Breadcrumb
Borders & Belonging
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About This Collection
This English Language Arts curriculum collection helps you explore with students how the human need for belonging can shape our lives and the world around us. Diverse stories and counter-stories introduce students to a variety of perspectives on the collection’s themes of borders and belonging. Some perspectives may resonate with a student’s own experience of belonging, while others may challenge and expand their thinking. Along the way, students consider their own agency to cultivate a sense of belonging for themselves and others, and develop their capacity to participate fully in conversations across difference.
Explore our Coming of Age in a Complex World ELA Collection for more great resources that invite students to explore the complexity of identity and develop a sense of agency as they reflect on what it means to grow up in the world today.
This collection is designed to be flexible. You can use all of the resources or choose a selection best suited to your classroom. It includes:
The collection includes:
- Back to School Toolkit to help you build community with your students
- An on-demand webinar featuring authors Malaka Gharib and Randy Ribay discussing borders and belonging in young adult literature
- Two introductory lessons that explore the concept of belonging and the tangible and intangible borders that can shape it
- Videos featuring poet and memoirist Richard Blanco reading his poetry and reflecting on belonging, home, and writing
- A multi-genre text set for grades 7-8 with lesson plans and assessment ideas
- An ELA Unit Planning Guide to help you design a borders and belonging literature unit for a book of your choosing
- Book Club Guide with the resources and tools to launch student-centered book clubs
- Whole-School Read Planning Guide
Coming Soon:
- Text sets for additional grade bands:
- Grades 9–10: Global Migration
- Grades 11–12: Reimagining Home
- Unit Guides for specific works of literature
Build Your Own Pathway
This collection is designed to be flexible, so you can choose the resources that are best suited to your unique context. To build your own pathway through the collection, we recommend selecting resources from each of the three categories below: Before Teaching, Getting Started in the Classroom, and Go Deeper.
To orient yourself to the collection’s themes and essential questions, we recommend that you start by watching one or more of these videos:
- Richard Blanco: Navigating the Borders of Belonging (02:23)
In this short video, poet and memoirist Richard Blanco considers the ways in which aspects of his identity have shaped his sense of who he is and where he belongs throughout his life. - Richard Blanco: Finding Belonging in Others (04:45)
Richard Blanco explores how storytelling and poetry can cultivate empathy and foster connection between individuals and groups, even when the particulars of their lives may seem different. - Richard Blanco: Searching for Home (07:18)
Richard Blanco reflects on his quest for home and the role of storytelling, writing, and memory in his lifelong journey to answer the question, “Where am I from?” - Exploring Borders and Belonging in Young Adult Literature with Malaka Gharib and Randy Ribay (1 hour)
In this recorded webinar, young adult authors Malaka Gharib and Randy Ribay discuss the complexity of belonging, and the tangible and intangible borders that can shape it.
This collection includes two introductory lessons that develop students’ conceptual understanding of the tangible and intangible borders that shape our sense of belonging in the world. We encourage you to teach both introductory lessons before engaging students with other resources in the collection.
These lessons can be used in grades 7-12; the materials are adaptable and modified versions of the readings are provided.
- Introductory Lesson 1: What is Belonging? introduces students to the concept of belonging and the many factors that can shape one’s sense of belonging in the world.
- Introductory Lesson 2: How Do Borders Shape Belonging? builds on the first lesson, supporting students to expand their understanding of borders and consider the ways in which borders can impact how individuals and groups experience belonging.
After building schema for the concepts of borders and belonging in the introductory lessons, students will be ready to engage in a thematic unit.
You can teach the multimodal text set From Fitting in to Belonging, develop and teach a unit on a book of your choice with the ELA Unit Planning Guide, or combine the two for a longer unit.
Explore the Borders & Belonging ELA Collection
What Is Belonging? | Introductory Lesson
How Do Borders Shape Belonging? | Introductory Lesson
From Fitting In to Belonging: Understanding the Forces That Shape Belonging
ELA Unit Planning Guide
Centering Student Voice and Choice: A Book Club Guide
Whole-School Read Guide: Foster a Literacy Community
Richard Blanco: Navigating the Borders of Belonging
Richard Blanco: Finding Belonging in Others
Richard Blanco: Searching for Home
Inspiring the Next Generation of Writers: A Conversation with Richard Blanco
Unleashing Creativity: Richard Blanco's Tips for Student Writers
Related Professional Development for ELA Educators
Teaching about Borders and Belonging: a Mini-Workshop for ELA Educators
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Exploring Borders and Belonging in Young Adult Literature
On-Demand
Exploring ELA Text Selection with Julia Torres
On-Demand