Reading America

Funded Sep 9, 2019

This thank you for your donation to my classroom has lived the same nine lives that 2020 has. In some ways, I have felt like Dr. Frankenstein, trying to piece together a coherent narrative of what the books meant to me, to my students and what they will continue to mean to the department, through our ever-changing 2020 lives together. Our world is so different than it was when I first proposed the project, but tragically, it is also still very much the same. That's why these books matter so much, and will continue to matters, whatever the rest of 2020 has in store.

When I designed my project for Donors Choose last fall, I did so hoping that those books would be part of radical change in our department, so that by end of this year, we could say that teaching would never be the same again. Well – teaching will never be the same again, and the books have been part of the craziest year in my teaching career, but not in the ways I had imagined. I was not able to teach all of the books this year, because of the pandemic, but what I was able to do greatly benefitted my students, some of my colleagues and me, and we are all full of gratitude for that.

I was able to teach Whitehead's The Nickel Boys to white students who had very little understanding of race in the United States beyond slavery and "I Have A Dream." Together, we wrestled with injustice in policing and with the limits of hope for some people for whom the promise of the American Dream as always been elusive. Some of those same students followed by in book groups by reading Bryan Stevenson's Just Mercy, so they could see more clearly that the power structures in place that allowed for Elwood's death, are still with us. On the final exam, students overwhelmingly proposed the The Nickel Boys, more than any other text we read, as the text to make a permanent part of American Literature.

The COVID-19 crisis cut short my plans to teach There,There this spring, but is became part of an unforeseen project in our department. Our new department head was interested in the work I was doing with my classes, and in particular with these books. She decided to set up faculty book groups with the charge we all read one title and come back the department as a whole to discuss how and to which course(s) we could add a particular title). Initially, there was a great deal of resistance among faculty, but the events of the last several weeks in the United States (beginning with the death of Armaud Auberry in February), convinced some faculty and more importantly hardened my department head's resolve to make sure that these books are taught across the department, especially in courses that students are required to take.

Very few things have proceeded as planned this past year, and certainly the same will be true for next year as well. The books I was able to purchase through your generosity did provide what I expected they would, even if the path was not as clear as I thought. Reading builds empathy and understanding; it opens eyes to others' lives and to injustice, and empowers ordinary people to create change. Once that happens, there's no telling how far a single book can reach.”

With gratitude,

Ms. Nicastro