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Showing posts from September, 2021
Hi folks ... when you get a sec check out this article from the Granite States News Collaborative.  It takes you inside a semester-long project involving 101 students across Dennis and Kristina's English classes where three big things happened: --the learning experience centered on students' voices and the stories of people from a range of backgrounds --the curriculum was tuned to reflect evolving realities and big-picture school and district goals --the school partnered with community allies - in this case Exeter's Racial Unity Team and artist-mentors from both coasts.
The Blue Highways of SAU-16 Dan Provost  Just before Thanksgiving 2020 I was wrapping up a Module with my honors sophomore English class where we explored the tension between “home” and “the road” using William Least Heat Moon’s memoir Blue Highways . Least Heat Moon derives his title from the old gas station road maps, where the major interstate highways are designated in red, and the winding “backroads” are designated in blue. The author was determined to see the country through its backroads, the “blue highways,” and see what he could glean from stopping and chatting with the people whose lives the busy interstates had passed by. We were about to start our next book, extending our home/road theme with The Book of Unknown Americans , a fictional account that tracks the lives of a Latinx community in a Delaware housing project. I thought it would be cool if I could deliver the books to my students, to go on the road like William Least Heat Moon--so I got their permission, looked up th