Five Objectives and Five Activities
I have identified five primary conceptual objectives for this unit. These objectives relate more or less directly to the arguments I made in the theoretical foundation of this unit plan. In this section, I present each objective, briefly discuss the rationale, and then outline a class activity that is designed to move the student toward an understanding of the objective.
With this in mind, there are several points I would like to make. First, the objectives are broad (sometimes very broad) and the activities are generally focused and narrow. Because of this, it is unlikely that any activity presented here will allow the students full mastery. Rather, I hope that the activities will open some doors and allow some insights, slowly drawing the students into an understanding of the concepts. Second, I have chosen to present the objectives as primarily conceptual rather than skill based. It will be obvious when reviewing these activities that multiple reading, writing and speaking skills are being addressed. For each activity I have included an appendix that outlines the skill-based objectives as articulated by our district standards. Third, although the objectives and the activities presented are purposefully ordered to build on each other, there will be a significant amount of overlap and repetition of objectives at numerous points through the unit.
Finally, these five activities are representative lessons within the unit, not the full scope of the unit. There will be a number of additional activities bridging the gaps and reinforcing the information presented. In fact, I see a logical division in the teaching of this unit between objectives one and two and objectives three, four and five. While the first two objectives are an essential foundation for objectives three, four and five, these two parts also seem to be distinct pieces. Objectives one and two are concerned primarily with establishing the tension between the rhetoric and reality of American democracy in Early America, while the final three are specifically focused on African American writing and cultural production of the early 20 th century. Within the scope of my American Literature class I can see the first two objectives covered in the very beginning of the year as a foundational piece for our complete study of literature. Before going into objectives three, four and five, it is conceivable that other units of study could be presented that continued to build on the foundation (e.g. Native American Writing, Slave Narratives, 19 th century Women's Writing, etc.).
Objective 1 - The students will understand the core principles and ideals associated with American democracy.
I believe this will be a good place to start our unit. While the students will certainly come in with some understanding of American democracy and its relationship to the principles of liberty, equality and justice; I have learned from experience that their understandings generally lack depth and sophistication. The students entering my classes have been inundated with school, media, and societal narratives supporting an uncritical belief in the American Dream, and thus speak strongly about their beliefs in the principle of equality of opportunity and the unrestricted liberty of individuals to achieve their goals. However, the strength of their arguments begins to falter when faced with questions that contradict or complicate the master narrative. In my estimation what is missing is an appropriate vocabulary and conceptual framework for critique. With this in mind, I would like to create activities in this opening part of the unit that explore the limits and complexity of these ideas and build this critical vocabulary. This will begin with an analysis of some of the primary texts of American democracy (the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and selections from the Federalist Papers) and then move into the following activity.
Activity 1 - "With Liberty and Justice for All"
For this activity I have developed an argument of judgment concerning justice that should help students flesh out the core principles of democracy. Basically, an argument of judgment involves presenting a set of definitional criteria for a concept and applying (in small and large group discussion) that definition to scenarios to test the limits of the definition. Often these discussions will lead to persuasive writing assignments that ask the student to apply the definition to class texts (i.e. the theme of a poem, a character's actions in a short story, or the opinion of an essay writer). While the scenarios are complex, they are also written to be relevant to students' experiences. This and the fact that there are no clear right or wrong answers, often make these some of the most engaged and successful classroom discussions I have had.
The premise of this argument of judgment is that students are judges for a series of cases where individuals come in looking for justice. In each situation, the individual believes he or she has been treated unfairly by another individual or in some cases a group or organization. In each case the unfair treatment will test a different set of limits concerning ideas of liberty, equality, or justice. In the final activity, I will have at least ten different cases. I have included two example cases below to give you a better idea of how this activity works.
Example Case 1: Pryor v. Harris. Jacob Pryor, a 23 year-old bagger at Harris Mart, a local grocery store, brings in a case against his boss, Mel Harris. Pryor claims that, although he has worked faithfully for over five years at the store he has been given only token raises (10 to 25 cents a year), no benefits and no options for advancement. During this time the store has made record profits and Mel Harris has ascended to the ranks of one of the ten richest individuals in the Richmond metro region. In addition, Pryor points out, he started working at Harris Mart at the same time as Michael Weston, a nephew of Harris. While they both started out at the same time, in the same position, Weston has steadily advanced into the position of Southside regional manager. In his defense, Harris argues that although Pryor is a faithful employee who regularly puts in extra hours, he lacks what it takes to be anything more than a bagger. Ultimately, he points out if Harris isn't happy with his pay or position, he should go out and look for something else. What would be just?
Example Case 2: Floyd v. Board of Education. Alice Floyd, a junior at Horatio High School, brings in a case against the Richmond Board of Education. She claims that her right to free speech is being violated because she was suspended for wearing a home made t-shirt to school that says, "Horatio High is a Tyranny. Bring the Revolution." She argues that her shirt was designed to raise discussion about the school's strict security and discipline policies. She also points out that it is academically relevant, because it builds on the ideas and themes of the American Revolution that she studied in her US History class. Mark Rodgers, the principal of Horatio, backed by the school board, argues that not only is the statement on the shirt false, but it encourages students to challenge authority and revolt against administration. He says for the sake of maintaining basic order at the school he needs to censor the shirt. What would be just?
Through class discussion these cases should bring up a number of issues related to the core democratic principles. For example, case one leads us to ask questions such as: Should there be some degree of economic equality in our country? Are there adequate measures to ensure equality of opportunity in the workplace? Is nepotism antithetical to our notions of equality and justice? Does Harris's argument about Pryor's freedom to get another job justify possible discrimination? Case two leads to questions such as: What are the reasonable limits of free speech? Are there different standards for free speech for adults and juveniles? In both cases, there would be opportunity for introducing new twists (e.g. Harris is white, Pryor is black), levels of evidence (information about security policies at the school), and supplemental materials to help students (laws concerning discrimination in the workplace or speech within schools).
Objective 2 - The student will understand the tension between the egalitarian principles of American democracy and the racial injustices that existed in early America.
Now that the students have put some work into expanding their definitions of the core democratic principles, the next objective involves applying this framework to early America to draw out the specific contradictions represented by Slavery and racial injustice. As I outlined in the foundation of this unit plan, in early America there was a persistent yet hidden (or veiled) subtext of racism that pervaded the writing on democracy and was used to justify the institution of slavery. Unlike the primary texts of democracy, these subtexts are rarely brought into the classroom or studied in depth. While any high school American history or literature textbook would certainly address the issues of slavery and racial injustice, they are often treated as secondary sidebars and footnotes to the primary narrative. This treatment has the effect of marginalizing their importance to the American experience. Instead of being read as foundational and persistent problems of America, they are passed off as minor setbacks that were overcome in our common trajectory toward American democracy. The point of this activity would be to unveil these subtexts of racism, analyze and critique their rhetorical structure, and then contrast them with the principles of democracy. I would like to develop this idea by juxtaposing and then categorizing both texts and images that illuminate this contradiction.
Activity 2 - Juxtaposition: Democratic Ideal and Harsh Reality
For this activity, students will work individually and in groups to analyze a variety of short texts and images from the 18 th and 19 th century. The texts and images will include works that build the idea of America as principled democracy as well as works that expose the contradictions. The students will be guided to base their analysis of each work on five main questions: (1) Author: What point of view does this work represent? (2) Claim: What is the claim this work is making? (3) Evidence: What evidence does it use to support its claim? (4) Pattern: In what ways is this work similar or different from other works we are examining? (5) Significance: Why is this important? The lesson will build these analytical skills of comparison and contrast first through whole-class activities and then with small group and independent work. The activity will conclude with students creating artwork that uses juxtaposition of text and imaged to make a point about the contradictions of American democracy. Below I have outlined the steps of the lesson.
Step 1 - Establishing a Spectrum of Democratic Principles. To begin this activity, the class will engage in a discussion to establish a spectrum related to the core democratic principles. On one end would be the ideals of democracy, liberty, equality and justice; on the opposite end would be tyranny, slavery, inequality, and injustice. This spectrum is obviously a simplification (there can be equality without liberty, or democracy without justice), however, it will serve as a starting point for the analysis of works and may be revised to reflect more complexity later.
Step 2 - Analyzing Texts. Next, as a class we would begin to analyze texts using the five analysis questions (see above) and then placing them on the spectrum according to the degree to which they resonate with the ideas at either end. The texts would include a wide variety of selections from 18 th and 19 th century America that represented a span of viewpoints. They might include excerpts from the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, Patrick Henry's Speech to the Virginia Convention as well as excerpts from Federalist #54, texts of slavery laws, fugitive slave posters, and selections from slave narratives. For the sake of exposing the students to a wide variety of pieces, the texts would be short excerpts (no more than a paragraph or two). This step would start with a whole class analysis of several works and then move to independent small group and individual work.
Step 3 - Analyzing Images. A similar process would take place with images. A point would be made to show students how images, like texts, have authors, make claims, use evidence, reflect patterns and have significance. As such, they can be analyzed along very similar lines. Possibilities for images would include 18 th and 19 th century paintings, illustrations and photographs that depicted both patriotic images as well as images of slavery. There would be an emphasis on having students make connections between images and texts.
Step 4 - Creating a Poster. To conclude this lesson, students will work either individually, or in groups to create a poster that uses the texts and images introduced through the lesson and the technique of juxtaposition to illuminate the contradictions of American democracy. For example the poster could juxtapose an image of Patrick Henry's Speech at the Virginia Convention with statistics of lynching in the southern states. In addition to creating the poster, the students would also be required to write an artist statement that discussed the original sources and explained the idea behind the work.
Objective 3 - The student will understand how African American writers of the early twentieth century discussed the tensions in American democracy as a basis for constructing both individual and collective African American identities.
With this objective, the unit shifts to a focus on early twentieth century African American Writing. Although there was certainly important work by African Americans produced prior to this time, the turn of the century was marked by a sharp increase in the variety, quality and sheer volume of literary and artistic production. And while it would be wrong to try to distinguish a singular African American literary or artistic voice from this period, there seem to be some common elements that make this group of writing a coherent body of work to study. Specifically, for the purposes of this unit, I want the students to see how several important figures in the turn of the century African American intellectual community addressed the tension between American ideals and the harsh realities of racial injustice. I want them to see that the work of these authors led to various beliefs about how the African American people should situate themselves both individually and collectively within the political cultural landscape of America. I believe exploring these ideas will be important for my students not only as a basis for studying the poetry and creative prose of the period, but also as a basis for tracking some of the major movements in African American thought throughout the twentieth century.
Activity 3 - African / American Identities
For this activity, the students will read, analyze, compare and contrast selections form the work of four prominent African American intellectuals from the time: Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey and James Weldon Johnson. I want the students to focus on the connections between the writers as well as the points at which their perspectives diverge. I have set up a series of five guiding questions that will help them compare and contrast the writers along these lines: (1) What is the writer's view on the history of slavery and its effect on African Americans? (2) What is the writer's opinion of the American democratic ideals? (3) How does the writer define what it means for an individual to be African American? (4) How does writer propose the African American community move forward? (5) What is the writer's opinion of white Americans and their role in Black enfranchisement? Beyond just reading and analysis, I also want this lesson to lead the students to personal reflection on these questions. For this reason, the lesson will begin and end with personal writing about this topic. Below is an outline of the steps of this lesson.
Step 1 - Personal Reflection. The first step in this lesson is to have the students enter the topic from a personal level by completing some informal writing on the guiding questions and engaging in a classroom discussion.
Step 2 - Background Information on Writers. Before beginning work on the primary texts of this lesson, we will research background information on the period and the writers. I will provide some of this information through packet readings. I will then have the students brainstorm additional questions about the authors and answer them with internet and library research.
Step 3 - Reading and Analyzing Works. In class we will work through each of the following readings (or selections from these readings) using the guiding questions set up for this lesson.
Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery, Chapter 1, A Slave among Slaves.
W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, Chapter 1, Of Our Spiritual Strivings
Marcus Garvey, The Future as I See It
James Weldon Johnson, Preface to the Book of American Negro Poetry
These readings are of varying degrees of difficulty. The more difficult works will be supported by short vocabulary lessons, reading guides and comprehension checks.
Step 4 - Personal Essay. To conclude the lesson students will construct a formal essay that addresses the guiding questions of the unit. The students will be able to draw on the initial writing they completed on this topic at the beginning of the lesson, as well as on the work of the writers that we read. This essay will go through at least two full drafts.
Objective 4 - The student will understand the explosion of African American poetry in the early twentieth century as, in part, an artistic and political response to the tension between American ideals and racial injustice.
This next objective moves on to examine the poetic production of four African American poets from the turn and the beginning of the twentieth century (James Weldon Johnson, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Claude McKay, and Langston Hughes). Essentially, I want the students to see how the work of these poets reflect the various ideas about African American identity expressed by the writers in the previous lesson. For this reason the poems we read will focus directly on the issues of African American identity and its relationship to the principles of democracy. Beyond just the content of the poetry, I also want to explore this collection of writing historically by examining the forms and modes of literary production each writer used to break into the public discourse. This was a time when the quantity and variety of publications was growing quickly. I feel it is important for students to see the publication of work as an act of speech that has impact on the social political world. I will try to accomplish this goal with a lesson that moves from research on the period and authors, to reading and analysis of poetry, and concludes with student creative responses to the poems.
Activity 4 - Reading Poems / Writing Poems
There are two major goals of this activity. First, I want the students to read, analyze and appreciate the writing of these poets. I want them to analyze the poems first for their formal aesthetic qualities and use of poetic devices, and then use this analysis to draw conclusions about the poem's social political content. Along these lines, we will use the same core questions from objective three to understand the poet's perspective on the issue of Black identity in America. The second goal of this activity is to get the students to write their own poems on this topic using similar styles and forms. The poems the students create during this lesson will possibly be revised, shared, and edited for publication. The steps laid out below will be repeated for each poet studied.
Step 1 - Background Information on Poet. We will open our study of each poet with a brief biography that outlines the experiences that may have influenced his poems. There may be supplemental activities that ask students to do further research about the poets.
Step 2 - Reading Poetry. Students will work individually and in small groups to read a small collection of a poet's work (2-5 poems) and analyze them according to the questions laid out in objective three. The following is a list of the poets and poems that may be covered in this activity.
James Weldon Johnson: "Lift Every Voice and Sing," "Brothers," "O Black and Unknown Bards"
Paul Laurence Dunbar: "Sympathy," "We Wear the Mask," "Ode to Ethiopia," "Philosophy," "The Colored Soldiers"
Langston Hughes: "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," "I, Too," "Let America be America Again" "Harlem" "Letter to the Academy," "Democracy"
Claude McKay: "If We Must Die," "The White House," "America," "To the White Fiends"
Step 3 - Writing Poetry. After learning about each poet and reading each poet's collection of poems, the students will write one poem in the style of that writer. They will be encouraged to use the formal poetic techniques of the poet and to address relevant thematic content. Some of these poetic responses will go through additional drafts and be used for the class publication.
Objective 5 - The student will understand their freedom to publish as a form of opposition to injustice and a way of establishing an empowered political identity.
When teaching content related to social justice, I believe it is extremely important for students to go beyond analysis of injustice and use their new understandings and skills to take action on the world around them. Often, the failure to take action when teaching about injustice leads to apathy and despair. I believe creating a publication for the classroom and community is an especially relevant concluding activity for this unit because it fulfills the call of writers such as Du Bois and Johnson who challenged African Americans to step up and have their voices heard in the American cultural discourse. Although we are reading these writers 100 years later, their ideas are no less relevant, and their call to action is no less urgent.
Activity 5 - Student Publication
For many years I have worked on curriculum for creating student publications. For this unit I would like to work with the students to publish the writings they have completed on democracy and justice throughout the unit. These writings would include their personal essays and their poetry. Upon completion, this publication would be released to the school and community with the hope of raising public awareness and dialogue. There are many forms a classroom publication can take. Some are very simple and can be accomplished in a single class period; others are more ambitious endeavors that can take up weeks of in-class and after-school time. No matter what the form, having students work published and distributed is powerful. There are many sources online that provide models and templates for classroom publications.
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