Why Grace Abounding?

Too often, in the past, the astonishingly rich legacy of African-American literature has been glossed over in summary treatments in 11th-grade American literature survey courses. Too often, the equally rich legacies of African-American music and art have been ignored altogether by schools or, at best, relegated to special events for Black History Month.

Now, at last, this can all change due to the publication of a definitive text and resource book on the African-American cultural heritage, published by the nonprofit, nonpartisan Core knowledge Foundation. Vetted by leading figures in African-American studies, this new work has lofty goals--to enable African-American students to view, whole, their cultural heritage from its roots in Africa to the present day and to help all students to appreciate and understand the seminal works of the creative geniuses from that heritage.

This website contains teacher resources for use with Grace Abounding. Free resources can be accessed directly from the menu at left; these include selections for further reading, grade-level recommendations for the literary selections, web links for research, and complete indexes from the book. Reading-check tests, vocabulary tests, and other assessments, answer keys, and additional skills-related lesson plans (covering a host of topics in grammar, writing, research, and other language arts skills) are also available here. All tests, answer keys, and lesson plans are available as downloadable, printable PDFs. In order to prevent student access, the materials are available for a nominal fee and can only be accessed with the use of a credit card. For more information, please follow the link labeled “Tests and Lessons.”