Funded Dec 14, 2020The class that these books were intended for has been partially in-person and partially online (at the same time!) this school year due to the pandemic. What I decided to do was actually put together gift bags for each of the six girls enrolled in my Dual Credit Literature and Composition class (which is simultaneously their high school senior English credit and also 2000-level English courses on their college transcripts). Each of my students received one of each of the texts that you helped purchase, and the majority of them I hand-delivered to their front doors (no-contact!).
The collection of books I chose were deliberately diverse, and those that we have gotten through so far have been eye-opening for my students. Each student is female in this class, all but one of them is either of Hispanic or Asian decent, and four of the six are first-generation Americans. One of my students recently told me she was actually born in a refugee camp in Thailand. My students had no idea that authors like Zora Neale Hurston and Amy Tan could be part of a high school curriculum, and more so, that we could discuss The American Dream in all of these texts in comparison to F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby. The girls decided that Zora Neale Hurston's novel was more important to the literary landscape than Fitzgerald's, and I find myself wondering how these conversations would have been different if there had been a male student in the room.
Despite the pandemic, this year with these students has been amazing, and the gift of these novels for us has truly been a game-changer for them - and me! I am so proud to have had the opportunity to teach these students and help them see authors more like themselves and read stories that they can see themselves in - all while in a public high school classroom in Texas. Thank you so very much for your help.”
With gratitude,
Dr. Warren