BLACK HISTORY 365
Amanda Gorman
Amanda was born March 7,1998 (23) in Los Angeles, California, U.S. raised by her single mother,
Joan Wicks an English teacher in Watts, with her two siblings. Her twin sister, Gabrielle is an
Activist and filmmaker. Amanda has said she grew up in an environment with limited television access.
She has described her young as a “weird child” who enjoyed reading and writing and was encouraged by her mother.
Gorman has an auditory processing disorder and is hypersensitive to sound. She also had a speech impediment during childhood. She participated in speech therapy during her childhood and Elida Kocharian of the Harvard Crimson wrote in 2018, “Gorman doesn’t view her speech impediment as a crutch-rather, she sees it as a gift and a strength. She used songs as a form of speech therapy and explained, “my favorite thing to practice was the song ‘Aaron Burr, Sir’ from Hamilton because it is jam-packed with R’s and I said if I can keep up with Leslie in this track, then I am on my way to being able to say this R in a poem.
Amanda attended New Roads, a private school in Santa Monica, for grades K-12. As a senior, she received a Milken Family Foundation College Scholarship. She studied sociology at Harvard College, graduating (cum laude) in 2020 as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. In 2019, Gorman spent a semester studying in Madrid, Spain, supported by I E S abroad.
I chose Amanda because she is a person after my own heart. She reminds me of my granddaughter meek and humble very lovable.
By Priscilla A. Moore
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Amanda-Gorman - February 22, 2022
Joan Wicks an English teacher in Watts, with her two siblings. Her twin sister, Gabrielle is an
Activist and filmmaker. Amanda has said she grew up in an environment with limited television access.
She has described her young as a “weird child” who enjoyed reading and writing and was encouraged by her mother.
Gorman has an auditory processing disorder and is hypersensitive to sound. She also had a speech impediment during childhood. She participated in speech therapy during her childhood and Elida Kocharian of the Harvard Crimson wrote in 2018, “Gorman doesn’t view her speech impediment as a crutch-rather, she sees it as a gift and a strength. She used songs as a form of speech therapy and explained, “my favorite thing to practice was the song ‘Aaron Burr, Sir’ from Hamilton because it is jam-packed with R’s and I said if I can keep up with Leslie in this track, then I am on my way to being able to say this R in a poem.
Amanda attended New Roads, a private school in Santa Monica, for grades K-12. As a senior, she received a Milken Family Foundation College Scholarship. She studied sociology at Harvard College, graduating (cum laude) in 2020 as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. In 2019, Gorman spent a semester studying in Madrid, Spain, supported by I E S abroad.
I chose Amanda because she is a person after my own heart. She reminds me of my granddaughter meek and humble very lovable.
By Priscilla A. Moore
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Amanda-Gorman - February 22, 2022
