BMMS Racial Justice Challenge

The Racial Justice Challenge Overview

The Poway Unified School District and Black Mountain Middle School Racial Justice Challenge strives to create a world where “we the people” truly means each and everyone!


The Challenge:

Students are challenged to pick one of the two options below...


Option #1 Create a performance piece to help our community understand the message of an Amanda Gorman poem. Amanda Gorman is a young, talented American poet. Each grade level will focus on a different Gorman poem. See the individual pages for grade specific poems/links.


Amanda Gorman Biography: https://www.milkenscholars.org/scholars/directory/profile/amanda-gorman


Or


Option #2 Design a creative response to these Questions for Action:

  • Why do we have Black History month and other cultural observance months (see Resource pages above)?

  • What are the current racial injustices that are impacting our community?

  • What's my role in standing up against racism?

  • In what ways are we engaging the community?

  • How might we showcase our impact?


A performance piece/response could be your own poem, video, song, art piece, etc. Be creative and express yourself. Responses need to support our BMMS core values of Respect, Responsibility, Hard Work and Kindness.


The Challenge will be an optional assignment sent to all students through Canvas in February 2021. Submissions due March 5. No grades will be associated with the Challenge.


Students will be celebrated for their submissions. A BMMS committee will be formed to evaluate submissions. Prizes will be awarded for outstanding submissions in each grade level.

Amanda Gorman

"Amanda Gorman made history in 2017 by being named the first ever National Youth Poet Laureate in the United States. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she is a graduate of Harvard with a B.A. in Sociology. Since publishing a poetry collection at 16, her writing has won her invitations to the Obama White House and to perform for Lin-Manuel Miranda, Al Gore, Secretary Hillary Clinton, Malala Yousafzai, and others. Amanda has performed 4th of July and Thanksgiving poems for CBS and she has spoken to large audiences at venues across the country, from the Library of Congress to Lincoln Center. She has received a Genius Grant from OZY Media, as well as recognition from Scholastic Inc., YoungArts, the Glamour magazine College Women of the Year Awards, and the Webby Awards. She currently writes for the New York Times newsletter The Edit and recently signed a two-book deal with Viking (a division of PenguinRandom House) after a bidding war involving eight publishers. Most recently, she traveled to Slovenia with Prada as a reporter on the company's latest sustainability project."

“One Account. All of Google.” Meet Google Drive – One Place for All Your Files, sites.google.com/d/10iTEOl6y5cb7tpEC4wsOR0GMaWvI7odw/p/1iN5ltQfQsqEGuPi1bm3hLQlxgHbNeW9w/edit.

“Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”

-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.



"For there is always light, if only we are brave enough to see it – if only we are brave enough to be it."

-Amanda Gorman at President Biden's Inauguration