Paula Hunt YA Literature FRMS 7331

Sharon Draper is a professional educator as well as an award winning author. She was born in Cleveland Ohio in 1952 into a house that she says was “always filled with books”. In 1971, she graduated from Pepperdine University where she majored in English, then returned to Ohio to earn her Master’s from Miami University in Ohio. While there, she married her husband, Larry. They have four children. For thirty years Sharon Draper was an English teacher in the Cincinnati, Ohio, public school system. Students dubbed her dreaded final research paper “The Draper Paper”, but her tough classes were always in demand. In 1997 President Bill Clinton named her the U.S. Teacher of the Year. She took a year off from teaching and became an ambassador for the teaching profession, traveling throughout the US to talk about the importance of excellence in the classroom. She was also a part of the National Board for Teaching Standards and contributed to a number of professional publications pushing the need for teacher accountability and development.

Mrs. Draper’s writing career began in 1990 on a whim when her students encouraged her to submit a short story to Ebony magazine's annual Gertrude Johnson Williams Literary Competition. " One Small Torch," took first prize and there has been no looking back. A year later she finished her first book for young adults Tears of a Tiger which was rejected by 24 publishers before being picked up by Simon & Schuster. This became the first book of the Hazelwood High trilogy when it was followed by Forged by Fire and Darkness before Dawn. Tears of a Tiger went on to win 1995 ALA Best Book. Both Tears and Forged by Fire won the Coretta Scott King Genesis Award. Draper received the Coretta Scott King Honor Award for The Battle of Jericho in 2004, and for Copper Sun in " I write because I care about young people. I write because I teach."

For more information on Sharon Draper, her books and much more go to: ttp://sharondraper.com/home.asp Websites for more information on CSK Award Winners : Tears of a Tiger: Forged by Fire: The Battle of Jericho: Copper Sun: sun-by-sharon-draperhttp:// sun-by-sharon-draper Also by Sharon Drapper: Darkness before Dawn Romiette and Julio Double Dutch November Blues

“Andy, do Tigers cry?” ”I don’t know Monty, I don’t think they do, but why do you ask?” “...I drew a picture last week and the teacher wanted to know why I put tears on my tiger. I told her he was very sad. Like you sometimes.” Tears of a Tiger

“ With the flames and fear behind them, Gerald and Angel rode together to the music of the sirens which had decorated their past and would forge their future.” Gerald was only three when he was caught in his first fire. He was a man in a teenager’s body at his second. What happens in between is a story of strength, hatred, abuse and love that is, sadly, all to believable. Gerald’s mother is a drug addict. After the first fire, she is sentenced to rehab. For the next three years, Gerald lived a more normal and a happier life with his aunt. But when his aunt dies, the mother returns with a step sister for Gerald and an abusive husband. The bond between Gerald and Angel grows as he protects her from Jordon, the stepfather. Jordon is eventually caught for child molestation and sent away for what becomes six relatively peaceful years for Gerald and Angel. But when he returns, it is up to Gerald to act as guardian once again. In this second Hazelwood High book, Sharon Drapper has once again taken on a tough topic with an insight that 30 years in the public schools must have forced on her. It is a book that should be read if for no other reason than to discuss the realities that it deals with.

Copper Sun is a story of Africans, slavery, indentured servitude, plantation life, perseverance, friendship and triumph of the human spirit. Amari is only 15 years old when slavers arrive in her village, slaughter her family, and throw her on a “death ship” headed to the Carolinas. In Charles Town she is purchased by Percival Derby as a 16 th birthday gift for his son. At Derbyshire Farms Plantation she meets a white indentured servant named Polly. Amari and Polly slowly build a trust and friendship that sustains them on the long road to freedom after Derby's brutal cruelty inadvertently offers them a chance to escape. Copper Sun is told alternately in narratives featuring Amari and Polly as they learn to survive live on a plantation and life on the road while they head toward freedom in Fort Mose, a Spanish colony in Florida. It offers views on more than one kind of slavery as well as a look into the traditions of the Africans before there was an America. It is fiction, but contains a great deal of real history and would be the perfect companion to African American studies. “What is Africa to me: Copper sun or scarlet sea” (from “Heritage “ by Countee Cullen)

Sharon Draper’s strategy seems to be to take on the issues of the past and the present head on and dare us to face them and discuss them. She wants people to acquire perspective and empathy and she understands that adulthood is not the place to start. She is passionate about teaching and young people. She writes like someone who has overheard the conversations, talked to the troubled teen and lived through the pain. As she herself said: “ I write because I care about young people. I write because I teach." 1)A lot of the chapters in this book are short and written in dialogue very similar to a script. For one part of this strategy, students will choose a chapter and rework it so that they can perform it either as a reader’s theater or a short play. They must be able to set up the location of the scene and events leading up to it. 2) Other chapters, especially one near the end, ANGER AND PAIN, are written as letters. For the second part of this strategy, students must chose a letter and answer it as the character to whom it was written or choose a character from the book and write a letter to that character that deals with an event in the book.

ttp://sharondraper.com/home.asp