1. Writing About Important People 2 nd Grade Informative Writing Unit

3. I Can Standards teacher

4. I Can Standards books & use the computer. research on the internet. important people.

5. Abraham Lincoln  Our 16 th president  Born in Kentucky in 1809.  He was a soldier, worked in a general store, and worked as a farmer and postmaster. He later became a lawyer.  He was called “Honest Abe” because he was trustworthy.  While he was president there was a civil war because of disagreement between the southern states and the northern states over slavery.

6. Cesar Chavez  He spent more than 40 years helping farmworkers have a better life. He lived from 1927 to 1993.  His grandparents came to the United States from Mexico.  He encouraged farmworkers to register to vote.  He helped the farmworkers to join together to help them have better working conditions.  He led a march in California to get landowners to pay the workers more money and it worked.

7. Susan B. Anthony  She fought for women’s rights.  Susan was born in 1820 in Massachusetts.  She decided to fight for a woman’s right to vote.  Susan traveled all over the country to talk to people about women’s rights.  She tried to vote along with 100 other women, but she was arrested since it was against the law.  Her work for more than 50 years made a difference in 1920 when women were given the right to vote.

8. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Dr. King worked to change unfair laws that gave African Americans fewer rights than white people.  He was born in 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia.  Martin believed that all people should be treated the same way.  Dr. King was admired around the world and he was given a very important award called the Nobel Peace Prize.  He had a dream that people would not be judged by the color of their skin.

9. Betsy Ross  She is believed to have made the first American flag.  Betsy was born in Pennsylvania in 1752 before the United States of America had become a country.  She went to school and learned to sew.  George Washington wanted a flag made and he asked Betsy to sew it.  She sewed a rectangle with 13 stripes and 13 stars in one corner.

10. Rosa Parks  Many people call Rosa Parks the “Mother of the Civil Rights Movement.”  Rosa was born in Alabama in 1913.  There were unfair laws in the South to segregate or separate African Americans from white people.  Rosa got on the bus to go home and the bus driver told her she had to move to the back to give her seat to a white person, but she said “No.”  Rosa was arrested and went to trial. Finally the Supreme Court made a decision to let all people sit where they wanted.

11. Alexander Graham Bell  He invented the telephone in 1876. He also invented new kinds of planes and boats.  Alexander was born in Scotland in 1847.  He wanted to invent a machine that could send sounds through a wire.  He worked with a man named Thomas to invent a telephone.  By 1915 Mr. Bell’s telephone made it possible to make calls all the way across the country.

12. George Washington  He was a hero from the Revolutionary War, so he was elected to be the first president in 1789.  George was born on a farm in Virginia in 1732.  He had a dream to become a soldier. He was chosen to lead an army formed by the colonies.  George’s army won the war to gain independence or freedom from England.  He was president of the United States from 1789 to 1797 and often called the “father of our country.”

13. Harriet Tubman  Harriet was born around 1820 in Maryland to a family that were slaves in the south.  She never went to school. She had one dress and no shoes. She had to work like a grown-up.  When she got older she decided to head to the northern states where there was no slavery.  The Underground Railroad helped Harriet along the way until she got to freedom.  She wanted to help other slaves, so she led more than 300 people to freedom in the North.

14. Helen Keller  When Helen was almost two, she got very sick. After that, she couldn’t hear or see.  At age six, a teacher named Annie Sullivan came to live with her family to teach Helen how to communicate with words.  Helen learned to read books in Braille, raised dots for letters.  In 1900 at age 20, she went to college and wrote a book about her life.  She visited more than 30 countries to give hope to deaf and blind people.

15. Squanto  Squanto was a Native American that helped the Pilgrims.  He was born around the year 1585.  In 1614 Squanto was forced to go to Spain to be a slave, but he escaped or got away and went to England.  Squanto returned home after five years and helped the settlers or Pilgrims to live in the new land.  He taught Pilgrims how to hunt and grow food.

16. Johnny Appleseed  His dream was to plant apple trees all over the western United States.  Johnny was born in Massachusetts in 1774.  At age 23, he knew settlers were moving west and they would need apples to make different food, so he traveled west to plant apple trees.  Johnny made friends with the Native Americans and they helped each other.  He traveled for nearly 50 years and he planted apple seeds wherever he went.

17. Graphic Organizers to Help You

22. Now it’s your turn to choose your important person to write about…  Play the “I have Who has” game with your group.  Choose the important person you want to write about.  Use sources (books, ipods/ipads, and computers) to find out information about the important person you choose to write about.  Use the graphic organizers to take notes about your important person.  Use the information you found to write your informative paper.

23. Have Fun Learning About Important People