Participating in NCTE’s African American Read-In
It is crucial for educators to read, suggest, and incorporate texts from as many backgrounds, cultures, experiences, races, abilities, etc. as possible. I strive to do this as much as I can, but I also appreciate that NCTE has an event, the African American Read-In, that focuses on centering African American books and authors during Black History Month.
As posted on the NCTE website, “The National African American Read-In is a groundbreaking effort to encourage communities to read together, centering African American books and authors. It was established in 1990 by the Black Caucus of the National Council of Teachers of English to make literacy a significant part of Black History Month. This initiative has reached more than 6 million participants around the world.”
Although I first became a member of NCTE as a sophomore in college in 2010, I did not know about this NCTE event until last year (2020). One of the many great aspects about this event is that teachers can choose how to participate! There are endless options to have this event fit into every classroom.
To help put my experiences and sharing into perspective, I teach 8th grade English. In my district, this means that I mainly focus on writing and grammar standards; there is a separate class that mainly focuses on the reading standards.
Last year in 2020, I highlighted several authors and books by giving book talks about books I had read (or hoped to read in the near future) as well as playing YouTube videos of authors reading excerpts of their novels. I borrowed books from local public libraries as well as our school library and then shared those with students for them to read. I also incorporated some excerpts as model texts for our grammar study. For my first year participating, I was overall thrilled. My ideas for future years included having students give books talks or read excerpts as well as trying to connect through a video meeting with an author (I still hope to do this in the future!).
This year in 2021, where lending books is a much trickier task and time and mental capacity is more limited for all, I focused more on highlighting authors through model texts in grammar study. I thoughtfully included to highlight two African American authors during two Friday remote learning days.
To review the grammar that we had covered so far in 8th grade, we focused on Amanda Gorman and the biographical information on the main page of her website. Poetry, and Amanda Gorman, are having a huge moment right now, so I wanted to incorporate that. Personally, for the Super Bowl this year, the most important part was being able to watch Amanda Gorman’s poem after the coin toss. I wanted to make sure that students knew just how awesome and amazing it was to have a poem recited during the most-watched athletic event on television. The slides that we used for review can be accessed here.
The next grammar concept that we focused on was verbal phrases (shout-out to all the other 8th grade teachers who focus on this standard!). Jason Reynolds is an author loved by many (if not all!) teachers and students, so I wanted to highlight his writing and books as well. Jason Reynolds has a fantastic read aloud of the first chapter of his book Ghost, the first book in his highly-popular Track series. This excerpt also happens to have a perfect section for identifying and analyzing participial phrases. This excerpt, as well as more excerpts from books by African American authors and links to authors reading excerpts from their books, can be viewed here.
Earlier this year, I invited students to read Class Act by Jerry Craft and participate in the virtual author event hosted through the Words & Pictures Program by Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures. This experience wasn’t during the official African American Read-In event, but as I mentioned earlier, it is always great to incorporate a wide range of authors and texts!
Other suggestions for participating in the African American Read-In could include reading picture books, which is great for any grade level. Students could volunteer to read a book and then discuss grammar concepts, themes, and more. Parents and community members could also participate by reading and sharing about a book, poem, or article. When discussing the draft of this blog post with my friend/fellow teacher/writing feedback buddy, Janel Prinkey, she suggested reading pieces by various African American poets and comparing grammatical styles as well as incorporating “First Chapter Fridays.” Ultimately, as long as the reading selection is focusing on African American authors and texts, you are participating in the event and helping to amplify more voices. If you have any further suggestions, please share in the comments!
Overall--participate in the African American Read-In if you haven’t yet! Keep in mind you can incorporate voices from African American authors at any time in the year, and even participating a little bit is better than not at all.
Amy Bouch is a reading-obsessed 8th grade English teacher at Chartiers Valley Middle School. She is also the Vice President of the Western Pennsylvania Council of Teachers of English (WPCTE) and a Teacher-Consultant for the Western Pennsylvania Writing Project (WPWP). When she isn’t teaching, she is making her way through all of the U.S. National Parks and traveling the world with her husband. Connect with her at abouch@cvsd.net.
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