Rationale
I teach English Language Arts at River City Middle School. It is the largest middle school in the Richmond Public School (RPS) system. Construction of the school was completed during the 2020 fall semester. It is projected to exceed its capacity of 1,500 students within the 2021-2022 school year.4 The student population is 59% economically disadvantaged. The school demographics are 53.1% Black and 42.8% Latinx. English Learners compromise 36.8% percent of the student population.5 As a new construction, the school reflects progress; however, issues with overcrowding and segregation represent historic challenges faced by our education system.
To improve scores in Reading and Math, RPS adopted block scheduling in middle school. As a result, Math and English Language Arts now meet for ninety minutes each day. Social Studies, Science, and elective courses meet every other day. This shift diminished the amount of history instruction to under 140 instructional hours while increasing English instruction to 270 total hours.
I had a small group of students participate in an after-school reading program during the 2020-2021 school year. Given its relevance and the district’s reduction in its instructional hours, I felt there was a need to embed history within my Language Arts curriculum. Towards this end, I completed a DonorsChoose project to secure copies of March, a graphic novel depicting the Civil Rights Movement from the perspective of John Lewis. While major figures of the Civil Rights Movement were familiar to many of my students, I discovered their knowledge of the prolonged struggle of the movement was limited. A student once asked me why they had never learned about the topics of March in their history class. They made many spontaneous and personal connections to the present; they once asked how I felt as a white person in my relation to this history. These conversations highlighted the importance of centering the Black and BIPOC experience in the classroom while also demonstrating the need to learn of the past in order to reflect on the present.
This unit will be implemented in a seventh-grade Language Arts course and could be adapted for Social Studies or other grades. It encompasses Virginia statewide standards for 7th grade ELA and Social Studies, which includes the History of the United States from 1865 to the present and the study of narratives. More broadly, the themes explored in March promote civic participation. March’s use of images enhances comprehension for English learners. The use of a biography to teach history and ELA skills highlights the interdisciplinary nature of Social Studies and English.
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