Enduring Legacies: The Underground Railroad & Black Women's History
My students need a class set of "The Underground Railroad," and "When and Where I Enter, The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America," by Paula Giddings.
This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because
it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.
My Students
I teach at a Title I school on the Upper Westside of Manhattan. My students come from economically marginalized communities and many have weak educational backgrounds. All of my students come to school eager to learn something new every day even if the teenager in them cannot demonstrate the emotion. My students have many personal challenges that make school and the requirements of school particularly daunting. That said, all of my students are held to the highest of expectations, both intellectual and professional.
My students are inquisitive and curious about other cultures.
Many of my students live very insular lives even though they live in NYC. While my students are exposed to other peoples and cultures, that contact is superficial. In my Social Studies classroom, units are anchored in geography, driven by primary sources and analyzed through complex secondary sources. Social Studies is the perfect vehicle to teach history, inculcate professionalism and cultural capital to societies most marginalized students.
My Project
The beauty of teaching in 2016 is that there are a wealth of rich and intellectually diverse materials that challenge the historical master narrative and give voice to marginalized peoples. "The Underground Railroad," by Colson Whitehead is a tour de force in modern fiction and "When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America," by Paula Giddings, is the seminal history of Black women in the Americas.
All members of the AP World History class are also currently taking US History as well.
This mini-grant affords me the opportunity to cover both AP World History material (construction of racial hierarchies in the Western Hemisphere) and US History (the role and impact of African-American women in US History). A social studies class should immerse students in the content/curriculum through the rich use of both primary and secondary sources. Teaching both of these books will afford students the opportunity to dig deeply into a subject frequently immured in our history textbooks.
My students are smart and inquisitive and have truly enjoyed using fiction to support their historical understandings. "The Underground Railroad," is a powerful book that explores the human toll of enslavement. Reading that book, in conjunction with Paula Gidding's historical account, will empower students to better understand the history that has helped shape current realities.
Your generosity in supporting this mini-grant will enable students to learn about an aspect of American history that is fascinating, important, and rarely explored. Furthermore, this mini-grant expands the cultural capital of the students as it allows them to engage a book that is currently on the New York Times Bestsellers list.
More than three‑quarters of students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. Christine Fryer and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
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