BLACK-CENTERED CURRICULUM,
LESSON PLANS AND MORE!
The Hill We ClimB: An Exploration of Text Connections
By Charla Johnson
"Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed / a nation that isn’t broken / but simply unfinished"--Amanda Gorman, National Youth Poet Laureate
On January 20th, 2021 Amanda Gorman, a young African American woman from LA, shared a message of hope and inspiration with our nation. Educators across the country are working to incorporate this historic poem into their lessons, allow us to share a lesson plan for exploring this text with your students, while making connections to other historic texts.
In this lesson, students will read “The Hill We Climb”, delivered by Amanda Gorman at the 2021 Presidential Inauguration. Students will be guided to discover connections between Gorman’s poem and other pieces of American political rhetoric, including words by: Richard Pryor, Michelle Obama, Martin Luther King jr. and Malcolm X. After investigating these works and making connection, this lesson concludes by giving students the opportunity to create their own original piece in response to “The Hill We Climb”.
Download the lesson plans and materials here:
The detailed multimedia slides presentation to guide this lesson, is available here.
Full lesson plan with primary sources, graphic organizers and activity handouts is available here.
Just the Handouts:
Handout 1: The Hill We Climb (text) by Amanda Gorman
Handout 2: The Hill We Climb: Making Text Connections Graphic Organizer
LOVECRAFT COUNTRY LESSON Series
We've been inspired by the show Lovecraft Country to create a series of classroom-ready lessons related to topics featured on the show! Our lessons center Black voices, Black history and Black struggle and like everything we do, we hope these lessons can inspire young people to go out and make a better world. We are experienced classroom educators who have learned a lot about teaching "outside the textbook" over the years and we are dedicated to bringing our students real, relevant and crucially needed info about important topics. If you've ever wondered "Why didn't they teach me about this?!" while watching, check out these lessons we’ve created to go deeper and learn more! We will be updating these lessons soon. Contact us if you’d like to create lessons with us!
View and download lessons here!
Check out the Zinn Education Project’s write up about these lessons
Join the IBWEP Community For more anti-racist Lovecraft Country lesson plans!
Black-centered, anti-racist curriculum created by educators from around the US, in support of the George Floyd Uprisings for Black Lives this summer.
Our project began when 25 highly skilled educators from across the country came together to find ways to support the movement for Black lives from our classrooms. We believe that centering Black voices and teaching about Black history, culture and the long movement for Black liberation are essential to fighting racism today and helping our students understand and participate in the movements for justice and equality that surround us. Our lessons are student-driven, inquiry based and aligned with state and national standards for history and ELA grades 6-12.
We are in the process of revising, reviewing and uploading these lessons and will update soon. We will also have more opportunities to learn and create with us, so stay tuned!