Kim Johnson – författare

In 1955, a Black family passes for white and moves to a “Whites Only” town in the suburbs. Caught between two worlds, a teen boy puts his family at risk as he uncovers racist secrets about his suburb. A new social justice thriller from the acclaimed author of This Is My America! WINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE FOR YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE • A SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL AND KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOK OF THE YEARCalvin knows how to pass for white. He's done it plenty of times before. For his friends in Chicago, when they wanted food but weren't allowed in a restaurant. For work, when he and his dad would travel for the Green Book.This is different.After a tragedy in Chicago forces the family to flee, they resettle in an idyllic all-white suburban town in search of a better life. Calvin's father wants everyone to embrace their new white lifestyles, but it's easier said than done. Hiding your true self is exhausting -- which leads Calvin across town where he can make friends who know all of him...and spend more time with his new crush, Lily. But when Calvin starts unraveling dark secrets about the white town and its inhabitants, passing starts to feel even more suffocating--and dangerous--than he could have imagined. Expertly weaving together real historical events with important reflections on being Black in America, acclaimed author Kim Johnson powerfully connects readers to the experience of being forced to live a life-threatening lie or embrace an equally deadly truth.

In 1955, a Black family passes for white and moves to a “Whites Only” town in the suburbs. Caught between two worlds, a teen boy puts his family at risk as he uncovers racist secrets about his suburb. A new social justice thriller from the acclaimed author of This Is My America!WINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE FOR YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE • A SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL AND KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOK OF THE YEARCalvin knows how to pass for white. He's done it plenty of times before. For his friends in Chicago, when they wanted food but weren't allowed in a restaurant. For work, when he and his dad would travel for the Green Book. This is different.After a tragedy in Chicago forces the family to flee, they resettle in an idyllic all-white suburban town in search of a better life. Calvin's father wants everyone to embrace their new white lifestyles, but it's easier said than done. Hiding your true self is exhausting -- which leads Calvin across town where he can make friends who know all of him...and spend more time with his new crush, Lily. But when Calvin starts unraveling dark secrets about the white town and its inhabitants, passing starts to feel even more suffocating--and dangerous--than he could have imagined. Expertly weaving together real historical events with important reflections on being Black in America, acclaimed author Kim Johnson powerfully connects readers to the experience of being forced to live a life-threatening lie or embrace an equally deadly truth.

Assessing Students with Poetry Writing Across Content Areas reimagines formative assessment by advocating for a dynamic, poetic approach that delves into students’ meaning-making processes. It is a guide for teachers seeking innovative approaches to formative assessment, promoting a holistic, creative, reflective, and collaborative learning environment. It challenges the limitations of traditional worksheets and quizzes, urging educators to move beyond seeking restrictive answers and embrace students’ texts as pathways to understanding.The authors put forward poetry as a vigorous tool and writing poetry as an act to foster deep learning across content areas. Practical examples of acrostic poems, haiku, and pantoum demonstrate the adaptability of poetic forms to diverse subjects. Through adaptable lesson plans that can be used across history, math, world languages, ELA, and science, the book encourages intentional poetic writing-to-learn activities and explores how poetry might present itself as a short, creative assessment tool that helps teachers see what their students know and can do while also offering them the space to make new meaning in their original poetry.This book is a key resource for in-service educators teaching grades 6-12.

Assessing Students with Poetry Writing Across Content Areas reimagines formative assessment by advocating for a dynamic, poetic approach that delves into students’ meaning-making processes. It is a guide for teachers seeking innovative approaches to formative assessment, promoting a holistic, creative, reflective, and collaborative learning environment. It challenges the limitations of traditional worksheets and quizzes, urging educators to move beyond seeking restrictive answers and embrace students’ texts as pathways to understanding.The authors put forward poetry as a vigorous tool and writing poetry as an act to foster deep learning across content areas. Practical examples of acrostic poems, haiku, and pantoum demonstrate the adaptability of poetic forms to diverse subjects. Through adaptable lesson plans that can be used across history, math, world languages, ELA, and science, the book encourages intentional poetic writing-to-learn activities and explores how poetry might present itself as a short, creative assessment tool that helps teachers see what their students know and can do while also offering them the space to make new meaning in their original poetry.This book is a key resource for in-service educators teaching grades 6-12.

From its first appearance in 1939 with a group of men knocking on pots and pans to the 1951 Trinidad All-Steel Percussion Orchestra (TASPO), steelband has fascinated the world. Relying largely on oral histories, this work investigates and documents the different technical, musical and organisational steps by which the steelband movement was born and grew to maturity.This study is a radical break with the approach to cultural creativity in general and music of the African diaspora in particular, emphasising the role of individual agency, microsociology and aesthetic values. This contrasts with the “resistance” school of thought, which views music as an automatic reaction to oppression rather than a deliberate attempt to satisfy aesthetic needs and impulses.The minute biographical and psychological details provide a unique theory of creolisation and chart its relationship to African retentions, based on empirical data. This authoritative study will appeal to both the general reader interested in the origins of steelband and to scholars concerned with the creolisation of African and European cultures and Caribbean creativity.