Lesson Plan for Apt. 3 by Ezra Jack Keats


This is a read aloud lesson plan designed for students in grades 1 and 2.

Synopsis

Sam and his little brother Ben hear mysterious music in their apartment building, but they're not sure where it's coming from. They search every floor, but all they find are a lot of noisy people. But the blind man in apt. 3 is different; he's something special, and his music is something Sam and Ben won't soon forget.
(Synopsis from Barnes and Noble: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Apt-3/Ezra-Jack-Keats/e/9780140565072/?itm=1).

Objectives

Students will be able to:



Materials:

Materials needed for this lesson include:

Before Reading:



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After Reading:



Evaluation:



Biography of Ezra Jack Keats



Jacob Ezra Katz was born on March 11, 1916 in Brooklyn, New York to Benjamin and Augusta "Gussie"(Podgainy) Katz, two Polish immigrants who had been born in Warsaw. Keats' parents did not meet until they both emigrated to the United States. Continuing the Polish custom, their wedding was arranged by a matchmaker. fter the marriage, they settled in the Jewish quarter of Brooklyn. It was not until later that Jacob became known to the world as Ezra Jack Keats. He was the third child born to his parents. He had an older brother named Willie and an older sister named Mae. His father Benjamin was a waiter in a coffee shop on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He worked long hours and earned very little money.

Keats expressed an interest in the arts at an early age. "I think I started painting when I was about four years old. I really dedicated myself to what I did, avidly and lovingly. I drew on and colored everything that came across my path, with the indulgent approval of my mother." [1]

While Keats’ mother encouraged his drawing by showing off his work, Keats' father was a little more concerned about his interest in drawing. While he was proud of his son, he was greatly concerned about how difficult it was for people to make a living as an artist. Keats' father did not let his concerns prevent him from supporting his son. He would often come home from work with a package of brushes or some paints for Keats to use.

Benjamin Keats also supported his son by taking him to museums to see famous paintings. Keats always remembered a trip he and his father made to the Metropolitan Museum in New York to see the famous portrait Gilbert Stuart had made of George Washington and a painting of Andrew Jackson. Keats' father believed that to make a good living as an artist, one had to become a portraitist for famous people. Young Keats had a different idea about what made artists great. He found the portraits to be almost boring. That same trip did provide him with some excitement when he saw the painting Third Class Carriage by Honore Daumier. This painting swept the young boy away.

When Keats was eight years old, he realized that the children who lived near by could respect him for his artwork. He grew up in one of the toughest neighborhoods in Brooklyn. One day he was walking own the street with one of his paintings in his hands. A group of neighborhood boys grabbed the painting out of his hands. It was a situation that filled Keats with fear. A most interesting thing happened. Instead of making fun of him or damaging the painting, the boys started to treat him with respect when they realized that he had made the painting.

Keats attended public schools in New York City, but he never received any formal training in art. However, as a high school student at Thomas Jefferson High School in Brooklyn, Keats won a prize for one of his paintings in the National Scholastic contest and was offered a scholarship to the Art Students' League as a result. Keats was unable to pursue his education largely due to the Great Depression. Instead, he opted to work to support his family by day and took art classes at night when he could. His father had died the day before he graduated from high school.

In 1937 he secured a job as a muralist for the Works Progress Administration (WPA). In 1940, he found another position as a comic book illustrator for Five-Star Comics. In 1942 he began working on the staff of Fawcett Publications illustrating background for "Captain Marvel Adventures," a comic book.

It was on February 8, 1948 that Keats had his name legally changed from Jacob Ezra Katz to Ezra Jack Keats. This was most certainly a reaction to the anti-Semitic prejudices of the time. Following the war, Keats found work as a magazine, advertising, and book jacket illustrator. He also was an instructor at the School for Visual Arts in New York City from 1947 to 1948. He was also an instructor at the Workshop School in New York City from 1955 though 1957.

Keats started his career as an illustrator of children's books in 1954 with the publication of Jubilant for Sure by Elizabeth Hubbard Lansing. He illustrated books for other people until about 1960. That was the year he collaborated with Pat Cherr in the writing of My Dog Is Lost, or, Mi Perro Se Ha Perdido. Its success led him to write his own books.

Keats was also driven to write his own books because he never got a chance to work on books with African Americans. "I decided that if I ever did a book of my own it would be more of a happening -- certainly not a structured thing, but an experience. My hero would be a Black child. I made many sketches and studies of Black children, so that Peter would not be a white kid colored brown. I wanted him to be in the book on his own, not through the benevolence of white children or anyone else." [1]

My Dog is Lost was Keats' first attempt at authoring a children's book. It was published in 1960. The main character was a Puerto Rican boy named Juanito who had lost his dog in New York. In his search for the dog, Juanito meets children from the different sections of the city, such as Chinatown and Little Italy.

The first book that Keats both wrote and illustrated was entitled The Snowy Day, which was published in 1962 by Viking Press. The book, which won the Caldecott Award in 1963, was noted for Keats' unique style of blending paint and collage in with vivid colors and also for its treatment of the main character, an African American boy named Peter. Peter appeared in six more books by Keats. He grew from a small boy in The Snowy Day to being a teenager in Pet Show. Peter was inspired by the picture of a little boy that had appeared in the May 13th, 1940 issue of Life Magazine.

Keats also became well known for work he did for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), which is an international organization dedicated to the welfare of children. UNICEF asked him to design a series of greeting cards with the proceeds being given to the organization to use in its many projects. These cards raised almost a half million dollars for children in Asia, Africa, and South America.

Keats illustrated thirty-three books, twenty-two of which he also wrote himself. His books have been translated into sixteen languages including Arabic, Danish, French, German, Japanese, and Norwegian.

In April of 1983, Keats was hospitalized with severe chest pains. Ezra Jack Keats died in a New York hospital of a heart attack on May 6, 1983. While Keats had never married or had any children of his own , he always considered the characters in his books to be his children.

Information for this biography was taken from:

Taken from: http://www.yourlibrary.ws/childrens_webpage/e-author32001.html.