As part of their summer reading assessment on the fictional book Hudu, 6th graders in Ms. Moten and Ms. Reed’s classes recently completed original short stories and comics. These narratives showcased students’ understanding of character development, plot, conflict, climax, and resolution. Student-generated topics included animal fantasies, magic, and mystery. Students in 6th grade have also been exploring narrative with family-generated narratives about students’ lives and childhoods. 

English 9 students are hard at work on an Afrofuturism project. After completing the novel Binti by Nnedi Okorafor. The book depicts the experiences of an African student in the future attending an intergalactic college, when her journey is intercepted by attacking aliens who take over the ship. The story has many allegorical elements. For the project, Mr. Baum’s classes chose between a research project in which they write a report on another artist in any discipline who uses afrofuturism, and connecting this to Binti. Another option is to create an original story using futuristic settings and portraying aspects of the African American experience.