Problem Statement

As a teacher of 10^th and 12^th grade English at Science Leadership Academy at Beeber, I have the opportunity to inspire the next generation of critical thinkers, leaders and change makers, however, the school’s curriculum severely lacks inspirational content. Many of the texts students are given feature characters that are over traumatized, and their stories teach the mostly Black student population at my school to expect and grow comfortable with despair. On top of that, the literature texts offer a very limited perspective of Black people that does not allow my Black students to see themselves reflected in many speculative stories. Taking the seminar with Dr. Thomas has opened my eyes to the ways that Black characters are othered and silenced, through her teachings and also her book The Dark Fantastic. I’d like to teach a unit that shows my students how Black people have been able to survive various forms of oppression and find freedom, joy, and empowerment through speculative storytelling, which exists in many forms such as rap, poetry, and traditional literary stories.

In the present day climate of the pandemic of Covid-19, which has dramatically altered the school year for students across the country, and has forced me to become an online instructor, it has been incredibly important for me to remind my students of the power of storytelling. In the midst of uncertainty, sadness, and grief, each week my students have read and discussed various stories that have given us hope and joy that has been much needed in this time. I am grateful for the ability of stories to connect, educate, and inspire. It is my hope that through this unit I can continue to affirm and inspire my students through Black speculative storytelling, a topic I’m sure many of them have never been exposed to, which shows its relevance even more. Below are more details on the context of my school.

SLA Beeber is a unique school. It is an inquiry-driven, selective high school that draws students from all over the city of Philadelphia. SLA Beeber, founded in 2013, is the second campus of Science Leadership Academy, which was founded in 2006. Both schools operate with the same mission which is to provide

a vigorous, college-preparatory curriculum with a focus on science,            technology, mathematics, and entrepreneurship. Students at SLA learn in a project-based environment where the core values of inquiry, research, collaboration, presentation, and reflection are emphasized in all classes. (SLA homepage)

At SLA Beeber students are taught to view learning as a science, as they apply the core values, adapted from the scientific method, as an approach to all of their classes.

Another thing that makes SLA Beeber stand out amongst other schools in the district is the amount of freedom and technology students are given. Every student is provided a laptop, where project-based learning occurs through the most up to date digital applications. Classes are 65 minutes long, which gives students more time to spend engaging with their teachers and the class material. Students also have a 65-minute lunch period, the longest of any school in the district, so that students and staff can have time to decompress and enjoy their lunchtime. Many students come to SLA Beeber from schools where the rules ranged from strict to downright oppressive, with policies regulating student dress code, monitoring student movement through hallways, and restricting their freedom of expression. In contrast, at SLA Beeber there is no uniform policy, the dress code is simply to dress in a way that is respectful to the community and others; students are free to work in the hallways and are often hanging out there during their lunch periods, and creative expression is highly encouraged. On any typical day you might see a few students riding their skateboards in the hallways before class starts, there is a game room where students are allowed to play video games during lunch; overall there’s a feeling of ease and comfort that SLA Beeber is a place where students are given the freedom to learn with advanced technology and be themselves while doing it.

Staff at SLA Beeber also enjoy a particular kind of freedom, where staff are able to plan project-based curriculum using whatever texts or methods of our choosing. As a High School English teacher, I love the freedom to design units around any literature texts, and it’s nice to know that I don’t have to follow a district mandated curriculum that tells me exactly what and how to teach, as is the case at other schools. Despite this freedom, the English curriculum created over the years by teachers at SLA Beeber is in dire need of innovation. The main problem I’ve observed is that the texts students are required to read mostly feature stories that are dark, depressing, and overly dramatic. Students often read about a character who experiences and overcomes one traumatic event after another, which leaves students wondering why they only read stories with heavy themes.

Many of my students have been impacted by trauma, whether from their family, community, or as a result of the city where we live. I’ve had several students experience family deaths this year alone. I do not want to re-traumatize my students when they enter my classroom, especially after returning to class after dealing with a pandemic. Also, teaching for me is a labor of love and political resistance. As a Black woman who made it through Philadelphia’s public education system to receive an Ivy League degree at the University of Pennsylvania, to go on to teach at the second campus of the high school I graduated from, it is my duty to teach my students that they too are capable of succeeding beyond the limits put on them by a society that does not value Black or Brown children. I want my students to know what it means to thrive and find success in whatever they choose, whether that is going to college or starting their own business, and I know that a strong foundation of reading and writing skills will be necessary. So I would like to incorporate the things I’ve learned in the Dark Fantastic seminar, particularly the concept of Visionary Fiction into my teaching, so that I can inspire my students to envision a better future for themselves and their communities.

In my two years of teaching 10^th grade English at SLA Beeber, I’ve always taught a unit on Dystopian Fiction as a way to have students engage with the school’s 10^th grade theme of systems. Previously in this unit, students analyzed how authors have written Dystopian Fiction to make a criticism about a current trend, societal norm, or political system. Students read short Dystopian stories from Kurt Vonnegut, as well as Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, before writing their own Dystopian short stories. Writing Dystopian fiction led my students to think of the worst case scenario of a current world problem, however, I would like to flip that around, and introduce my students to the concept of Visionary fiction so that their writing can produce hopeful solutions to our current world’s problems. The concept of “Visionary fiction”, is described in the Introduction to Octavia’s Brood by Walidah Imarisha as the following

Visionary fiction is a term we developed to distinguish science fiction that has relevance toward building new, freer worlds from the mainstream strain of science fiction, which most often reinforces dominant narratives of power. Visionary fiction encompasses all of the fantastic, with the arc always bending toward justice…Once the imagination is unshackled, liberation is limitless. (4)

I believe that introducing my students to this concept will help unshackle their imaginations as stated by Imarisha, and hopefully help them write hope into their own futures.

Reading List

I plan to use a combination of dystopian short stories, one dystopian novel, and excerpts from longer texts in my unit. Although a few of the texts feature dystopian stories, I will use them as a way to introduce students to the concept of world building, that I learned in the Dark Fantastic Seminar. This concept was expressed by Adrienne Maree Brown in the outro section of Octavia’s Brood, and it essentially is a process where people work collectively to dream up a new future that prioritizes putting the most marginalized voices at the center. So after reading the dystopian texts, students will work as a class and participate in world-building that offers up a radically positive and hopeful solution to a current world problem. After reading Parable of the Sower, students will write an original short story with a hopeful ending that includes a solution to an education related issue.

The two dystopian short stories I plan to use include, “The Ones who walk away from Omelas” by Ursula K Le Guin, and “The Ones Who Stay and Fight” by N.K. Jemisin. They will be used in the unit to introduce students to speculative fiction that makes a critique on a problem in the world. This will help students see that speculative stories can be political as they draw parallels between our world and the fictional world of the author. I also want to intentionally expose my students to the Black speculative writer N.K. Jemisin. In the past I’ve used stories from Kurt Vonnegut, including Harrison Bergeron and 2BR02B, however, I’d like to expose my students to more writers of color and also show them Dystopian stories that deal with issues more relevant to their reality, such as racism and various other forms of inequality. I believe that these two stories will meet both of those needs. Please see the next page for the reading list.

Note on Virtual Remote Learning in the 2020-21 School Year

As a result of the Covid-19 Pandemic, schools across the country were forced to close and my school resumed instruction virtually through the Google Hangouts platform. Compared to most schools in the city, my school was prepared for virtual instruction, as our school already provides each student with a laptop and SLA uses Canvas, an online instructional platform. Despite our preparedness for online learning, I still faced significant challenges with reaching all of my students, as some students struggled to attend online synchronous learning classes. Furthermore, it was difficult to engage students on Google Hangouts. Often students would attend class with their cameras off and their sound muted, so it would be hard to assess whether students were actually paying attention and engaged. I also noticed low participation on assignments, particularly for my seniors, who were dealing with grief over the pandemic’s ruining their senior year. In the coming year, it is unclear whether the Philadelphia School District will mandate 100% virtual learning. As of now, the school district has released a hybrid plan, which calls for two days of in person instruction and three days of virtual remote learning. There has been a large public outcry against the reopening of schools, and many teachers, parents, and students are arguing for complete virtual instruction. With the uncertainty of what school will look like in mind, I’ve crafted a unit of teaching strategies that can be carried out in person or virtually. The whole purpose of this unit is to inspire students to imagine a better future for themselves, which is desperately needed as our country is experiencing a health pandemic and uprisings against racial injustices. I want my students, particularly my Black and Brown students who are the predominant population at my school, to walk away from this unit feeling a sense of power and agency as they understand the importance of storytelling and how it can be used to shape their futures.

The unit will take place over the course of eight weeks. There will be three phases of the unit. The phases will travel through time by starting at the root of it all, Africa, and end with the future in mind with an emphasis on Afro-futurism and Visionary fiction. The specific methods used in the unit include using Video, Journaling, Collective World Building, Creative Writing, and Reading.

Phase 1- The power of storytelling: Griots, Rap & Poetry. This phase will last for two weeks and in the first phase students will learn about the power of storytelling by examining its oral origins, through learning how oral storytelling has been carried out by West African griots for centuries. Students will watch a short video that will explain how griots serve as a community’s historian, recording all of the major events, births, deaths, and marriages of a people. Griots originated in West Africa in the region where the present day country of Mali is located. The Malian word for a storyteller is jelli, yet when translated to French, the word is griot, which these community storytellers are widely known as.  Students will then connect their knowledge of oral storytelling of the past to oral storytelling of the present by examining rap songs, watching spoken word poetry videos, and listening to songs that tell stories. Students will then come up with their own oral storytelling creative piece that will describe their origin story, where they and their families come from and the strengths and positive traits they are proud to have from their upbringing. Students will have a choice to come up with either a rap, a song, or a spoken word performance. Students will write their creative piece online through using Google Classroom, and extra credit will be given to students who choose to present their work in class, which will hopefully incentivize participation if instruction is carried out virtually.

Phase 2- Speculative fiction- Speculative short stories & Parable of the Sower. This phase will last for three weeks.  Students will learn about the characteristics of speculative fiction, while specifically focusing on Dystopian fiction. They will first read the short stories “The Ones who walk away from Omelas” by Ursula K Le Guin, and “The Ones Who Stay and Fight” by N.K. Jemisin in the first week and analyze it for characteristics of Dystopian literature. Students will also analyze how both stories are making a critique of the inequality in our world through the writers’ imagined speculative worlds. From there students will begin reading Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, and will analyze the protagonist’s way of dealing with her Dystopian reality for the remaining two weeks. While reading the novel, students will complete online reading reflections as well as participate in online discussion boards on Canvas, that will encourage them to process their thoughts and reaction to the story in writing. Students will be asked to place themselves in Lauren’s shoes and will write what they would’ve done if they were in a similar situation. Their reading reflections will be used to help them start to imagine themselves in a speculative world, with agency and power. The reflections will help the students also start thinking of the kind of speculative world they’d like to create for their final assignment, which will be their own Visionary fiction story.

Phase 3- Visionary fiction. In this final phase students will continue reading Parable of the Sower until completion, however, they will also read about the concept of visionary fiction as explained in my above problem statement. This phase will take place over 3 weeks. Students will wrap up Parable of the Sower and read about visionary fiction in the first week, and will use the remaining two weeks to write their original visionary fiction stories. Because visionary fiction is meant to center those most marginalized in our current society, students will be given the following prompt to reflect on:  How do we write stories that have a hopeful future for Black people and the most marginalized in our society? Students will then participate in a collective world building session where we will work as a whole class to create the fictional world that all students will use in their original stories. We will come up with a fictional land (in our discussion) and give it a name, as well as list all of the characteristics of the society. Students will draw inspiration from the short stories we read earlier in the unit, “The Ones who walk away from Omelas” and “The Ones Who Stay and Fight”. I will record their thoughts on a Google Doc that will be shared with the entire class. Afterwards, students will work individually write a speculative story that addresses a problem in our current education system, such as inequality, unsafe school buildings, police in schools, underfunded schools, etc. Students will be given freedom to be as creative as they want in dreaming up their speculative story with the only requirements that the ending must be hopeful, and it must offer a solution to the problem.

Annotated Bibliography & Reading List

This annotated bibliography contains all of the texts that students will read in class, as well as the videos that will be used for each lesson.

Butler, Octavia. Parable of the Sower. New York, Four Walls Eight Windows, 1993.

This dystopian novel will serve as a mentor text for dystopian literature and speculative fiction for students. It will help students learn about character development and world building, which they will use when they write their own visionary fiction stories.

Hope Music Ethiopia. “Amazing poetry by Hiwot Adilow at Brave New Voices 2012.”YouTube.

3 Aug 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc6CJ_kUNYc

This spoken word video will be used during the first lesson on the origins of storytelling. Students will use this as an example for how to write a poem that tells a story about their name.

Imarisha, Walidah, and Adrienne Maree Brown. Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from

Social Justice Movements. AK Press, 2015.

This book contains a chapter that explains world building and the concept of visionary fiction, which I will use to introduce students to the idea of hopeful speculative fiction that aims to center marginalized peoples and offer a solution to their problems.

Jemisin, N. K. How Long ’til Black Future Month? First edition. New York, NY: Orbit, 2018.

Print.

This book contains the short story, “The ones who stay and fight”. Students will read this dystopian story in class as a mentor text for their own practice in writing a dystopian story.

Le Guin, Ursula. The ones who walk away from Omelas. Mankato, Minn. Creative Education,

This story will also serve as a mentor text, meant to introduce students to the genre of dystopian and speculative fiction. Students will read this story and look for characteristics of dystopia.

McGuff, Emily. “Introduction to Oral Storytelling.” YouTube, 20 Mar. 2015,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VlyAb2qaGI&feature=emb_logo)

This video will be used in class to introduce students to the origins of storytelling by highlighting how primitive cultures told stories orally.

TED-ED. “How to recognize a dystopia- Alex Gendler.” YouTube. 15 Nov 2016.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a6kbU88wu0

This video will be used in class during the lesson on dystopian literature. The video was produced by the educational TED-ED network, and offers a nice animated video that describes how to recognize a dystopia, while referencing popular works of literature.

The shortie awards. “The Empire of Mali Series: The Griot, Lesson 2.”Youtube, 4 Feb. 2009,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=385&v=OJhFrd05zY8&feature=emb_logo

This video will be used in class during the lesson on the origins of storytelling, as it describes how African griots served as the oral historians of their villages in Mali, West Africa.

Appendix

My unit will implement PA common core standards by providing students with opportunities to enhance their reading and writing skills, as well as their speaking and listening skills each chance they get to present their stories to their peers. Below are the common core standards and their full descriptions, along with how they will show up in my unit.

• 1.2.9-10.F – Analyze how words and phrases shape meaning and tone in texts.
  • Students will practice this standard as they listen to the spoken word poem in class and determine how the speaker uses words and phrases to shape meaning.
• 1.2.9-10.L- Read and comprehend literary non-fiction and informational text on grade level, reading independently and proficiently.
  • Students will practice this standard when they read an excerpt from Octavia’s Brood on the concept of Visionary Fiction.
• 1.4.9-10.M – Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events.
  • Students will practice this standard when they write their poem that tells a story of their name, as well as during their dystopian writing practice activity.
• ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.3.D – Use precise words and phrases, telling details, and sensory language to convey a vivid picture of the experiences, events, setting, and/or characters.
  • Students will practice this standard when they write their original visionary fiction stories.
• ELA-LITERACY.SL.9-10.1– Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 9-10 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
  • Students will practice this standard every time they participate in pair and whole group discussions, which are frequently throughout each lesson.

• ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.1- Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
  • Students will practice this standard when they read the dystopian short stories and complete guided worksheets that will require them to cite text evidence.
• ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.10- By the end of grade 10, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, at the high end of the grades 9-10 text complexity band independently and proficiently.
  • Students will practice this standard every time they read the mentor texts.