At the CIE Teaching and Learning Lab, we begin with a simple truth: Black literature is the canon. It is not an addition to the curriculum or a sidebar to the “great works.” It is the intellectual and artistic tradition that anchors our approach to teaching literature in secondary classrooms.
By centering Black writers, thinkers, and artists, we illuminate the questions, aesthetics, and urgencies that shape our time. From this anchor, we build outward — connecting across genres, geographies, and histories.
What is a Literary Constellation?
A Literary Constellation is our alternative to a rigid, one-size-fits-all canon. Rather than treating literature as a fixed list of so - called great works. Constellations bring together a Unit of Three: short fiction, poetry, and long fiction that speak to one another across genre, time, and geography.
Constellations are:
Anchored in Black literature as the canon, affirming it as central rather than supplemental.
Rooted in deep literary study, designed to sustain critical, creative, and cultural inquiry.
Framed by the Four Literacies — critical, creative, cultural, and verbal.
Aligned to advanced standards (AP/IB) while remaining adaptable to grade level, pacing, and context.
In practice, a constellation might link:
Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God to a contemporary poem and a short story by Jesmyn Ward.
A Langston Hughes poem to a short story from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and an excerpt from Ellison’s Invisible Man.
Carter G. Woodson’s The Mis-education of the Negro and the Spike Lee joint “School Daze”.
Constellations preserve rigor while expanding the possibilities of what counts as literature, creating classrooms where students encounter both tradition and innovation, both heritage and imagination.