Book 3- John Lewis in the Lead: A Story of the Civil Rights Movement

This was a fascinating story that described the life of John Lewis. John Lewis

(1940-2020) was a vital figure in the Civil Rights Movement and later became a U.S.

Representative. The book describes monumental events in Lewis’ life, and at the very end gives

a timeline of the things that happened. John first began his life taking care of about sixty animals

on a “white man’s” land. His family worked on this farm in return for a place to live and a share

of the crops they grew. In order to keep the chickens quiet at night, Lewis would preach to them,

as being a minister was always a dream of his. He earned the nickname, “Preacher” from this.

John began to have the urge to peacefully fight against civil rights at the young age of 15 when

he first heard Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the radio. Lewis graduated high school in 1957 and

relocated to Nashville, Tennessee to study to become a minister. He wrote to Dr. King, who

shortly after invited Lewis to Montogomery. While there, Dr. King introduced Lews to

Mohandas K. Gandhi, who Lewis began to study and would soon come to love and admire his

work. He knew it was time for him to step up and peacefully protest these conditions. In 1961 he

joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, where he participated in Freedom Rides,

rides that challenged segregation at interstate bus terminals. This was just the beginning for

Lewis, as he would continue his work by leading what is now known as “Bloody Sunday.” Even

after Lewis was struck in the head by a trooper with his club, that did not stop his determination.

John joined Dr. King in the second math, which resulted in President Johnson signing the Voting

Rights Act of 1965 five months later. Twenty-one years later, in 1986, the voters of both black

and white citizens elected John Lewis to the U.S. House of Representatives. I would teach a

lesson on informational/biography writing. I believe this is a good book for students to have the

opportunity to examine the parts of an informational text. In the activity, we will examine the
parts of John Lewis’s life and compare those to what was mentioned in the text. This is to give

students an example of how we can use research to write short stories about topics that we chose.

We will also put this practice into use. Students will have the opportunity to choose any topic

they like. We will have a few days when will research our topic and pick out the most important

facts in order to write our informational piece. After we have written our texts and have made

sure to follow the POW method, we will then compare our texts to the book we’ve read. We will

ask ourselves a few questions: Did we single out the most important details? Is our informational

text informational enough? If someone had not done the amount of research we’ve completed

and read your text, would they have a good understanding of the topic? The main reason I chose

this text was because I though it would lead to a great lesson on informational writing, and I still

stand by that belief.