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Reflections on Stamped

Since January, students and I explored Reynold’s and Kendi’s remixed version of Stamped. If you told me in January that it would take two months to complete Stamped, I wouldn’t believe you. Of course, there were snow days and February break that impeded our time with the text, but even accounting for that, Stamped remained an exploration, one that exceeded my expectations each step of the way. As you make your way through the text, you might consider the following:

Taking Your Time:
Unlike other books like The Glass Menagerie or The House on Mango Street, Stamped required students to unpack their emotions and learn about the many diverse people in the text. I started to look at the Afterword of Stamped as my benchmark. At the end of the text when Reynolds addresses the readers about Angela Davis, James Baldwin and W.E.B DuBois, what will my students think at that moment? I didn’t want students simply to see a list of names. I want those names to mean something. The end result? Lots of unpacking: a week long excursion where students created presentations around Ida B. Wells, Booker T. Washington, and W.E.B. DuBois. A day with Audre Lorde. Another day exploring Black figures in the Harlem Renaissance. And another with Black women. With Stamped, students face a real threat of getting to the end of the book learning about these people with just a few sentences or it all feeling like a vacuum. As a teacher, I wanted to avoid that at all costs.

Giving Space for Exploration:
No doubt some people (teachers and otherwise), take for granted what students know. But I also didn’t want to appear as the purveyor of knowledge (after all, I’m not).I realized that it felt essential to put more onus on students after our BIPOC Student’s Unity Day. Students led discussions, engaged in presentations, and towards the end, explored music and reflected through this HyperDoc. None of this was perfect, but watching students engage with conversations about difficult issues and forging connections to their lives felt like a step in the right direction. I assume students will remember their time talking to each other, learning from each other or watching music videos of Sister Souljah or Public Enemy over my original lecture heavy diatribes on James Baldwin and Langston Hughes.

Paying Attention to the News:
Not a day goes by where the news doesn’t feel relevant. While initially my teachings focused on or around the text, the events at the Capitol radically disrupted that notion. Just this week Amanda Gorman found herself followed and scrutinized by a security guard. The news remained something the class could talk to, and while we start class with 10 minutes of independent reading time everyday, I often included various pertinent articles that students could choose to examine during this time, and these articles led to some timely discussions.

Asking for Feedback:
Ultimately, I like what my students completed with Stamped. Did my students feel the same way? I would like to think so, but I am ending the unit with a reflection that asks students “What questions do you still have? What else should we explore in the near future?” What worked and what didn’t? Did Nice White Parents feel relevant or distant? Were presentations clear or did they feel self-indulgent? Feedback on this unit feels essential, and listening to student input will help shape how I approach this text in the weeks, months and years to come. 

Daniel Valentin teaches English 9 and Senior Seminar at Horace Greeley High School. He is currently reading Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishuguro and is listening to Aftershocks by Nadia Owusu. He wants his students to feel empowered through books. Follow him on Twitter @DanielJValentin

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