Mahalia Jackson begins with the grandfather sharing the historical underpinnings of the blues, including a brief history of the African experience in early America. From there, the author shifts gears to a factual, though loose biography of Mahalia Jackson. (Pearson Reading Street, 2010)

This lesson was created as part of the Basal Alignment Project, during which teachers created CCSS-aligned lessons for existing literary and information texts in basal readers. All page numbers and unit/week designations found in this lesson relate to the edition of the basal reader named above. If you are using a trade book or different edition of this title, the page/unit/week references in this lesson will not match. Consult the content referenced in the body of the lesson to determine appropriate page numbers for your text.