My students need a different way to engage with history-a Graphic Novel.
$479 goal
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Hooray! This project is fully funded
My Students
I love that our students are interested in answering the big questions. Frustratingly vague questions and unbelievably simple questions like “why?” My job is to help students find those answers and I’m hoping you can help.
History has the ability to explain why things are the way that they are and help us determine our path forward.
In order to connect young people with the events of the past, I believe it's important to provide them with stories of real people.
My students are mostly the result of generational poverty, and while many would view the circumstances of our students and assume that they were despondent and checked out they surprise us each year with their effort and enthusiasm. Our students are full of hope and full of questions.
My Project
This graphic novel will allow my students to engage in text in a more independent and engaging way. The Harlem Hellfighters graphic novel is the story of a group of African American Soldiers in WWI. I will use this graphic novel, along with real world images of the soldiers, newspaper articles from 1919 to transform our unit into something more authentically meaningful.
Our School is over 90% African American and while our students tend to find the history textbook (from 2003) tedious and not necessarily relatable, the story of the Hellfighters will both personalize and contextualize both the details of the Great War and their connection to this event.
While the story of the war is important, it's also important to see the war from the perspective of those who fought. This group of soldiers were known for never having lost a trench, had a man captured, or even lost a foot of battlefield, and while 3/4 of the 2000 original soldiers died for their country, the nation they returned to still viewed them as second class citizens.
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