Blog Post #6: Day 6

 Day 6

"You can't help it. An artist's duty, as far as I'm concerned, is to reflect the times.” - Nina 

Simone


Yesterday was day 6 of my Hawken Project and I switched gears from the oral history 

interviews that I am conducting. I spent the majority of my time reconnecting with my 

mentor and creating a rough draft of the course topics, potential list of materials, and 

bullet points of the purpose for each individual course. I started the meeting 

quickly debriefing the meeting with Dr. Gadsby and the notes that I took during 

the session that I believed to be most crucial to the foundation of creating the A-A Studies 

Program, including variation of narratives and voices throughout the course, creating 

accountability between the teacher and the student (regarding the content and how the 

student reacts to it), and balancing out trauma with joy (without trying to avoid either in

content). After going down the list of points, I shared my initial ideas for courses to be 

offered in the program and the content that would be used for each course. For the courses,

I wanted to keep the interdisciplinary feel for each course while also touching on main 

subjects like English/ Literature, the Arts (ie: Performing and Visual), History, and Science. 

For materials, I added a couple of documentaries, such as What Happened, Miss Simone?, 

Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of Revolution, and 13th, all of 

which I've had the opportunity to watch in the past (with the exception of The Black 

Panthers: Vanguard of Revolution). I also added clips of films and television shows, like a 

ten minute clip of A Birth of A Nation by DW Griffith, the "Good and Bad Hair" number 

from the Spike Lee film School Daze, Get Out by Jordan Peele, and Black Panther by Ryan 

Coogler (just as a sneak peak for the content that I will use for the course!).


Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool (2019)




What Happened, Miss Simone? (2015)



School Daze (1988)







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