Project Overview

This book of refugee profiles was created by 9^th grade students at the Springfield Renaissance School in Springfield, Massachusetts as part of a learning expedition on African history and local African refugees. 

In an effort to more deeply introduce and engage students in the study of African history, the English and history teachers worked together to create an interdisciplinary study of local African refugees. The study of refugees created a living window/real reason to understand the context within which African refugees came to the United States – which included learning about the history of Africa.

Students worked with a number of different outside experts, including historians and college professors. Students also visited a range of different places of worship – a mosque, a synagogue, a Buddhist temple and a Christian church – to interview religious leaders and ask spiritual and political questions - as a way to understand the different religious backgrounds of the refugees and the struggle for religious freedom that some had faced.

Students also did research by watching movies about relevant topics, reading books and exploring documents that detailed the lives of people in Africa impacted by ongoing war.

English class included reading and analysis of relevant novels, and a study of the genre of memoir through reading and writing. 

Students interviewed local refugees and then wrote the life stories up as first person memoirs. The book includes rap-based poems about the plight of African refugees. Students also included a section on the history of Africa and suggestions for ways to assist the refugees.