Programming Spotlight: X: Or Betty Shabazz v. The Nation at the New Victory Theater

All four photos X: Or, Betty Shabazz v. The Nation, by Marcus Gardley, directed by Ian Belknap
The Acting Company

Photo Credit: T Charles Erickson

On Friday, March 24th, a small group of teachers at Belmont accompanied our placement students to Manhattan's New Victory Theater to see Marcus Gardley's X: Or, Betty Shabazz v. The Nation.  Teaching artists Chad Beckim and Janet Oneyenuchea returned to Belmont on Monday to debrief with our students, some of whom spoke at length in response to the discussion questions the teaching artists posed.  It was wonderful to see them draw out the synthesis that had taken place in many attendees' minds since the start of the unit back in February as they reflected on their learning experiences.

We are grateful to everyone at the New Victory Theater for their steadfast support of our students' learning and unwavering encouragement to New York City's detained youth, and to Literacy for Incarcerated Teens (LIT) for the funding to purchase such a large block of tickets so that all placement students and their chaperones could share this special theater-going experience together.  Thank you!--Jessica Fenster-Sparber

A Biography of Malcolm X by Jessica Gunderson, illustrated by Seitu Hayde

When a picture-book length biography of Malcolm X is needed and the reader is a pre-teen or teen, teachers and librarians may want to have Gunderson and Hayden’s volume handy.  Gunderson has done an admirable job of summarizing the complex life of a complex hero and Hayden’s full-color illustrations in a mature neutral palette will no doubt further the accessibility of the text to developing readers who do not yet have the confidence or ability to visualize text independently.  While most teachers will prefer to make longer versions of X’s life story accessible via audio and film resources, when a shorter print text is needed, this one may come in handy. --Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Gunderson, Jessica.  Illustrated by Seitu Hayde.  A Biography of Malcolm X.   North Manakato: Capstone, 2011.  Print.

Programming Spotlight: Malcolm X & Julius Caesar

New Victory Teaching Artists Janet Onyenuchea and Chad Beckim pose with students after a pre-theater workshop.  Photo credit: Jessica Fenster-Sparber

To get students ready to see X: Or, Betty Shabazz vs. The Nation in repertory with Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, placement advisory classes have been reading Myers’ Malcolm X: By Any Means Necessary for the last two and a half weeks. Part of a larger interdisciplinary collaboration with Social Studies and Art teachers, and heavily supported by Belmont's speech and reading specialists, placement students at Belmont have approached the historical figure and his context with a variety of lenses.  Last Monday, songwriter Janet Onyenuchea and playwright Chad Beckim deepened the unit of study further when they visited Belmont to conduct pre-theater workshops with all placement groups in their roles as teaching artists with the New Victory Theater.  Chad and Janet engaged students’ growing base of knowledge of Malcolm X’s life and death and then invited students to create tableaux and portraying a variety of roles relating to the play they are rescheduled to attend at the end of the week.  We can’t wait! --Jessica Fenster-Sparber

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

Two powerful essays couched in the form of two  letters, James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time is likely to be as gripping for incarcerated and detained young men of African descent born in America today as it was when it was originally published in 1963.  Baldwin’s brilliant sentences, precise language, masterful rhetoric, and deeply felt honesty shine like a multi-faceted gem in the 106 pages of this short volume.  For sophisticated readers who have read The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley or Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow who are burning to read more and understand more but are not willing to tackle another long text (i.e. Dyson’s Making Malcolm or Manning’s Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention), give them this.  This text would make an excellent compare and contrast pairing with Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me.--Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Click here for the DPLA teaching guide to exploring The Fire Next Time in a classroom context.

Baldwin, James.  The Fire Next Time.  New York: Vintage International, 1991.  Print.

Malcolm X: By Any Means Necessary by Walter Dean Myers

The story begins with a black man bleeding and being pulled from a police car with his hands cuffed behind his back on 123rd street in Harlem.  The year is 1957 and Myers draws the reader in immediately by describing the local community’s reaction and the emergence of the “formation of black men.  They were all dressed neatly with short haircuts, their arms folded before them.  Some wore dark glasses, many wore suits.  None of them were smiling. (3)”  Myers weaves a compelling narrative starting with Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam’s strategy for confronting police brutality in the late fifties and early sixties and then going back to the childhood and teen years of the child who would go on to courageously lead his followers, influence thinkers and activists around the world, and change the course of history in less than 200 pages.  Photographs of the subject and artifacts are sprinkled throughout.  Backmatter includes an index, photo credits, a bibliography, and a chronology which represents a double timeline; the left column of each page displays big events in American history beginning with the stock market crash in 1929, and the right column shows events in Malcolm’s life, beginning with his birth in 1925 and ending with three assassins’ sentencing in 1966.  A rich and timely work of narrative non-fiction. --Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Myers, Walter Dean.  Malcolm X: By Any Means Necessary.  New York: Scholastic, 1993. Print.

Malcolm X: A Fire Burning Brightly by Walter Dean Myers and Illustrated by Leonard Jenkins

There is much to love in this picture book biography featuring a condensed narrative which could easily interest a twelve or thirteen year old reader who is not yet familiar with the story of Malcolm X.  This text offers gorgeous, mature, full-color illustrations and emphasizes quotations from the subject on almost every page.  Malcolm’s words are woven into the narrative and set off from Myers’ text in bold block quotes.  This volume also features an unusual timeline as its only backmatter; unusual in that it covers the subject’s 39 years in twelve points and each point is accompanied by one or more quotes from Malcolm X. For example, the 1946 the text reads, “Malcolm is arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison.”  The accompanying quote reads, “ ‘I had gotten to the point where I was walking on my own coffin.  It’s a law of the rackets that every criminal expects to get caught.’” A helpful resource for scaffolding more sophisticated biographies of Malcolm X for tweens. --Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Myers, Walter Dean.  Malcolm X: A Fire Burning Brightly.  New York: HarperCollins, 2003. Print.