Words Take Wing Resource Guide
As a replacement to the Study Guides we’ve sent in the past, we are offering these easy to access links that you can share in your classroom along with information to help your students get the most out of the school matinee they are attending.
School Matinee
Words Take Wing: Renée Watson
Tuesday February 24, 2026 • 11:00am-Noon
Renée Watson is a #1 New York Times bestselling author whose work has sold over one million copies. Her young adult novel, Piecing Me Together, received a Coretta Scott King Award and a Newbery Honor. Her lecture-style presentation aims to showcase the power of storytelling, introduce new worlds and inspire students to create and share their own stories.
When Renée Watson was seven years old, she wrote a 21-page story and her teacher told her, “I think you’re going to be a writer one day!” And she was right. Renée’s been writing ever since: poetry, plays, and books.
Some of Renée’s books include The Ryan Hart series, Some Places More Than Others, and Love is a Revolution. One of Renée’s passions is using the arts to help youth cope with trauma and discuss social issues. Her picture book, A Place Where Hurricanes Happen, is based on poetry workshops she facilitated with children in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
A passionate arts educator, Watson has led writing workshops nationwide and founded the “I, Too Arts Collective” in Langston Hughes’s former Harlem home. Her influence continues through initiatives like the Renée Watson Cottage at the Highlights Foundation, a creative haven for children’s writers and illustrators.
Renée grew up in Portland, Oregon, and splits her time between Portland and New York City.
Videos
Learn More:
Black Like Me – Rethinking Schools article
Renée’s experience and thoughts on being bused across town while in middle school.
How to Make Space for Childrens Grief – Romper article
Her concrete ways to connect with kids who are hurting.
Interesting To Know:
Coretta Scott King Award: The Coretta Scott King Book Awards are given annually to outstanding African American authors and illustrators of books for children and young adults that demonstrate an appreciation of African American culture and universal human values. The award commemorates the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and honors his wife, Mrs. Coretta Scott King, for her courage and determination to continue the work for peace and world brotherhood.
Newbery Honor: A Newbery Honor book is a book that the American Library Association’s (ALA) Newbery Award committee selects as being of “truly distinguished” literary merit. The ALA awards one Newbery Medal each year for the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children and the committee also names several Honor books as runners-up that are of notable quality.
Words Take Wing: Since its inception by the UC Davis School of Education in 2005, more than 20,000 Sacramento-area school children have benefited from Words Take Wing: Honoring Diversity in Children’s Literature. This annual celebration, held each February, gives students the opportunity to hear about the personal journeys and creative processes of acclaimed authors and illustrators of diverse children’s literature whose stories about Native American heritage, Asian culture, African American culture, and Latino identity, among many others, allow them to explore a wide range of perspectives and world views.
California English Language Arts Standards
English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects (3–5)
Key Ideas and Details, Craft and Structure& Integration of Knowledge and Ideas:
RL.3-5.2; RL.3-5.3; RL.3-5.6: RL.3-5.7; RL.3-5.9
English Language Arts (6-8)
Key Ideas and Details, Craft and Structure& Integration of Knowledge and Ideas:
RL.7-8.10; RL.7-8.3; RL.7-8.6; RL.7-8.7
Common Core Standards
Through extensive reading of stories, dramas, poems, and myths from diverse cultures and different time periods, students gain literary and cultural knowledge as well as familiarity with various text structures and elements.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.3-8.2; CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.3-8.3; CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.3-8.5; CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.3-8.6; CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.3-8.7