Allan Appel Photo
These girls not only love to read; they love the smell of new books and the crispness of the pages. They’ll have 17 more volumes to devour as they read their way to becoming a dentist, an architect, and a Supreme Court justice no less.
“A textbook brings in only one perspective,” said Library and Media Specialist Lucia Rafala, who successfully applied for a grant under a program called “;A More Perfect Union,” through the American Library Association and the National Endowment for the Arts.
The collection awarded includes documentary history, novels, and videos to “rekindle interest in our distinctive national history.”
The aspirations of sixth-graders (left to right) Rhianna Bennett, N’ya Clarke, and Brianna Jenkins spilled out Friday afternoon as they helped their teacher celebrate the grant that will augment the Davis Street International Magnet School’s library with books documenting American history.
Because Davis Street is growing a middle school and increasingly focusing on creative, original-document based learning in history, Rafala (pictured) needed more than the copies of the constitution that are appended to classroom walls.
The collection emphasizes the Revolutionary and Civil War period and include,s among other texts, W. E. B. DuBois’s The Souls of Black Folk, Lincoln in His Own Words by Milton Meltzer, and American Creation by Joseph Ellis, on the lives of the founding fathers.
The girls glommed onto the Ellis and also Lincoln Shot, edited by Barry Denenberg, a large-format documentary history of the Lincoln assassination told entirely in contemporaneous newspaper stories.
“Historical thinking is more important than dates,” said Albertus Magnus College history chair Robert Imholt, who gave a lecture to the kids and their classmates Friday. Rafala was Imholt’s student in college; she told the kids how he had inspired her.
What is historical thinking? “History is another country. Putting myself out of the shoes of 2010 into 1770,” Imholt said. “They may have used the same words, but what did they mean?”
There was some discussion of this contemporary newspaper headline, for example, about the battle of Gettysburg. It reads, “Magnificent Three Day Battle Fought.” Would we describe a battle using that word today?
N’ya Clark found among the new 17 volumes Reginald Rose’s Twelve Angry Men, the story of a jury and of one lone holdout for innocence. She begged Rafala to let her take that out first. No problem.
N’ya said her mom is a lawyer. From when she was little, N’ya set up her teddy bears in courtroom dramas. “You’re guilty, you’re innocent,” she demonstrated. “You’re the accuser, you’re the defendant.”
Rhianna said she has the first picture she ever did of a building pinned up above her desk, to remind her of her ambitions.
Brianna said the day she turns 12 she will head straight to celebrate so she has access to the young adult section
These kids read so much they helped Rafala and Davis place fifth this year districtwide in the Book Bowl.
Davis Street Principal Lola Nathan turned the reception into a teachable moment about listening carefully and note-taking by reading to the assembled sixth-graders U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro’s letter congratulating Rafala. How fantastic it is, she said, that a congresswoman writes to the school’s library media specialist. Wouldn’t you want that to happen to you? What are three things the congresswoman said about Ms. Rafala?
Atr a recent Board of Ed meeting Nathan announced a summer school, college prep, and other changes planned for the Davis now that it’s been deemed a top-performing “tier one” school under the city’s reform plan.Regarding the grant and the work it sustains, however, Nathan said, “We do this kind of stuff all the time.”
Rafala said the grant will help during a time of reduced acquisitions budgets. She has $3,000 (it’s based on number of kids per school) for buying new materials for the entire school year.
To compensate she not only writes grants, but scrounges in tag and garage sales. She recently found, for pennies, the Magic Treehouse series for second to third graders. Anyone with books, particularly on American history, should contact her .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).