Counting Descent

Teaching Activity. By Adam Sanchez.
Through a mixer activity, students encounter how enslaved people resisted the brutal exploitation of slavery. The lesson culminates in a collective class poem highlighting the defiance of the enslaved.

Teaching Guide. Edited by Linda Christensen and Dyan Watson. Rethinking Schools. 2015. 262 pages.
Lessons and poetry to help students develop writing skills, build community, and create a vision of a future with justice.

Teaching Guide. Edited by Dyan Watson, Jesse Hagopian, Wayne Au. 2018. Rethinking Schools. 368 pages.
Essays, teaching activities, role plays, poems, and artwork, designed to illuminate the movement for Black students’ lives, the school-to-prison-pipeline, Black history, gentrification, intersectional Black identities, and more.

Book — Non-fiction. By Clint Smith. 2021. 336 pages.
An examination of how monuments and landmarks represent — and misrepresent — the central role of slavery in U.S. history and its legacy today.

Poet and educator Clint Smith wrote reflections in a tweet thread after visiting young people in a juvenile detention center. His description of what has been missing from their formal education serves to explain the purpose of many of our lessons.

Book — Non-fiction. By Devin Allen. 2017. 124 pages.
Black life in Baltimore before and after the police murder of Freddie Gray and the uprising it produced, documented through short essays, poetry, and stunning photographs.

Poetry. Clint Smith. 2023. 128 pages.
A collection of poetry that explores parenthood, personal lineages, and a world full of constant social and political tumult.

Picture book. Edited by Nikki Giovanni. 2008, with CD. 80 pages.
A celebration of poetry with a beat. Includes CD with selected recordings of poems and historical background.