Crown: An Ode to The Fresh Cut by Derrick Barnes

As I was searching for books to use for this independent reading assignment, I came

across this beautiful book! This story is told from the perspective of a narrator, who describes a

boy’s trip to the barbershop. He describes how the boy feels after his haircut and how haircuts

can boost ones confidence. As he goes into the story, he describes the many different people who

are also in the barbershop and their haircuts. A few examples of these men include one with

faux-hawk deep part skin fade, one who looks majestic, one who has “masterful designs crafted

on the side of his dome,” and one with cornrows. The book ends with describing how the boy felt

immediately after. He says that he felt “like a million dollars.” This is a feel good book which is

one reason I think it is important to include this in a read-a-loud with my class.

There is one specific writing topic I could write about from this book and that is

descriptive writing. As we can see from the paragraph above, there is a lot of describing this in

this book. The author describes feelings, people, and places. Before I begin the readaloud, I will

tell students to pay attention to the way the author explains things. I will write two questions on

the board so that students remember what to look out for as we read: 1. What words is the author

using to describe either people, how people feel, or places? And 2. What effects do these words

have on the story? After the story is finished, we will discuss these questions. Students will then

have the opportunity to make a list of descriptive words that they can come up with as a class.

They will then be given this prompt: Write about a time in your life where you felt as good as the

boy in the story. Use as many descriptive words as possible. Answer the following questions:

Where did this story take place?

Who were you with? Were you with family? Friends? People from church?

How did this make you feel? How long did this feeling last?
Then, students will have the opportunity to read their stories aloud with to their class. We will

count aloud together how many descriptive words other students use in their stories. This will

give students practice in both writing stories using descriptive writing and identifying

descriptive words.

Work Cited: Barnes, Derrick. Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut. Walker Books Ltd, 2022.