66 pages • 2 hours read
Miles CorwinAnd Still We Rise: The Trials and Triumphs of Twelve Gifted Inner-City High School Students
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2000A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Literature and Books
The gifted students at Crenshaw are not often introduced to much literature at home, and the books and plays they read in Little’s class, including The Crucible and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, seem difficult at first, but the students come to appreciate and connect to the works. They see the works as ways to reflect on their own experiences and traumas, and Little helps them develop a love of literature. Books are their passport to college and a better life, as well as their tickets to better self-understanding.
Othello
Shakespeare's Othello is one of the flash points between Little and Moultrie. Moultrie thinks it’s critical for her students to read works with black characters and to immerse them in black culture and history. Little, however, wants Moultrie to prepare students in 11th grade for Little's rigorous senior AP class. Little and Moultrie clash over this book as well as many other elements of Moultrie’s curriculum, such as her creative assignments and writing prompts on African proverbs.
Crenshaw
The school itself is a microcosm of the students’ lives. They regard school as a refuge and a haven from their violence-infested lives. Many of the students have suffered from abuse and violence at home and in their neighborhoods. When they leave their neighborhoods, they suffer from racism and the sense of lowered expectations because they are black and/or Latino. Crenshaw’s gifted program offers them a sense of security and a safe haven, as it is a place in which gifted people of color are encouraged. However, the school building itself houses a larger program that is plagued by violence. While the students are safe in their classes, they experience violence in the hallways and gunfire in their classrooms. The program-within-a-program mirrors their larger experience of having an educational haven distinct from the rest of their lives.
