. Choose one incident that affects each character. List possible actions that the characters might have taken to prevent or avoid further acts of discrimination.

5. Use the Problem/Solution format to organize your thoughts and answer the following questions:

• What were the racial problems between the Blacks and the Whites in the South during the 1930's?
• What solutions do you suggest to resolve these conflicts?
• What are the possible outcomes to the solutions you suggest?

6. Follow these steps to write your editorial (problem/solution essay).

• Identify the racial problems.
• Give examples to back up your thoughts.
• Explain why the problem is serious.
• Suggest solutions.
• Predict the outcomes of the suggested solutions.
• State the best way to deal with the problem.
• Defend your opinion.

Clustering incidents that occurred with the characters of the novel is just a "prewriting" activity to get ideas flowing.  You will not write specifically about those incidents in your editorial.

7. Review your editorial to check that your opinions are convincing to the reader.

8. Edit for grammar and spelling errors.

9. Complete your polished product on a word processor.