The 57 Bus

The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives

 Written by: Dashka Slater

Project Created by: Mark Bibian, Sarah Bidgoli, Sara Brune & Nataly Casillas

Review:

Imagine deciding to take a nap on the bus from your commute back home from school after a long day, only to be woken up by an assortment of flames burning your legs. That’s precisely what happened to Sasha one day as she rode the 57-bus home. Dashka Slater’s “The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime that Changed Their Lives” recalls the events leading up to the moment when Richard set Sasha’s skirt on fire, changing both of their lives forever.

Richard and Sasha had always taken the same bus and had crossed paths on multiple occasions. On this particular day, Richard saw Sasha in their skirt and decided to set it on fire as a small practical joke.

The Oakland High School Wellness Center's support of "NoH8"

Unfortunately, the small practical joke would leave Sasha with second and third-degree burns. What made Richard set Sasha’s skirt on fire was what sparked public controversy. Sasha was born a male but now identifies as a-gender, which means Sasha does not identify as either male or female and prefers the pronouns “They, their, and them.” What started off as a practical joke turned into a hate-crime that would land Richard in prison.

Sasha is a white, middle-class teenager who attended a small private school. Richard, on the other hand, is an African-American, who attended a large public school. While it would seem like a no-brainer that Richard committed a serious crime and should be punished, Slater takes a different approach and gives readers both sides of this incredible story making this a not so simple situation. Readers get a personal look at the daily struggles members of the LQBTQ community face on a regular basis. Simultaneously, we get the other side of story, in which readers see that Richard was viewed as a young man who had potential to do good things with his life. We recognize that Richard, and many like him, commit harmful acts based on youthful ignorance.

The novel is excellent for young readers to learn not to be quick in judging others without looking at all factors of the crime committed and at the person who committed it. While no offense should go unpunished, Slater attempts to give readers a better understanding of why Richard did what he did and how he felt after he realized the implications of his actions. Providing readers with both sides of the story allows readers to have empathy for both the victim and the criminal.

People showing support for Sasha after the incident

What makes Slater’s novel stand out from a traditional book is that it is non-fiction written in fiction like manner. Slater touches upon many subjects such as race, sexuality, gender roles, social class roles, language, and more. We greatly recommend this YA novel, for it provides young readers with topics that are rarely introduced in the classroom. Students would get a deeper understanding of the importance of gender identity and pronoun usage while promoting readers to look at a crime and at the person who has committed the crime and be able to empathize with them.

Biography:

Dashka Slater

Dashka Slater, who has been telling stories since childhood, has turned her passion of various subjects into a career, being an award-winning novelist, journalist, and children’s book author. As a young child, she loved to narrate, and her mother would write down her stories until  Slater learned to write them down herself. Both of Slater’s parents were authors and tried to get her to choose a different path, but she loved to retell and invent fantastical events. Her passion for writing was fueled as she discovered the library, where she walked to every week to check out as many books as she could carry. She began to write for Cricket Magazine, where she had a poem published for the first time at age 10. Getting her professional start as a columnist for “Who Made That” in The New York Times years later, Slater was able to expand on what she loved, covering material from competitive jousting to criminal justice. She moved on to novels--her first started and was left unfinished at age 9-- where she published for both adults and children. She married her husband and continued to work on novels like The Wishing Box (Chronicle), which was named one of the best books of the year by the Los Angeles Times, until she realized she wanted to try her hand at short stories--a fact that makes her laugh because she considers it a reverse of what she should have done. After the birth of her son, she realized she wanted to focus more on children’s literature, which sparked her to write Baby Shoes, inspired directly from her son’s first pair of shoes. With her son as motivation and a cat on her lap, Slater writes in Oakland. She and her son love to come up with stories and drawings that she claims helps her to think about situations in a creative and imaginative way. Living in Oakland, Slater has been opened to a diverse community of people. She loves living there and cherishes the experiences that she has had in learning from those around her within her community. Here, she was informed about the events that occurred on the 57 Bus, sparking first an article that appeared in the New York Times, and later her novel, The 57 Bus, a critically acclaimed award-winning novel. The 57 Bus won the 2018 Stonewall Children’s and Young Adult Literature Award and the Beatty Award. Slater hopes that her novels inspire change in those that read her work.

Works Referenced:

Amazon Reviews
American Library Association news
Kurkus Magazine
National Endowment for the Arts: Writers' Corner

Resources:

1.  Burke, Brianna R.Greenfield. “Challenging Heteronormativity: Raising LGBTQ Awareness in a High School English Language Arts Classroom.” English Journal, vol. 105, no. 6, 2016, pp. 46–51.

       Burke deals with the concept of how many high school students remain silent when they cannot see their identity represented in their school curricula.  One of the strongest arguments of this source is how we as educators must promote inclusivity within the subject material, classroom and school environment. Burke explains how if we ignore the problem of discrimination, we are depriving students of the truth, and a remedy to solve it or become aware and not continue the cycle. This article provides steps educators can take before, during and after a lesson on sexual identity. It offers options such as talking to the principal, sending letters home justifying lesson, allowing students to opt out of lesson, fostering critical thinking and also allowing students to share their thoughts.

2.  Batchelor, Katherine E., et al. “Opening Doors: Teaching LGBTQ-Themed Young Adult Literature for an Inclusive Curriculum.” Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, vol. 91, no. 1, 2018, pp. 29–36.

         Katherine Batchelor explains how unsafe school environments can affect factors such as psychological and academic levels in LGBTQ students.  Some of the solutions to creating a safe school environment provided are incorporating LGBTQ themed literature, creating a supportive classroom, and treating all voices as equal. Yet, in order to be able to incorporate those subjects into the classroom, the article states that educators need to educate themselves on it first, as teachers need to know how to handle topics of controversy and nondominant viewpoints. A section of this article was focused on how LGBTQ literature can allow for students to create concepts such as their identity formation, and as a ‘window’ which allows for an open dialogue in the classroom. This is a good article to present to educators and parents who do not see the importance of having an all inclusive curriculum in the classroom setting.

3. "The Fire on The 57th Bus in Oakland" New York Times, 2015. 

Sasha featured in the New York Times

Richard and his younger brother also featured in the New York Times

     This article is the one that appeared in The New York Times after the actual incident occurred. It offers a chronological recalling of the events of the fire and the events leading up to them from the perspective of both Sasha and Richard, the two people involved directly. The author of this article, Dashka Slater, is also the author of the book and uses this article as a template for her novel. Slater previews the economical and social statistics of Oakland and the communities within, giving the readers insight into the circumstances of both Sasha and Richard and what led to the fire on the bus. The reader gets to connect with both students’ backgrounds and the environments that they grew up in, which Slater connects to the events the occurred. In this article, there is also a picture of Sasha, Richard, and Sasha’s parents, putting a face to the people involved in the article and the novel.

4. San Francisco Bay Transit  

    This is an active map of Oakland and the route that the 57 bus actually takes. The stops are all highlighted in blue, and shows where the incident occurred. This map gives context to students about where the burning took place and how little Richard and Sasha really saw of eachother. This could be used to also begin an activity for plotting the locations of where the events took place. This map allows the user to zoom in and out and to get a satellite view of the route and surrounding areas. This allows the user to get context about the location, the arrival and running times, and the distance between each stop on the route. This gives context to the amount of time Shasha and Richard were on the bus that day and how far each of them were to their homes.

5.   Juzwik, Mary, et al. “Struggling to Belong: Literacy Instruction, Coaching, Learning, and Development.” Research in the Teaching of English, vol. 52, no. 3, 2018, pp. 229–235.

    The article discusses racism in the classroom and how anything from a microaggression to systematic and institutional oppression works to disadvantage students of color. This relates to the novel as we see how the school systems and communities set up to “help” have failed Richard.

6.  Dyson, Anne. “A Sense of Belonging: Writing (Righting) Inclusion and Equity in a Child's Transition to School.” Research in the Teaching of English, vol. 52, no. 3, 2018, pp. 236–261.

    This article also discusses race but focuses on the importance of equity and inclusion in the classroom. Students need to represented in order to feel important. Representation also lends itself to debunking stereotypes and bridges gaps between cultures. This relates to the novel as Richard sets Sasha aflame because they were different but if he was taught about LGBTQ+ cultures, he might have acted differently.

7.  Video: "Every Sex & Gender Term Explained," Science Plus. Youtube, 2015.

    This YouTube Video is called “Gender Identity: Sex and Gender Identity” posted by Science Plus. The video breaks down the different types of gender and sexes that can often be confusing. The novel uses a number of different terms that can be overwhelming if a student is not familiar with such terms. This video serves as a great introduction for the novel and will give students a better background knowledge of sexes, genders, sexual orientation, and personal pronouns.

8.  Article: "This Book Will Challenge Everything You Thought You Knew About Hate Crimes," Mother Jones. 2017.

    This article details the events as they happened  the day of the incident in 2013. Mother  Jones then conducts an interview with Dashka  Slater on her writing, the fire, the agendered language that she employs in the novel, and more about the book to help readers earn about her take on the events. Slater discusses crime, hate, love, and community in this interview, which make it a great place to learn about the author behind and her motivations for writing the novel.

Oakland High School shows support for Sasha

Lesson Plan

Title: 57th Bus: An Exploration of Gender and Language Perspective

Novel: 57th Bus by Dashka Slater
Grade/Subject: 10th/English 2
Goal of the Lesson: To allow students to see the different perspectives, troubles, and ways in which language creates gaps in a person's identity.

Institute For Educational Advancement

1. RL.10.2 Determine a theme of central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text. 
2. RL.10.3. Analyze how complex characters (e.g. those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme. 
3. RL.10.5. Analyze how an author's choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g. parallel plots), and manipulate (e.g. pacing, flashbacks) create such effects of mystery tension, or surprise. 
4. RI.10.4. Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative and technical meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone. 
5. RI.10.6. Determine an author's point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how an author uses rhetoric to advance that point of view or purpose. 

Narrative:

      This lesson will take place after the class has completed the novel. Students will be asked to critically and consciously think about how language, perspective and society are factors that affect people differently. We will begin class by passing out a warm up assignment asking students to define some terms using their texts. They will have the option to either work alone or with a partner. This will act as an activity that will allow them to think about the terms while utilizing proper in text citations. After ten minutes have passed, students will be asked to share their definitions.

Odyssey

The class will then transition into a bigger activity where they will be asked to write within the two perspectives of Sasha and Richard. Students will have to take into consideration and respect the limitations and differences that each character has. This will showcase how society has different effects on different people going as far as affecting their identities. Students will then be asked to share their work with the class or a partner. The final assignment will be a quick reflection where students will be able to gather their thoughts about the way society works, how it affects different people and how language can create barriers. After ten minutes students will turn in their assignment for credit.

Activities:

Our lesson will be sectioned into three different assignments:

The Well

1. Warm Up/Cornell Notes
2. Paragraph Rewrites 
3. Reflection

Resources: 

                              Assignment 1: Warm Up/Cornell Notes 

Assignment 2: Paragraph Rewrites

Assignment 3: Reflection