The fifth grade read Maritcha: A Nineteenth-Century American Girl by Tonya Bolden.
It is a wonderful biography on the life of a young person who grows up in colonial America. She is living in New York and even though is Black comes from a family that is hard working and not enslaved.
Maritcha Lyons’ Grandfather Marshall owned property in Seneca Village. Seneca Village was a large Black successful town with a school, three churches, and up and mobile people living there. The village was shredded apart before the villagers eyes by the city officials who took the space to build Central Park.
My class created a mini Seneca Village out of tubes.
My class also created their own auto-biographies as a book report and presented them in class. The most successful part was seeing them share their stories with each other after school. They were honestly interested in each other and were asking questions that they were not able to ask in class.
