BPS Student Work
"Black Boston: Now & Then" is a creative writing project developed by students in Dr. Christopher Madson’s English Language Arts 11 and Advanced Placement Language and Composition classes at the John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science. Students were asked to write poems that explored their experiences of living in Boston today. The only requirement was that their poem be at least 10 lines in length. And, most importantly, that they consider the rhetorical situation (think SOAPSTone) and use a few rhetorical devices and strategies.
The EBBDA is grateful to our Boston Public School community partners, especially Dr. Christopher Madson and his English Language Arts 11 & Advanced Placement Language and Composition students, for collaborating with us and sharing their creative work.
“The impatient idealist says: 'Give me a place to stand and I shall move the earth.' But such a place does not exist. We all have to stand on the earth itself and go with her at her pace.” — Chinua Achebe (No Longer at Ease)
“You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.” — Malcolm X (Speech, Prospects for Freedom).
“Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.” — James Baldwin (Fifth Avenue, Uptown. Esquire)
“Misery won't touch you gentle. It always leaves its thumbprints on you; sometimes it leaves them for others to see, sometimes for nobody but you to know of.” — Edwidge Danticat (The Farming of Bones)
“I am an invisible man...I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids—and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. ” — Ralph Ellison (Invisible Man).
