Boston: Past, Present, Future
As part of our explorations in American Historiography, Division 3 (9th/10th grade) students investigated the past, present, and future of Greater Boston, asking questions such as:
How and why have our neighborhoods changed over time? How might they continue to change?
How do institutional oppression and institutional privilege shape our lives and our neighborhoods?
In what ways have people in Boston taken action together to build more just communities, and how might this continue in the future?
At the conclusion of a unit about redlining and housing justice in Boston, students interviewed longtime community members about how their neighborhoods have changed over time. These oral history interviews take a variety of approaches to understanding how institutional oppression and institutional privilege shaped the rights, options, and decisions of people in different neighborhoods throughout Greater Boston in the past.
Next, students wrote memoir vignettes, investigating how their own lives have been shaped by the places they live, and how institutions and ideologies shape their own rights, options, and decisions.
Finally, as a conclusion to a unit about the climate crisis and climate justice, students wrote speculative fiction pieces imagining the future of Boston's neighborhoods, set between 20 to 40 years in the future. In each of these stories, characters grapple with the effects of the climate crisis, even as they also take action with others to survive, protect each other, and build liveable futures.
Each of these Story Maps moves back and forth through time, including the past (oral history interviews), the present (memoir vignettes), and the future (speculative fiction). We hope these maps inspire you to ask what role you can take in building more just communities, wherever you live. For any questions regarding this project, feel free to reach out to Eric Fishman at efishman@meridianacademy.org.