Authors That Changed America
Bringing inspiring authors to life for young learners
Writers, past and present, who have changed the landscape of literature across the U.S., from Mark Twain to Octavia Butler.
The Authors that Changed America series was developed with the education platform Newsela who were in search of high-quality English Language Arts (ELA) content. Together, we worked closely with them to develop a new range of videos, including Authors that Changed America (1|2), Literary Genres and Skills and Standards.
In this series, we took the decision to focus not only on major figures of literature, such as Mark Twain, Alice Walker and Shirley Jackson, but to introduce new writers of fiction in the U.S., who write about issues of race, gender and social struggles - like Walter Dean Meyers, Amanda Gorman and Colson Whitehead. The films are designed to appeal to young learners across the U.S.
The short-form videos are rich with a distilled story of the life and works of some of the most influential writers in the English language, mixing animation and archive to tell their stories.
Watching these films will give the viewer the essence of who a writer was, what inspired their work, and the importance of their writing in the world today, and act as a springboard for developing interest and skills in ELA.
More than half of the ‘Authors’ films are an important part of Makematic’s Untold series, and were partly funded by the Driving Force Institute and Northern Ireland Screen.