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Week of February 7
Class Focus: Unearthing Whiteness in Canonical Texts About Racism

Class Meeting Time: 5:30-8:20pm

What you need: Your literature circle book & Letting Go of Literary Whiteness

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Agenda:

  • Annotating for Commentary: "Black Boy" by Kay Boyle

    • Questions to consider:​

      • What does whiteness look like in this story?

      • How do you think the fact that the author was white impacted the representation of whiteness in the story? How might it look different if the author was Black?

      • What accomplishments did the whites achieve, especially in relation to POC?

      • What expectations did whites demonstrate?

      • How did whites treat people of color?

      • How are people of color depicted in relation to whites?

      • What feelings does the book rally for white characters, especially in relation to people of color?

      • How do your literature circle books serve as counterstories?

  • Literature Circle Discussion: Save the Last Word for Me Discussion Protocol

  • Anchor Activity: Two Voice Poem

  • Continue designing first Unit Guide

Unit 1 Unit Guide.png
For Next Class
Open Book
To Read

  1. Chapter 5 of Letting Go of Literary Whiteness

  2. Finish your literature circle book

Doing Homework
To Do

  1. Complete your poem if you did not have a chance to finish in class.

  2. Continue working on your literature circle unit guide.

    1. Select your literature circle books. To help combat the dangers of a single story, draw your books from a single community of non-white authors, i.e., all Black, all Latinx, all Muslim, etc. These books should address the theme and questions you developed last week. Keep the grade level you selected for the unit in mind. Unless there is a compelling reason, all books should have been published in the last five years (2017-2022). Need ideas? Check out these sites:

      1. The TCH 236 Website​

      2. The Latinx Kidlit Book Festival

      3. We Need Diverse Books

      4. Reading Middle Grade's "65 Black Young Adult Novels to Add to Your TBR"

      5. Cynthia Leitich Smith's "Native American Children’s and Young Adult Authors: Novels"

      6. School Library Journal's "Muslims in YA: Great Books"

    2. Create novel slides. Create a slide for each book. You may use the Amazon descriptions or write your own.

    3. Develop preliminary objectives for the unit. What do you want to accomplish with this unit? Consider the Common Core Standards, as well as additional outcomes you want students to accomplish as a result of the unit. And although race isn't necessarily the focus of the unit, what do you want students to understand about race as a result of this unit? Create a racial literacy objective to capture this understanding. Put these on a second Unit Overview slide.

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