Dead Dead Girls by Nekesa Afia

 My Honors Hidden Voices and Honors YA Lit students have finished reading The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Dead Dead Girls by Nekesa Afia, and we started discussing the ending of Dead Dead Girls today. We also read recent news articles about Black girls and women going missing and being killed. Additionally, we casually researched Samuel Little, who killed about 90 women "who would not be missed" over the course of about 30 years. 

My students had mixed reviews of the book. Mostly they were dissatisfied with the ending and the pacing. Some felt the book could have been longer, while others thought there were about 20 chapters too many. Many of them suspected the killer very early on. Additionally, my students are very interested in true crime, so the research on Samuel Little was well-received.

For next year, I think I will replace Dead Dead Girls in my Honors Hidden Voices course. I had students vote for texts at the beginning of the year, and Dead Dead Girls was a popular novel. However, the aim of this book was to present a contrast with The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and to present a minority voice from the Harlem Rennaisance.

I considered using Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston or Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. However, these texts are a little later and are not centered in the Harlem Rennaisance. Hurston wrote during the Harlem Renaissance, so there is a space to add her based on that timeline. Therefore, I might need to contrast The Great Gatsby with the poetry of Langston Hughes as well as Their Eyes Were Watching God. Students also completed a WebHunt on Google Slides that I would also keep next year. 

From here, I think our current progression looks like this: Behold the Dreamers, The Great Gatsby, Dead Dead Girls, Of Mice and Men, Fences. 

Next year, I would like the progression to look like this for Honors Hidden Voices: Behold the Dreamers, The Great Gatsby, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Of Mice and Men, Fences. I would like to work A Raisin in the Sun in somewhere near Hurston's novel, and I would like to also read the poetry of Langston Hughes (especially "A Dream Deferred") 

I would greatly appreciate comments and suggestions about what progression might be best.