Revisiting @JackieWoodson's HARBOR ME While Adjusting Curriculum with Middle School Readers (AKA Remaining in Awe)

Long story short, I was  asked to write a guide for students who might read Jacqueline Woodson's Harbor Me, so I picked the book  up yesterday  and read it once more. They say the best way to learn anything is to teach others about it.  

In 2019, Fairfield County hosted Jacqueline Woodson for a One Book, One Town event, where the author came to speak at the University's Quick Center. Upon naming the book, several people reached out to me help promote the event. I had just read The Day You Begin, and with knowledge of Harbor Me being the chosen book, I quickly ordered it and added it to all my courses, both undergraduate and graduate. After finishing it, I purchased a copy for 42 middle schools teachers, too.

I went to the OBOT announcement ceremony (the reveal) and quickly realized I was one of three men there and and there was not a single Brown person in attendance. It was a sea of White women.  I work mostly in the City of Bridgeport and almost every classroom I visit is a simulacra of the ARTT room in Woodson's book - a pastiche of stunning children and diversity.  The planning for the event ran throughout the affluent school districts and zip-codes, with no community intentions for readers in urban school districts, especially middle school readers, who would benefit from the book. 

I knew as soon as I read Harbor Me, I needed to find grant money to make sure the book was in Bridgeport Schools. Luckilly, I found it and was able to work with several classrooms throughout the district to assure kids had an opportunity to read the book. With knowledge of the Quick Center talk, too, I also funded several buses so that teachers could bring their students to the event. I remember that the teachers and kids took over the front row seats - a facility where 700 people can attend. It was packed and I was glad to bring more heterogeneity to the campus.

I spent the semester writing curriculum around the philosophy of Harbor Me, because I was teaching an educational philosophy course. It paired well with our reading of Mission High, as well as discussions of Freire and Ubuntu (which guides so many of CWP's youth and teacher programs). 

I was honored to hear Jacqueline Woodson's talk that night and had flashbacks of first meeting her at Steve Bickmore's Young Adult Literature Summit at LSU (2015, pictured right), where we all read Brown Girl Dreaming and I taught a course on ways the National Writing Project mission might be paired with YA Lit (what I'm actually spending my sabbatical writing about). 

Perhaps it was my toothache, or just where our nation is right now in history with its backturned towards refugees and immigrants, but at two points I had to put the book down to check my emotions. I felt them too much. It was a punch in the gut and I was angered. The beautiful smiles of kids buried by the history of our nation once again. How can we not be furious?

Harbor Me is simply brilliant. I realized it in 2019, and I realized it now as I created a curricular guide. The way Ms. Laverne is written to  respect her 5th/6th grade students is simply stellar ( such a minor character... but major in how the kids bring her depth). The way Jacqueline Woodson understands the minds of young people , especially as they try to figure out their nation and its history (coupled with the current Millerarian rhetoric) is simply phenomenal. The six, a harmonic convergence - a Club Us, offer maturity, inquisitiveness, and critique. They also bring forward a hope for what the United States might actually be if the nation ever  realized its mission. Rather, like the Lenape, such stories get buried (i.e., choosing Harbor Me for a community read, but failing to include the very communities the story is about).

I just feel blessed to have been able to spend another day rereading Woodson's book. I'm always in awe of her craft, not only in this book, but with all her writing.

And and aside: Yesterday, I finally purchased a table for my new porch, one that has plugs and outlets for phones, I-Pads, and laptops. It's tiny, but it allows me to work beside my books, my thinking, and the scenery outdoors, where I can also be as Zen as possible (I also made my first pot of chili, which I didn't get to until 9:50 at night because I was so engrossed in the Harbor Me project). 

As I was building the curriculum, rereading, and remembering, it made me revisit photos with the wonderful teachers and students who were with us.

Inclusion isn't that hard if you actually believe in it.