WELCOME

"As was the case in the early twentieth century and the 1960s, Black history is needed to allow society to comprehend Blackness through
the record of Black agency and advancement in the context of systemic notions of White supremacy and racism. Our teaching should
center on how Black history improves our understanding of contemporary circumstances, and how it can stimulate us to improve our
democracy." (King 2017)

I wholeheartedly agree with the quote above from Mr. LaGarrett J. King. As an African American educator, I
believe my due diligence is to create the pathway for my students to tread on this journey of disruption and
awareness of Blacks. This unit plan comes from my semester-long plan, designed to introduce, acquaint, and
showcase students to Black excellence and the legacy they haven't encountered throughout their academic lives. It
is the fourth and more relaxed unit of the plan, which gives students the most control over their learning and
curriculum.

In the previous units, students developed the identities of their individual selves and created classroom norms
and a culturally responsible space to handle the challenging topics we uncovered over the semester. We read
excerpts from autobiographies and other nonfiction of extraordinary Blacks, such as Narrative of the Life of
Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs, and The Immortal
Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. Students chose the Black Narratives unit's anchor text based on the
four novels: Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo, Witches Steeped in Gold by Ciannon Smart, Bitter by
Akwaeke Emezi and We Cast a Shadow by Maurice Carlos Ruffin. In the Poetry & Short Stories unit, they read
works from the Harlem Renaissance period, poems from Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman, and a few
other poets' works from in between; Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora
edited by Sheree Renée Thomas and Every Tongue Got to Confess: Negro Folk-tales from the Gulf States by Zora
Neale Hurston.

For this unit, Blacks in Multimedia, students will have the opportunity to select which movies, plays, and other
multi-media sectors we will watch and discuss. During this unit, students will also see artwork by Blacks and
listen to music across the diaspora.

Students will engage with the legacy of Black Literature through a Standard literary lens but magnified through
the students' perspectives and personal experiences. The activities outlined within this unit allow students to
form an organic intersectional relationship with the content by being mindful of the importance of their
individuality and voice with the materials we used over the semester. Students will have the opportunity to
engage with the works by offering their literary ideas and opinions through critical thinking and other analytical
exercises, creating their adaptations or original content, and working as a community to identify the connections
from the sources to present-day society.