Join us this Black Music Month with special guest Bakari Kitwana and let's talk about 'Leveraging MC Dreams Towards Literacy'.
Black culture encapsulates a colorful oral tradition that can be seen in the West African tradition of the Griot, the Black Arts Movement, to today's Hip Hop Generation, as recently seen in Kendrick's Mr. Morale & the Big Stepper. We have continually seen the 'Us vs. Them' Hip Hop history debates. How can we better create The Bridge to work collectively to create intergenerational ties to Black oral and written stories and literary traditions to build strong young black male communicators of The Message? Bring your thoughts, opinions, pedagogy, scholarship, and questions as we discuss our music and literary history to build our young Black Brotha's voices. Monday, June 27th, 7-8pm EST on the We Are Here Lit! Facebook & YouTube Live pages. Please share with those who might be interested.
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Discovering and nurturing the gifts of Black boys and young Black men is of the upmost importance. Are they analytical? Creative? Are they gifted orators or writers? Are they caring? Our adult cultivating their gifts? Help them envision possiblities based on natural gifts and passions. Reposted from @ilyasahshabazz Great message! The goal is not to be successful and famous. If we work as a team, we are unstoppable and we can do so much more to help others. Welcome to the Cypher, by Khodi Dill, and illustrated by Awuradwoa Afful, is a layered story of the power of a Hip Hop MC and also the agency and power young people have when creating and using their voice. Laid down in rhyme, Khodi invites the reader to free themselves from the fear of writing and rhyming to expressing their ideas with their heart, mind, and spirit so the world can hear it (see how I threw in that rhyme). April is Poetry Month. This would be a perfect selection to introduce poetry, writing and rhyming and being yourself, fearlessly. Check it our at your local or online Black bookstore and library. That Tupac post had me thinking about poetry in the classroom.
Diggin in the shelves for this title because its #kidslitflashback! I've used this book in the classroom for fluency, comprehension, and inferencing. But learning from Dr. Muhammad @gholdy.m and Dr. Tatum @gooseman50, pairing this book with some of the topics and themed of these poems, incorporating vocabulary with other interdisciplinary texts can add to the background knowledge, contexts, and intellectualism for our kids. The CD, included with the book, has the reading of the poems so young people can understand the cadence of poetry and rhyme flow. For example, the poem "Allow Me to Introduce Myself" read by Charles R. Smith would get my class hyped and they understood how to think about inflection, pause, tone, and rhythm. This book compiled by Nikki GIovanni is such a good way to introduce a hard genre to teach. I would love to see another volume of this book with some @realjcoleworlld, @kendricklamar , @nas, @chancetherapper, or @rapsody would bring a whole new generation to bridge poetry and hip hop. This can be extended in the classroom by having students find other lyrics to match the interdisciplinary themes, etc. Google the following titles to incorporate literacy into interdisciplinary instruction: -5 ways to use hip-hop in the classroom to build a better understanding of science by @kingadjapong -Hip Hop in the Classroom/Youtube @iamcbritton By Tupac Shakur
Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete? Proving nature’s law is wrong it learned to walk with out having feet. Funny it seems, but by keeping its dreams, it learned to breathe fresh air. Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else ever cared. This poem hits different some 25 years after his death. The defiance is the same, but social changes give it a new perspective. What does it bring to mind for you when you read it? Have you read Tupac's book of poems or used them in your teaching? Shakur, Tupac. The Rose That Grew from Concrete. New York: Pocket Books, 1999. Dr. Michael W. Waters, the author of 'For Beautiful Black Boys Who Believe in a Better World,' talks about his literacy path through the church, social justice, Hip Hop, the Black storytelling tradition, family literacy, and his forthcoming book.
His new book Liberty's Civil Rights Road Trip is out October 12th. Foot Soldiers Park https://footsoldierspark.org/ Bolton John Foundation https://boltonco.com/bolton-foundation/ MOBB United for Social Change https://www.mobbunited.org/ |
AuthorSWE ARE HERE will provide you book reviews, discussions, news, and programming about literature and literacy by and about Black males. This site will also feature vlog conversations on topics related to the promoting literacy and voice for Black boys and young men. Archives
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