LIBERATED LITERACY
Adolescent excellence in literacy
Liberated Inquiries
A Social Justice Curriculum
I am currently developing the following curricula. Each unit is inquiry-based and fosters self-directed exploration. They are not traditional curricula that require an instructor to pour information into students with unit assessments that serve to show how much they retained. In fact, they are more like experiences than curricula in the conventional sense. Browse the list below and contact me if any interest you. I am happy to provide consultations to tailor each experience to your learner's unique interests and needs.
Have an idea for another topic or want to revamp one of your current units to suit the needs of your unique learners? Contact me and let's work together!
Resistance to Slavery
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This mini-unit is the result of the desire to provide equal weight to the horrors of slavery in Colonial America as to the powerful resistance of the enslaved. It should follow a unit that introduces students to the Transatlantic Slave Trade, the Middle Passage, how northern colonies participated in the slave trade, and how slavery became racialized in colonial Virginia. Sitting with these gruesome images and facts is crucial, but realizing and celebrating the various acts of resistance in Colonial America is equally as important.
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In this unit, students will examine primary sources that provide examples of resistance to slavery in Colonial America and the early days of the United States (1619- 1787) in the following forms:
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Running away
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Slave revolts
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Challenging the law
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Secretly rebellious music making and storytelling
Indigenous People Then and Now
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This unit helps students connect the past to the present by guiding them through inquiries that trace the pre-colonial, colonial encounters/westward expansion, and present day activism of the following indigenous groups:
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Taino
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Wampanoag Confederacy
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Haudenosaunee Confederacy
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Powhatan Confederacy
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Cherokee
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Muscogee
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Chickasaw
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Choctaw
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Seminole
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Dine
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Dakota
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The Haitian Revolution and Louisiana Purchase
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Students explore the connection, causes, and effects of the Haitian Revolution on the Louisiana Purchase. Subtopics include:
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The concept of Manifest Destiny
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Effects of Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) on Slavery in US
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Other explorers who made maps and took copious notes on the land prior to Lewis and Clark
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Racism in Lewis and Clark notebooks-- influence of Enlightenment “science” of race
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How Natives view the Lewis and Clark expedition then and now
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Sacagawea and York
More topics in the works:
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The Rise and Fall of Reconstruction-- students choose from a variety of topics to trace the causes and effects of Reconstruction
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Columbus and Colonialism-- students explore how historians have written about Columbus in the past and present and seek to understand why the story has changed over time
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The Art of Asking Questions: Media Literacy and Research Skills-- students hone their critical thinking skills by learning how to ask effective questions that prevent them from falling prey to misinformation