As I continue to educate myself on anti-racism, I have vowed to devote a weekly post to this cause. I have been curating resources for this at a rate that is impossible to sustain, and it has been a bit overwhelming. I don’t want to dump a lot of links on you because you can basically get any list that you want from social media. Following the tradition of this blog, I will attempt to share no more than a few quality resources with each post.
Today’s very useful resource is brought to you by CommonLit. I’ve written about CommonLit a couple of times on this blog, and it is heartening to see that this website has continued to improve. Provided by a non-profit, CommonLit also has remained free for teachers. As you know, (and I mentioned in yesterday’s post), quality ed tech tools are difficult to find, and sometimes don’t last very long.
CommonLit has compiled 59 texts for talking about race. It appears that the grade range is from 4th-12th. Here is an example of a poem called, “The Child,” by J. Patrick Lewis, that is suitable for 4th grade and up. As you can see on the right-hand side, activities are provided to go along with the text, including questions and discussion suggestions. Students who are logged in on a computer (not a mobile device at this time) can also annotate the text. They can have the computer read it out loud, or translate to another language.
At the top of the page, you will see tabs for paired texts, related media, and parent/teacher guides to go along with the specific text. You must be logged in for some of these resources – but remember it is free to register!
If school is already out in your neck of the woods, be sure to bookmark this resource for next school year. Parents, you don’t need to wait, since there are guides for you to use if you want to start the discussion now.