Content Objectives
The goal of my unit is to teach my students interpretation skills that will allow them to talk confidently about images using clear analytic language. It is my hope that this unit will enhance students' skills in the art of interpretation through close reading and analysis of the text, whether that text be a play, poem, sculpture, letter, painting, photograph or any other media. I want them to be able to support their opinions with appropriate evidence from the text and utilize academic language to express themselves both verbally and in writing.
The project will be interspersed throughout a semester as we continually return to a theme and challenge students to express their own thoughts and feelings about the ideas and images presented. Civil disobedience, a deliberate act of political protest, has been a part of the American tradition since the founding of our nation, and it seems to play a large role in modernity. As the tradition of civil disobedience spans such an enormous number of cultures and time periods across the globe, there is no way to comprehensively cover the topic. Instead, this 18-week curriculum unit is intended to intersperse throughout other units in the first semester of my 10 th grade English 2 course, providing case studies of specific moments beginning in 1776. These case studies are varied examples of instances when individuals deliberately defied the law as a means of expressing their belief in higher principles, or as a means of protecting the very society that created those laws. Progressing along the course of a semester, students will explore the theme of civil disobedience with a focus on moments such as the American Revolution, slavery, suffrage, World War II, segregation, Civil Rights, integration and the Occupy Wall Street Protests. Readings on each topic will pair with at least one piece of artwork (sculpture, photograph or painting) and an activity designed to create a deep understanding of the art and the narrative it depicts in hopes that they will elicit high levels of engagement among my students.
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