The Wright Connection: Native Son, Black Boy, and Uncle Tom's Children

FAIN: ES-50320-09

University of Kansas Center for Research, Inc. (Lawrence, KS 66045-3101)
Maryemma Graham (Project Director: March 2009 to December 2011)

: A two-week high school teacher institute for thirty participants to explore Richard Wright's Native Son, Black Boy, and Uncle Tom's Children within their historical contexts.

The institute will read Wright's texts conspicuously absent from many curricula despite the direct connection to contemporary concerns about literacy, tolerance, and diversity central to national dialogue. Native Son, Black Boy, and Uncle Tom's Children, two short stories and select poems will link close reading, guided research, and seminars and workshops by scholars, practitioners, and specialists approached from a range of perspectives. New technologies, including a website and virtual seminars, will expand learning opportunities post-institute and offer access to a larger community of educators. Teachers will contribute to the construction of a digital sourcebook, to maximize the use of technology for sharing their course materials. The import lies in the role of education in a civil society, reaffirming a key goal of humanities education: to elicit a keen sense of identity from an examination of past deeds, events, documents, and forms of self-expression from our cultural past.