Katherine Rosario
ENG 193T
11/12/11
If a student in a classroom today were to be asked who Claudette Colvin is their faces just might go blank. For this reason, and many more, Phillip Hoose’s Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice is an important text that needs to be incorporated into classrooms today. Here, we have a young teenage girl, nine months prior to Rosa Parks, standing up for what she believes in. This text, call it a book or memoir or autobiography/biography, offers many avenues to take young adolescent students. It offers such a broad spectrum of issues that students can take on and make connections with. Civil Rights itself has many levels to it and through Twice Toward Justice we can examine some of those levels. This text is a newer text that is not used in the school system yet, but it has great potential to offer great things for both teachers and students. There are a number of topics that can be covered using this text. I would like to focus on the opportunity for students to make connections. The power that this text offers gives students a chance to get motivated and enthused about reading and learning something new, especially of such importance. Students learn about history in their history classes, but usually it is about older people that they cannot relate to. Twice Toward Justice offers something new for students.
Claudette Colvin is a teenage student who stood up for what she believed in. How many students today would be willing to do what she did? It might be few or more than we would anticipate. Students can look to Claudette Colvin as a role model and someone that they may be able to connect with, given that she is one of them; a teen. This can relate to Emmett Till that we learn about in the text. “‘There had been lynchings and cross burnings before, but this was a much stronger warning. Emmett Till was age.’” (59) An undeniable connection exists because they are all about the same age, thus, teens today may see Claudette as one of their peers. This is one way that students can begin to connect with the text, through Claudette herself. This is where the ball gets rolling; students may be more engaged with the text which opens up for more possible connections to be made.
A level at which students may make a connection is with Claudette when she is ridiculed by some and accepted by others for her actions; not giving up her seat for a white person and wearing her hair natural in pigtails. However, these actions may not have much of an impact today as they did back during Claudette’s time. Students may relate other actions of theirs in which they were ridiculed by some and welcomed by others to that of Claudette’s. This would be a great opportunity for a class open discussion or if students are not comfortable then it would be a great time to have them free write about a past experience of theirs. This offers a personal level for students to engage with and may offer for a better understanding.
Other avenues that I see that can be taken with students include incorporating expository and supplementary text. It would be an ideal time to have students to be required to do additional research about Civil Rights, in particular segregation and the bus boycotts. The text itself already offers bits and pieces of this with the addition information that it offers; news paper clippings, police reports and the blackout text boxes. Students can use those as a starting point and move on from there for further information. Once again, there are a number of avenues to take with this text which is why it has such great potential to be used in a classroom. I think that a very important part is to get students to connect on a personal level with Claudette and get their emotions into. This may very well lead to a greater outcome when they get personal engaged with it. Overall, Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice is absolutely a must to incorporate into a classroom.
Dear Katherine,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you declaration that this text should be taught in a schools curriculum. I see it as more of a history text book, however. This book provides a unique look at the civil rights movement and has very useful information throughout it. As far as themes and other things we want to teach our students, it seems to be lacking. It is also not particularly well written. I feel as if the information is genuine and useful for students to know but the actual text is ancillary to what we need our students to learn.
I agree that Claudette Colvin offers information that many students are unaware of. The important aspect of the piece would be to point out that Claudette was a teenager, not an adult. I say this would be important to point out mainly because a lot of people have become unaccustomed to taking matters into their own hands, especially when it comes to political issues. For students to be able to connect, I would suggest to focus on more of the confliction in identity that students may experience. For instance, Claudette talks about relinquishing the “white” appearance and embraces her African roots. This would be a great topic to incorporate in the classroom, especially in the Valley, considering there are second and third generations that may be conflicted to conform to society or keeping with their traditional roots.
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