Persuasive Writing: A Letter to a Bully

In My Name is Hamburger, ten-year-old Trudie Hamburger is ashamed of her last name. Daniel Reynolds, the class bully, frequently reminds her that it means, “Chopped meat. Something a butcher grinds up.”  

My Name is Hamburger takes place in 1962 in the small southern town of Colburn. As the Jewish child of a German-speaking immigrant, Trudie stands out as different from her peers. When a Korean boy joins her class, she feels guilty, knowing negative attention has been diverted away from her and onto him. Trudie doesn’t like being a bystander any better than being a victim. She doesn’t know what to do.  

Only after a family crisis and the support of friends is Trudie able to stand up for herself.

Something people cook on the fourth of July,”

I answer. “An all-American food!”

Daniel blinks as if he can’t believe

someone like me, with a dad from somewhere else,

knows what Americans eat. But he doesn’t say more

because I got the last word today.

My name is Hamburger. An all-American food.

Writing Prompt: To stop a bully, it helps if both the victim and the bystander speak out. Write a persuasive letter from either the perspective of a person being bullied or a person watching cruel treatment. Express your emotions in the letter. Do you feel anger, fear, or hope that relationships could change? Can you share personal experiences or reasons why bullying behavior hurts all involved? Do you have the courage to try and persuade a bully to rethink his/her behavior?    

Jacqueline Jules

Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library

by Karen Leggett Abouraya

As a boy in Puerto Rico, Arturo Schomburg’s fifth grade teacher told him that “Africa’s sons and daughters had no history, no heroes worth noting.”  But in her new picture book Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library (Candlewick, 2017), Carole Boston Weatherford  writes,

“After that teacher dismissed his people’s past,

did the twinkle leave Arturo’s eyes

like a candle blown out in the dark?

No, the twinkle never left. It grew into a spark.”

That spark led Schomburg to collect a life’s worth of books, letters, art and prints that told the story of African accomplishments all over the world, especially Africans who came to the New World – like Toussaint Louverture who led a slave revolt in Haiti and Paul Cuffee who was one of the richest black men in early America. Schomburg found African roots in the family trees of naturalist John James Audubon and composer Ludwig van Beethoven.  When Schomburg’s collection outgrew his house, the Carnegie Corporation bought everything for $10,000 and donated it to the New York Public Library.

This book opens the door for students to learn and write about the unsung heroes Schomburg discovered but also others from their own ethnic backgrounds.

·       Learn and write a little more about someone in the book you’ve never heard of.

·       Research someone from your own ethnic background who came to America and made a difference.

·       Write a paragraph or a poem about someone you admire – either from your own ethnic background or someone else’s.

Arturo immigrated to New York from Puerto Rico in 1891, when he was 17 years old. He carried with him letters of introduction to help him find work. 

·       Students can work in pairs to write letters of introduction for each other. Each student imagines a future job and writes a letter recommending the other student for that chosen career. What qualities and skills would be important? What would convince someone to hire the person?

“Arturo Schomburg studied the past… His mission looked to the future. ‘I am proud,’ said Schomburg, ‘to be able to do something that may mean inspiration for the youth of my race.’” He told professors to “include the practical history of the Negro race from the dawn of civilization to the present time. Then young blacks would hold their heads high and view themselves as anyone’s equal.” 

Schomburg’s collection became the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library. Earlier this year, the Center was designated a national historic landmark.

·       Is your school named after a person? Learn and write something about that person.

·       What type of building or space would you want named after you?

If these projects are initiated early in the school year, students can be encouraged to look for people whose stories are not well known in all their classes. 

https://childrensbookguild.org/karen-leggett-abouraya