For many educators, back to school is a time of excitement; the idea of inspiring young readers, fostering new understanding, smelling and holding books together as a classroom community brings delight. You hope students will bee-line to the bookshelf during independent and community reading time.
And yet, for many students and educators alike, the classroom library doesn’t hold delight and discovery; books are limited, fail to meet accessibility or linguistic needs, lack diversity in representation or have stereotypical characters.
We are here to support you in creating a richer, equitable literacy learning community and environment
- On our blog, you can now find this post on thoughtfully selecting texts to forward diversity, equity and inclusion.
- On our website, we’ve also added a new Identity and Storytelling text set for middle and high school classrooms, Unit Planning Toolkit for literature classrooms and a Book Club Guide.
- In this collection, you'll also find short and thought-provoking video clips from our conversation with Dr. Kimberly Parker, award winning educator and Director of Harvard University’s Crimson Academy, to spark conversation at your next department meeting.
- You can continue to find in depth educator guides and multimedia resources for texts like Night, Elie Wiesel's memoir of survival in the Holocaust, Teaching Salvaged Pages: Young Writers' Diaries of the Holocaust, as well as the new Brown Girl Dreaming Unit Outline, which accompanies Jacqueline Woodson's memoir of growing up in segregated South Carolina, and New York during the 1960s and 1970s.
Diversify Your Classroom Library Pilot Program
K-8 Classroom Teachers: We are pleased to announce a new grant and professional learning program we are offering in partnership with Indigo Love of Reading Foundation and The Critical Thinking Consortium. This pilot program will enable a cohort of K-8 educators from across Canada to purchase books and educational resources, as well as take part in a teacher learning community and receive ongoing professional development.
For more information and to apply click here! (password to access the portal: dylp2021LOR). The application is open until Sunday October 24th 2021.
Please send an email to canada@facinghistory.org if you have any questions.
