Story Quilts
By Allie Dillon and Elizabeth Zabel
Grade Level
2nd Grade - 5th Grade
Standards and Objectives
3.RL.2 -Recount stories, including folk tales, fables, and myths from diverse cultures; determine the central lesson, message, or moral and explain how it is conveyed through key details in the text.
3.RL.7 -Explain how specific aspects of a text's illustrations contribute to what is conveyed by words in a story.
Story Quilts
A Story Quilt is a whole class project that features quilt squares made by each of the students. They may include a common border and are attached together and displayed. The squares all together resemble a quilt. A written component explaining each students drawing may also be included.
Skills
- Retelling a story through illustrations
- Comprehension
- Recalling setting, theme, characters
- Describing illustrations
Uses in the Classroom
Story quilts can be used to enhance a subject that the students are learning. After a lesson or after reading a story, students can create their own depiction of the information by drawing a scene on their piece if paper. They can also write a few sentences explaining what they drew and why it is important. After the students are finished, the pictures may be attached together and displayed for the class and others to see. This can also be used in a lesson in which students create a quilt piece that tells part of their own story or illustrates an aspect of their culture.
Story Quilts were derived from Faith Ringgold's work.
Faith Ringgold's is an African American artist who is famous for painted pictures on fabric that is sewn into a quilt. Each picture tells a story. She is the author that has made story quilting so well known and has written many books that center around the story quilt. Her most well known book is called "Tar Beach".
Books About Story Quilts
- Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt by Deborah Hopkinson
- The Quilt Story by Tomie DePaola
- The Quilting Bee by Gail Gibbons
- Quilt of States: Piecing Together America by Adrienne Yorinks
- Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold