Book

All Souls: A Family Story from Southie

In this memoir, MacDonald details his story of growing up in Southie, Boston's Irish Catholic enclave, and examines the ways the media and law enforcement agencies exploit marginalized working-class communities.

Last Updated: December 15, 2009

Book

Language

English — US

Subject

English & Language Arts

Culture & Identity

The anti-busing riots of 1974 forever changed South Boston’s working class Irish community, branding it as a violent, racist enclave. MacDonald grew up in 'Southie’s' Old Colony housing project and describes the way this world within a world felt to this troubled, yet keenly gifted observer. All Souls is a testimony to lives lost too early to violence, drugs, and poverty, and the story of how a place so filled with pain could still be “the best place in the world.”

All Souls: A Family Story from Southie

Date of Publication: November 2007

We partner with Sora, the student reading app, to provide digital access to this book. Your district may already have access to this digital book, or you may need to purchase digital copies for your students.

Buy Digital Book in Sora

Activity

Students develop their vocabulary for describing their feelings and work their empathy muscles by reflecting on the color of their mood.

Assessment

Create a culminating experience for your students that helps them draw new connections between the concepts and ideas presented in this text set, themselves, and the world today.

Lesson

Students reflect on how aspects of their identities are more visible or felt in certain situations and read an informational text to help them consider the interplay between individual identity and social identity.

Collection

These back-to-school activities are designed to create welcoming learning environments that prioritize care, relationships, and community.

Students sit around a table working on a big paper activity while receiving feedback from an educator.

Toolkit

This toolkit of teacher resources and classroom activities will help you lay a foundation for a reflective and caring community in the opening days of the school year.

Students move around the classroom in conversation with each other. One student looks directly into the camera with a smile on their face.

Lesson

Students read and discuss personal narrative essays and consider what factors can make it challenging for young people to be who they really want to be in the world.

Lesson

Students learn about a project, created by two young adults, that engaged people across the country in conversations about race, identity, and culture. Then they start to envision what sharing their own stories can look, sound, and feel like.

Section

Reflect on your identity as an educator and your ideas about teaching and learning, as well as your school context and the students in your classroom.

An English Language Arts teacher prepares to teach a literature unit for middle and high school students.

Section

Apply Facing History’s key principles of text selection to your own context as you customize a unit for your students.

Section

Identify the goals, learning objectives, and student learning outcomes for your coming-of-age literature unit.

Teacher helping a male pupil studying at a desk in classroom stock

Section

Explore our bank of essential questions for a coming-of-age literature unit and engage with activities in the Educator Workbook to align your essential questions with your learning outcomes and passages from the text.

Section

Plan your summative assessment based on a “This I Believe” personal narrative or an assessment of your choice using Facing History’s strategies for prewriting, outlining, and revision.

Facing History and Ourselves Bullying Summit September 29th 2012 in Los Angeles CA

More Like This Teaching Resources Learning & Events

Using the strategies from Facing History is almost like an awakening.

— Claudia Bautista, Santa Monica, Calif

Search

Search

All Souls: A Family Story from Southie

At a Glance

Language

Subject

All Souls: A Family Story from Southie

Borrow

You might also be interested in…

Mood Meter

Identity and Storytelling Assessment Ideas

Why Identity Matters

Activities for the First Days of School

Back to School: Building Community for Connection and Learning

Stories of Identity and Belonging

Cultivating Identity Literacy

Start With Yourself

Choose a Coming-of-Age Text

Begin with the End in Mind

Craft the Essential Question

Design the Summative Assessment

All Souls: A Family Story from Southie

At a Glance

Language

Subject

All Souls: A Family Story from Southie

Borrow

You might also be interested in…

Mood Meter

Identity and Storytelling Assessment Ideas

Why Identity Matters

Activities for the First Days of School

Back to School: Building Community for Connection and Learning

Stories of Identity and Belonging

Cultivating Identity Literacy

Start With Yourself

Choose a Coming-of-Age Text

Begin with the End in Mind

Craft the Essential Question

Design the Summative Assessment

Inspiration, insights, & ways to get involved