Elementary
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Students explore the power of narrative, learn about the free Black people who established farms in the Adirondacks through primary source exploration, and write their own drafts of local history.
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Students expand their knowledge of U.S. history through analysis of texts centering the experiences of Black Americans and engaging with local research on historical site Promise Land.
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Units
Creating Communities
Students discover how the experience of enslavement informed culture and community for Black Americans, inspiring a legacy of resistance and responsibility today.
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Students explore how they can use their voices to address ways in which people are marginalized through silence, and develop a deep understanding of where genius has been found in history.
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Students apply literacy and writing skills to investigate the impact of the Columbian Exchange, colonization, and Transatlantic slave trade on the world’s economy and culture.
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Kindergarten and first grade students explore concepts of enslavement, resistance, and racial justice through an analysis of primary source documents reflecting resistance to slavery in Lowell, MA.
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Kindergarten students use the Whole Book Approach to analyze Born on the Water to understand the system of enslavement and how people who were enslaved engaged resistance, resilience and hope.
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Students explore themes of challenge and perseverance by analyzing four books, including Born on the Water, and ultimately create original narratives from the perspective of a character in a text.
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Lesson Plan
This is Where I Come From
Students who have moderate disabilities and learn in a class with a significantly modified curriculum analyze plot, character, and theme in each poem in Born on the Water.
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Units
Reading as Resistance
Students analyze a collection of texts, identifying moments of injustice, resistance, hope and joy and then create self-portraits, celebrating one personal strength as a form of resistance.
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Upper Elementary students utilize “Born on The Water” and other texts to examine how the legacies of slavery include present issues of environmental racism.
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Students explore how cultural identity is informed by history through engagement with “The 1619 Project," and ultimately create Altered Books to reflect what stories they think should be amplified.