Trista Straube: Multicultural Fantastic

The current classroom I am teaching, English Language Arts 6th grade, is a classroom ran on values and beliefs of being YOU, and identifying hardships and how to overcome them. This course is typically taught, by my coworkers, with a literature grade 6 books where there are texts assigned every day with a 10-12 questions for students to turn in. The student demographic is mostly African American with some Hispanic and White students. The classroom is driven on the idea of a community, and negative behavior is reflected onto everyone present in the room. Because of the ways that this classroom is taught, with core values instilled/provided, students rarely misbehave or act out due to the stress and disruptions it may cause. With such open literature, and more relatable protagonists, students are more engaged in the text, actively participating, and find more value in the lessons, thus boosting my in class engagement. 

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We are reading, throughout the year, novels that exhibit minorities making great strides toward success or how minority leads problem solve and find closure within their situations in life. The three novels of focus in a typical year are The Dreamer by Pam Munoz Ryan, Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes, and Ghost by Jason Reynolds. The literature we currently read reflects multiculturalism, as well as identifying protagonists of a minority descent to represent the student population. On top of these three novels, students also spend Black History Month completing a "Historical Calendar" where we learn about a significant African American figure each day. Students learn of how civil rights activists sparked change and helped the world become a greater place to live in for minorities until a point where history began to repeat. With the chosen texts we identify present aspects of African American lives, with black history month we identify the past, and with this two unit long lesson, we will identify the future. 

The multicultural Fantastic explores afrofuturistic literature in an English Language Arts middle school course. The mission of this unit is to incorporate an idea of afrofuturism into the classroom while comparing its features to those of modern African American literature. The focus texts in the classroom will be group selected by students with varying lexile depending on the students need. Students will be able to select one afrofuturism text and pair it with a text that is from/discusses hardships of African American people of today. 

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The afrofuturism text options are:

• Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon 

• Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

• The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

• Kudzu: Heart of the Mountain by Dustin Bolton 

• The Galaxy Game by Karen Lord

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The modern African American literature choices are:

• The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas

• Dear Martin by Nic Stone

• All American Boys by Jason Reynolds

• Black by Kwanza Osajyefo 

• Monster by Walter Dean Myers

• Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi 

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These texts will be chosen "randomly" (students will select the lexile they are most comfortable with) by students, one novel from each category. Once novels are selected (limit 5 students per novel) students will meet the groups of peers who selected the same novels as them. Reading will take place in class, and students will meet with their groups (10 minutes each) once a day to discuss their readings.