Rebecca Burgesser

Edmonds Academy is a public, online, alternative high school. Students are expected to write a literary analysis at each grade level of high school. The goals for this project are to combat bias within the literary canon, draw on students’ culture to shape curriculum, and bring real-world issues into the classroom. Students are currently limited in their reading selection and through this grant, students would be able to check out hard copies of more contemporary literature with greater relevance to their lives. Specifically, the school would purchase copies of 11 novels, all but one of which is written in the last 25 years, most within the last 10 years, half by women authors, the majority featuring protagonists of color and/or from the LGTBQ+ community, and several featuring other languages, primarily Spanish (the most common language spoken other than English among the school’s students).