Resources for Teachers and School Administrators
Behind the Book works in Title I schools in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. Some of our partnerships go back a decade, and we’re always looking to welcome new school communities. If you’re interested in joining the current roster, fill out this form.
Behind the Book programs partner with a classroom for 6-8 sessions from November - January, January - March, March - June, or July - August. The curriculum explores essential questions posed by an anchor text through different engagements including an author visit, writing, and art. Behind the Book annually curates a catalog of accessible and culturally responsive books that explore important themes like social justice, social emotional learning, STEM, cultural affirmation, and identity. The pitching catalog changes seasonally and you can check it out here! Students vote on the book they’re most interested in as a class and then we work with you to ensure our lessons are engaging for them. We prioritize the curation of autonomy, competence, and relatedness, the tenets of intrinsic motivation
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High School Program Spotlight
Nubia: The Awakening by Omar Epps and Clarence Haynes
ALL-SCHOOL AFROFUTURISM WITH NUBIA
Last year we explored Afrofuturism, a literary genre through which authors express notions of Black identity, agency, and freedom through art, creative works, and activism that envision both liberated histories and futures for Black life.
Actor, author, and producer Omar Epps and his co-author Clarence Haynes joined students at Frederick Douglass Academy III in the Bronx for an All-School Program to discuss Nubia: The Awakening, a YA fantasy novel charting the saga of three refugee teens who must navigate their newfound powers in a climate-ravaged NYC. As the teens learn more about their past and their inherited powers, they find a way to thrive. The school hosted a student-led discussion panel about the book and the writing process with an audience of 300 FDA III students, teachers, and Bronx community leaders.
Behind the Book was honored to collaborate with Penguin Random House and the students, teachers, and staff of Frederick Douglas III Academy for this special in-school author event. Introducing students to Afrofuturism, BtB empowered our young people to reclaim Black history and inspire Black liberation.
In a culmination of the program, students explored personal Afrofuturist visions by creating their own artwork and narratives, interweaving the worlds of Nubia with their own lives in a creative writing assignment complemented by digital visual art. Participating students were empowered to envision their lives beyond the current day-to-day and unleash their full creative potential.
Middle School Program Spotlight
From the Desk of Zoe Washington by Janae Marks
Innocence Project Collaboration
What do we do when we believe the criminal justice system has failed? Middle school students from M.S. 223 read From the Desk of Zoe Washington by Janae Marks. In this story, a character named Zoe Washington receives a letter from her incarcerated father on her 12th birthday. When she learns that her father has been wrongfully convicted, she fights to find a way to prove his innocence.
To engage the students in the book, Janae came to the classroom and led the students in a discussion exploring the program’s essential question: What recourse do we have when a person is wrongfully convicted? To further enhance students’ real-life engagement with the book, BtB partnered with the Innocence Project, a non-profit organization which exonerates such cases through DNA testing and works on criminal justice reform. They sent a guest speaker, one of their real-life success stories, to talk to the class about their experience.
Inspired by this visit, students then engaged in a writing assignment to design and compose a postcard to someone who had been exonerated through the Innocence Project. Students were prompted to imagine that the person they were writing to was still in prison and to think about what kind of message they would want to send to them: a message of hope, support, release, or activism. The program culminated in the student book Freedom.
Elementary School Spotlight
Layla and the Bots: Built for Speed by Vicky Fang
Special Education & STEM
3rd grade students from P.S. 4, The Duke Ellington School, read Layla and the Bots: Built for Speed by Vicky Fang to explore themes of accessibility, engineering, and equity. The book centers on a young girl and her team of robots, who build an accessible car for one of her disabled friends so she can participate in a race. The program began with a virtual author visit with Vicky, where she discussed how she became an author and what inspired her to write about accessibility in the Bots series. Later on, a special speaker from Adaptive Designs visited the class and spoke to students about the real-world changes the company makes for people with disabilities. The overall goal for the lesson was to get students to develop new, and redesign commonly used, products to be inclusive and accessible to people with diverse abilities.
As with all of our programs modified for Special Education students, the program included graphic organizers to help students organize their ideas and provide a visual display of information, group work and discussions, adult guidance, and videos with captions. The program culminated in a student book titled Redesigning for Accessibility. This program is just one example of how the books we use integrate reading, STEM education, diversity and social justice issues, providing students with real-world knowledge while giving them a chance to be creative and express themselves.
