The Dreamers of Tomorrow book club is Randallstown Public Library’s teen book club, run by Brenda Perkins. (Other teen programs at the library include lessons on how to write college application essays and babysitting training.) Brenda says that when she chooses the books for each month she takes cues from teens at the library and tries to pick books that will be both interesting to them and relevant to the issues they face in their own lives. Instead of using them solely for literary analysis, she likes to use the texts as “springboards” for discussion about the teens’ lives. The majority of our work with the library was with the book club. We created promotional fliers advertising it,and attended the November meeting.
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The November book was Tupac Shakur’s poetry book The Rose That Grew from Concrete. Tupac wrote his poetry about his own experiences growing up and living in an environment full of poverty, gangs, violence, and drugs. In fact, the rapper’s mother was a crack addict, a struggle he writes about in his poem “U R Ripping Us Apart !!!” (1). Brenda hopes that by choosing a relatable book such as this one she may facilitate discussion relevant to the teens’ lives and hardships. In fact, this is a new teaching style that is starting to gain a following in the English education community called New English Education. Followers of this type of teaching assert that by incorporating types of literature deeply rooted in today’s culture—such as hip-hop literature—students may better relate to the lessons they learn in the classroom as opposed to the experiences they may have by only reading classic or serious texts (2). Brenda, perhaps without even realizing it, embraces this new movement in teaching literature. She uses texts as a means of engaging the students in a meaningful, significant, real-life connection to words.
November Book Club meeting on The Rose That Grew from Concrete
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1. Shakur, Tupac. The Rose That Grew from Concrete. New York: MTV Books, 1999.
2. Kirkland, David E. “‘The Rose That Grew from Concrete’: Postmodern Blackness and New English Education.” English Journal 97:5 (May 2008). 69-75.