This unit is for a 12th grade International Issues Senior Seminar elective at a mid-sized public high school in New Haven, Connecticut. Most students in this class are enrolled in the Law & Politics Pathway where they took Contemporary Law in 10th grade and Constitutional Law in 11th grade. As a result of this course of study and their experience with student-centered, anti-racist and transformative pedagogy in these classes, they are ready for the continued embedding and examination of critical race theory in their learning. In addition, they expect continued engagement through discussion and performance-based assessment. As a result of the international focus, the focus on current events, and the multiple opportunities for student choice, students are motivated to participate, research, and discuss topics related to capitalism, patriarchy, racism & imperialism, climate crisis, and war. However, as a result of the intensity, trauma, and violence associated with these critical issues, it is crucial to also center and celebrate the resistance movements that consistently respond to toxic oppression and recreate lasting worlds of justice, healing, and peace. This unit focuses on dominant narratives and counternarratives to support students’ analysis of critical issues and subsequent envisioning of another possible world.

This prospective unit, entitled, Blacks in Nature…Oxymoron or Paradox? based on the seminar Social Struggles of Black Contemporary Art is intended to create a body of work to present students with an opportunity to gain language to discuss issues and concepts related to the “whiteness” in nature. It is an attempt to counter the “whiteness” of the environmental justice movement, by exposing students to a diversity of art, literature and nonfictional texts defining, documenting, examining, challenging, and elaborating the presence of nonwhites in nature text by illuminating its convergence with land and the Civil Rights’ movement. Students will be afforded an opportunity to examine the foundations and assumptions made of the various text as well as the basis of their own as it relates to the inclusion of nonwhites in and the study of nature and the environmental justice movement.

This curriculum uses reflective writing, visual creation, small and whole group discussions to explore the concept of nature and the environment as a human construct. Using art, literature and nonfiction texts, students will be asked to critically analyze ideas of nature, preservation of wilderness, and endangered species against the human concerns of hunger, toxic waste, culture, and urban planning in the context of environmental justice. Students will have an opportunity to critically analyze perceptions, foundations, and/or myths contained or on which the various text is constructed.

This unit is designed for middle-school students in the Content Area of Visual Art focusing on Identity Politics, Voice, Critical Race Theory, Activism and Social Justice. The unit is accessible for modification and inclusion of all grade levels. Anti-Bias and Anti-Racist training interwoven with Social-Emotional Identification and Self-Care gives students skills and guidance to navigate humanity in the twenty-first century. The objective of the unit is for students to gain critical awareness of the self in the past, present, and future. Students will be able to project and assist in their vocality and aspirations for the self and the collective. Students will explore critical race theory and identity politics in relation to the self and their visual art practice. Through research and application, students will consolidate, frame, and expand their visual thinking to be full of self-determination and self-respect.1 Through critical analysis, students will activate their critical conscience and create a voice that is written, spoken, and established through visual representation. This visual art practice will give students a voice for change and act as a facilitator to sustain all paths of liberation.

This unit focuses on children’s book illustrators who are from families of African American artists and authors. My goal is to use a new lens and approach when bringing the picture book art to my students through literature we enjoy throughout the year. This artist/author study includes the works of Leo and Diane Dillon, a husband and wife team who have been creating art together since they met at the Parsons School of Design in 1953; Jerry and Brian Pinkney, father and son, who have earned between them dozens of awards and recognitions for their work on children’s books; and, Donald Crews, Ana Jonas, and their daughter, Nina Crews, all authors and illustrators of a great variety of picture books and stories.

This unit was developed for an African American and Latinx History course at a public high school in New Haven. The course begins with indigeneity, pre-enslavement and pre-colonization, in Africa and in the Americas, a critical reminder that these histories don’t begin with domination. To the extent that these histories are shrouded in narratives of oppression, they are also abundant with stories of resistance—and must be taught as such. This is a theme throughout the curriculum and in this unit in particular.

The course continues with movements for abolition and decolonization throughout the early and mid-19th century, as well as those still active today in places like Puerto Rico. Next, we study Reconstruction and the sense of hope and possibility brought by this short era—dashed by the end of the 19th century. Yet, the fight for liberation endured throughout the 20th century and continues still today. This unit revolves around the 20th century, and the Black and Latinx freedom struggles of that era.

The goal of this unit, though, is not only to teach this critical history, but also to introduce students to a new way of learning history: through the lens of cultural studies. That is, we will examine Black and Latinx cultural production—including visual art, music, dance, and fashion—to help us understand the political dynamics of the 20th century, especially around themes of race, racism, and racial justice, as well as gender and sexuality. Through this unit, students will see how Black and Latinx art, music, dance, and fashion can be forms of resistance and expressions of freedom, as well as primary sources that help us to better understand the past and make connections to the present.

This unit is about the role of the curator in the art world and their power to confer value and legitimacy within a culture. The intended audience for this unit is a high school entry level art class entitled Exploring Visual Design taken by all high school grade levels. The goal of the unit will ultimately be to address Anchor Standard 6 in the National Core Art Standards by asking students to curate their own art exhibit that communicates a message and conveys meaning to their intended audience. Along the way, students will also explore themes of identity, community and representation as they prepare for their role as curator.

In this unit, students are asked to use the six hats analytical method to interact with both visual and written art. During the unit, students will be introduced to the six hats technique and apply the practice to art work from artist collective the Spiral Group as well as various versions of their core text. For our core text, my students will be reading Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 play “A Raisin in the Sun.” The text is important to our unit because Hansberry is an artist who is creating works reflective of the social movements of the period of time in. Many of these social movements still resonate today.

This unit revolves around the National Book Award winning memoir in verse, Brown Girl Dreaming1, by Jacqueline Woodson. Supplementary texts include fiction and nonfiction poetry, picture books and articles by and about Woodson and the topics alluded to in her memoir, including brief biographies of figures from the Civil Rights Movement such as Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, and James Baldwin and artists that influenced her and that connect to the time period. The unit explores analysis of visual art pieces such as photographs from the era (1960s and 1970s) and works depicting black youth as well as the settings she writes about (Ohio; Greenville, South Carolina; and Brooklyn). Music that Jacqueline Woodson mentions in her memoir can be listened to and responded to. Artwork and music that reflect the black social movements of the period has been selected for students to view and react to. Students learn how to analyze visual art in a manner that is appropriate to middle school. In addition to responding to the various texts, students will have an opportunity to engage in creative writing. To engage in the theme of identity, students can write their own brief memoirs in verse, as well as creating works of art.

The students will explore the literary and art materials to analyze their transformative and/or healing elements. Through this exploration, students will sharpen their own voices and find within themselves a cause worth expressing for, fighting for and/or healing from. They will work on creating playlists as we travel through the texts and artwork. They will also create a piece of artwork with an artist’s statement that we can publish in a magazine representing the whole class’s effort and aspirations.

This unit centers around two pedagogical ideas within the context of the secondary English classroom. The first is that by sharpening skills of critical analysis, students can use those skills across multiple disciplines and in their lives outside of school. The second is that students need more opportunities to respond to texts through the creation of their own texts. Drawing from work that I do in my own classroom, the structure of this YNHTI Seminar led by Dr. Ferguson, and changes happening in college-level composition courses like the First Year Writing course at UCONN, this unit asks students to apply skills of critical analysis to three visual texts by Clotilde Jimenez and then respond to those texts by composing a creative text of their own. Intended to be a unit done with students in the beginning stages of the school year, this unit will provide a foundation for visual literacy skills that can be put to use in other arenas of study both in the English classroom and in other classes throughout the rest of the academic year. For this unit, the three visual texts are all by the artist Clotilde Jimenez, an artist who works primarily in mixed media collage.