The Storyteller

Book Studies

  • Minor Feelings

    by Cathy Park Hong Year Published: 2021

    Poet and essayist Cathy Park Hong fearlessly and provocatively blends memoir, cultural criticism, and history to expose fresh truths about racialized consciousness in America. Part memoir and part cultural criticism, this collection is vulnerable, humorous, and provocative—and its relentless and riveting pursuit of vital questions around family and friendship, art and politics, identity and individuality, will change the way you think about our world.

    Binding these essays together is Hong’s theory of “minor feelings.” As the daughter of Korean immigrants, Cathy Park Hong grew up steeped in shame, suspicion, and melancholy. She would later understand that these “minor feelings” occur when American optimism contradicts your own reality—when you believe the lies you’re told about your own racial identity. Minor feelings are not small, they’re dissonant—and in their tension Hong finds the key to the questions that haunt her. 

    With sly humor and a poet’s searching mind, Hong uses her own story as a portal into a deeper examination of racial consciousness in America today. This intimate and devastating book traces her relationship to the English language, to shame and depression, to poetry and female friendship. A radically honest work of art, Minor Feelings forms a portrait of one Asian American psyche—and of a writer’s search to both uncover and speak the truth

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  • We Want to Do More Than Survive

    by Bettina Love Year Published: 2020

    Drawing on her life’s work of teaching and researching in urban schools, Bettina Love persuasively argues that educators must teach students about racial violence, oppression, and how to make sustainable change in their communities through radical civic initiatives and movements. She argues that the US educational system is maintained by and profits from the suffering of children of color. Instead of trying to repair a flawed system, educational reformers offer survival tactics in the forms of test-taking skills, acronyms, grit labs, and character education, which Love calls the educational survival complex.

    To dismantle the educational survival complex and to achieve educational freedom—not merely reform—teachers, parents, and community leaders must approach education with the imagination, determination, boldness, and urgency of an abolitionist. Following in the tradition of activists like Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin, and Fannie Lou Hamer, We Want to Do More Than Survive introduces an alternative to traditional modes of educational reform and expands our ideas of civic engagement and intersectional justice.

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  • Stamped

    by Jason Reynolds Year Published: 2020

    This is NOT a history book.
    This is a book about the here and now.
    A book to help us better understand why we are where we are.
    A book about race.

    The construct of race has always been used to gain and keep power, to create dynamics that separate and silence. This remarkable reimagining of Dr. Ibram X. Kendi's National Book Award-winning Stamped from the Beginning reveals the history of racist ideas in America, and inspires hope for an antiracist future. It takes you on a race journey from then to now, shows you why we feel how we feel, and why the poison of racism lingers. It also proves that while racist ideas have always been easy to fabricate and distribute, they can also be discredited.

    Through a gripping, fast-paced, and energizing narrative written by beloved award-winner Jason Reynolds, this book shines a light on the many insidious forms of racist ideas--and on ways readers can identify and stamp out racist thoughts in their daily lives.

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  • How to Be An Antiracist

    by Ibram X Kendi Year Published: 2019

    Antiracism is a transformative concept that reorients and reenergizes the conversation about racism—and, even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. At its core, racism is a powerful system that creates false hierarchies of human value; its warped logic extends beyond race, from the way we regard people of different ethnicities or skin colors to the way we treat people of different sexes, gender identities, and body types. Racism intersects with class and culture and geography and even changes the way we see and value ourselves. In How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi takes readers through a widening circle of antiracist ideas—from the most basic concepts to visionary possibilities—that will help readers see all forms of racism clearly, understand their poisonous consequences, and work to oppose them in our systems and in ourselves.

    Kendi weaves an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science with his own personal story of awakening to antiracism. This is an essential work for anyone who wants to go beyond the awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a just and equitable society.

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  • White Fragility

    by Dr. Robin DiAngelo Year Published: 2018

    Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.

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  • So You Want to Talk About Race

    by Ijeoma Oluo Year Published: 2018

    In So You Want to Talk About Race, Editor at Large of The Establishment Ijeoma Oluo offers a contemporary, accessible take on the racial landscape in America, addressing head-on such issues as privilege, police brutality, intersectionality, micro-aggressions, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the "N" word. Perfectly positioned to bridge the gap between people of color and white Americans struggling with race complexities, Oluo answers the questions readers don't dare ask, and explains the concepts that continue to elude everyday Americans.

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  • Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain

    by Zaretta Hammond Year Published: 2014

     

    To close the achievement gap, diverse classrooms need a proven framework for optimizing student engagement. Culturally responsive instruction has shown promise, but many teachers have struggled with its implementation―until now.

     

    In this book, Zaretta Hammond draws on cutting-edge neuroscience research to offer an innovative approach for designing and implementing brain-compatible culturally responsive instruction.

     

    The book includes:

     

    • Information on how one’s culture programs the brain to process data and affects learning relationships
    • Ten "key moves" to build students’ learner operating systems and prepare them to become independent learners
    • Prompts for action and valuable self-reflection
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               Scope of Work for 2021-2022 School Year

      • Continue with Cohort Meetings/Trainings with Director of Equity
      • Develop PDs to be delivered through schools and district
      • Mentor new cohort members- build knowledge base
      • Lead and suppport Equity Teams at schools site
      • Collaborate with Instructional Coaches and Principals

     

     

Race and Equity Leads

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    lead learn

    Check with your school to meet your Equity Lead.

    Objectives for Race and Equity Leads

    1) To intentionally examine, adjust, and inform instructional practice using an equity lens.

    2) To develop and lead race and equity professional development designed to open minds, build awareness, increase knowledge, and grow skills in culturally responsive instructional practices to meet the needs of each and every one of our students.

    3) To build leadership capacity of staff in leading courageous conversations around race and equity.

     

Ethnic Studies Fellows

  • What is the Ethnic Studies Fellows? 

    In Summer 2020, the Shoreline School Board passed the Ethnic Studies Resolution..."We affirm our belief that the integration and addition of ethnic studies into the education of Shoreline School District’s students can have a positive impact on eliminating opportunity gaps."

    To create an intentional and sustainable Ethnic Studies Program P-12, the Ethnic Studies Fellows Program was created. Through a partnership of Equity and Instruction, and facilitated by Tracy Castro-Gill, founder of Washington Ethnic Studies Now and  Dr. Tanisha Brandon-Felder, this year long intensive fellowship will focus on the pedagogy and framework of Ethnic Studies with deep explorations of:
    Teaching for Black Lives,  Indigenous perspectives and histories, the Asian American Experience on the West Coast, and Mexican American/Latinx Studies.

    Cohort 3 January 2023- June 2023

    Cohort 2 September 2021-June 2022  

    Cohort 1 January 2021-June 2021