And We Rise Educator Guide

Using And We Rise by Erica Martin (Viking Books for Young Readers 2022) as a mentor text, students will explore how writing poetry can provide an outlet for personal expression, historical documentation, and political activism. After reviewing several poems from the book and studying the content and form, students will write their own poems on the civil rights movement in their chosen form.

INSTRUCTIONAL PROCEDURE

Setting the Stage

Students will have completed their reading of And We Rise and will have discussed the events depicted in this poetry collection. Review six key poems that are particularly pivotal:

"the Civil Rights Movement" (8)

"1963 April 16" (61–63)

"1964 July 2" (87–88)

"1965 March 7" (93–94)

"1965 March 17" (96–97)

"Afterword" (123–124)

Read them aloud; offer students the opportunity to read a poem or participate in key lines or stanzas. Talk about how the struggle for civil rights was not resolved with one law or two laws and is still not resolved. Consider what threats to equality still exist in our country today.

Prewriting

Talk with students about how poetry can capture both historical events and deep emotions. Discuss the different ways the poems look in the book and how Erica Martin tries different forms and structures, particularly on pages 11, 24–39, 46–47, 60, 64–65, and 91. Discuss how the writer even integrates photos and captions within some of the poems. Present the idea of "poetic license" and how poets break rules and create new patterns in their writing.

Discuss the question: How do these different forms and broken rules affect the reading of the book? What is the emotional impact?

Allow students to read the "Bonus Content" at the back of And We Rise, which features the text of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," written on April 16, 1963 (137–153). It is also available as a 55-minute video with captioning, featuring a voiceover reading by Martin Luther King Jr. himself along with archival photographs as the visuals (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di05SvJ8utI).

Writing

Challenge students to think about the issues raised in And We Rise, about the actual people who are represented in the poems, and about all those who have suffered due to inequality and injustice in our country. What role do we have in this struggle today? How do we process this history? What can one person do to make a difference now?

Invite students to explore these questions by creating a poem of their own. Give them the choice of drafting a poem alone or with a partner and of using a poetic form of their own choosing or invention or by creating a "blackout" or "found" poem gleaned from the text of King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail."

For "Blackout" or "Found" Poem: For students who choose these forms for their original poem, allow them to select one page from King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" (137–153). It is also available online in full-text form with permission from King's estate (https://charterforcompassion.org/images/SocialJustice/birmingham.pdf). Print or photocopy one page of the student's choice, enlarged, if possible.

• "Found" poem" form: Students choose key words from their designated page that they want to include in their poem. They begin by circling or underlining all the words or phrases that are meaningful to them (for this assignment). Review those choices and eliminate the words or phrases that are less useful. Then students use those remaining key words and phrases to create a new, original poem. They can rearrange the words for meaning or clarity and add a few additional words for flow and connection.
• "Blackout" poem form: Students can use the printed page itself and black out all words EXCEPT those they have identified as essential to creating a poem on the page itself.

Students can begin the writing process, compose first drafts and share with a peer to discuss, clarify and refine along the way.

ASSESSMENT

When all students have final drafts, invite them to share with each other and offer positive comments about each other's pieces. Students who are willing can share their final product for display along with the book itself in the classroom or library. An assessment rubric would include assignment completion, writing in the form of a poem, and reflecting a focus on civil rights and social justice.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

For more on And We Rise and on resources that feature the civil rights movement, see Sylvia Vardell's curriculum ideas and book pairings.