You Forgot Your Skirt, Amelia Bloomer

You Forgot Your Skirt, Amelia Bloomer was written by Shana Corey and illustrated by Chesley McLaren.  Would you DARE to bare YOUR underwear?  If you like CLOTHES and people with the courage to SKIRT conventions and adDRESS injustice then Amelia Bloomer and her unFITTING ideas will charm the PANTS off you! (This description is taken directly from the inside cover of the book because I love how it was written).  Amelia Bloomer was a rebellious reformer and early women's rights activist who invented bloomers (baggy pantaloons worn with a short skirt over them) and liberated women from the dangerous and oppressive clothing of the mid-nineteenth century.

You Forgot Your Skirt, Amelia Bloomer has a style all it’s own.  It is a non-fiction biography.  According to the textbook, Literature and the Child, on page 18, it explains that nonfiction books are informational sources that explain a subject.  It also further explains that biography tells about a real person’s life.  This book is a very good example of a non-fiction biography in that it explains a person’s life by giving information. The book has very colorful and whimsical illustrations that flow throughout the entire story.  The font style uses large and small font sizes to make various points throughout the book. 

This book is recommended for students ages 4 and up.  I am not sure that I would include children that young into this recommendation.  While the writing is simple and there are pages with few words on them, the story line may be hard for children that age to understand.  I would recommend students in 2nd grade and up for this book.  I think, with some background information, they would be able to understand the history behind this story and can learn a lot from it.

When presenting this book to your students, I would include the following activities:

1.  If you are in a school where your students wear uniforms, have the students write letters, or create an article for a newspaper (just like Amelia Bloomer did) to spread their opinions about the dress code. It could also be used if the students were not required to wear school uniforms, it could be a hypothetical situation such as "How would you feel if...?"

2.  In the 1800s, women wore clothing that weighed between 20 and 40 pounds. Let your students experience how difficult it was to move carrying all that weight. Place a large book-bag on a bathroom scale. Let students take turns adding books, one at a time, until the scale reads 20 pounds. Give each child an opportunity to lift the bag and walk around the classroom. Repeat by adding more books to weigh 40 pounds and have students life that bag.  Ask them to imagine wearing all that weight every day! Ask: How much do you think pants and a shirt weigh? Take out a child’s shirt and pants (bring them to school in advance), and place them on the scale. Compare the weight of the pants and shirt to the weight of women’s clothing in the 1800s.

READER RESPONSE QUESTIONS:
1. How and why did Bloomer change women’s dress and how did people react to these
changes?

2.  Are there any styles today that your parents disapprove of? Do you agree?

3.  Would you wear styles that your parents disapprove of? Would you object to other people wearing them?

4.  Does the school have a dress code? What is it?

5.  Do you own any clothes that you can’t wear to school because of the code?

6.  Do you think it is fair for schools to have dress codes?

REFERENCES
Brooklyn Public Library women’s unit.  Retrieved from http://www.bklynpubliclibrary.org/civilwar/lesson_plans/cw_lesson3_1.pdf

Corey, S. (2000). You forgot your skirt, amelia bloomer. New York, NY: Scholastic Press.

Galda, L., Cullinan, B. E., & Sipe, L. R. (2011). Literature and the child. (7th ed. ed.). Belmont: Wadsworth Pub Co.

You Forgot Your Skirt, Amelia Bloomer blog post. Retrieved from http://6elementssje.blogspot.com/2011/10/you-forgot-your-skirt-amelia-bloomer.html

You Forgot Your Skirt, Amelia Bloomer extended activity.  Retrieved from http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/lesson-plan/you-forgot-your-skirt-amelia-bloomer-extension-activity