Why Literature Matters

Introduction

When I first read A Streetcar Named Desire as a senior in high school, there were so many elements that were beyond my understanding as a young reader; the part that I found most perplexing was the ending, with Stella sending Blanche away to a mental institution.  My junior- and senior-level students generally have a “family-first” mentality, and when I teach the play for the first time, I anticipate that they will have difficulty coming to terms with Stella’s decision because it entails choosing legal family over a blood relative.  Because this drama is such a rich representation of literature, there are many reading guides available to help students make meaning of the text; much of the literary criticism focuses on Tennessee Williams’ representation of women, portraying them as victims in this play.  I would like my students, however, to examine it through the lens of a cultural studies theorist with an emphasis on the historical context of the work.  I also will have my students use their prior knowledge of Anton Chekhov’s writing as one avenue into an unconventional analysis of Williams’ play.  Given all of the background information as well as detailed study of the text, the question I plan to pose to my students in order to analyze Stella’s decision to send Blanche away is:  In what ways is Stella’s sending Blanche away (but calling after her) representative of the time period?  If Williams’ play makes social commentary on post-war American values, my students can determine the commentary by using evidence from the text.

School Profile

Back of the Yards College Preparatory High School is a neighborhood high school located on the southwest side of Chicago.  It is an International Baccalaureate (IB) world school; students must apply to the school for admission.  Application requirements for the IB Diploma Programme (DP) preparation track include a minimum percentile of 24 in both reading and math on the Northwest Evaluation Association Measures of Academic Progress (NWEA MAP) and a minimum 2.5 GPA in 7th grade.  Individualized Education Program (IEP) and English-Language Learner (ELL) students must have a minimum combined percentile of 48 in reading and math on NWEA MAP and minimum 2.5 GPA in 7th grade.  There are no minimum requirements for students who apply to the IB “Middle Years Programme (MYP) for All” track, but priority is given to students from the six neighboring elementary schools:  Chavez, Daley, Hamline, Hedges, Lara, and Seward.  A small percentage of seats is available for students attending other neighborhood elementary schools through a computerized lottery each year.¹ The school’s racial and ethnic demographics are comprised of 98.6% minority students: 89.3% of students are Hispanic; 5.7% of students are Asian; 3.3% are Black; 1.4% are White; and 0.2% identify as “Other.”  Low-income students comprise 96.7% of the population.  Students who have been identified as Diverse Learners form 8.6% of the student body.  “Limited English” students make up 9.7% of the student body.  The school’s student mobility rate is 6.1%.² Once students have completed the 9^th and 10^th grades, they may apply for admission to either the IB DP or the IB Career Program (CP) or enroll in individual Advanced Placement (AP) classes of their choice for their 11^th- and 12^th-grade years of study.  The school is a new facility, and this year is an especially important year as we enter our fourth year of serving students; this year’s seniors will be our first graduates! 

Course Profile

This curriculum unit has been developed as the first of four related units that will be studied and taught after Thanksgiving break through spring break; this time period consists of just over fifteen weeks in our school calendar, or 65 instructional hours.  The course is Year 2 of the two-year IB Language A:  Literature course, which is for students in the IB DP and CP, all of whom are 12^th-grade students; we will study Parts 2 and 3 of the IB Literature curriculum over the course of the year.  This unit falls under the Part 3, Literary Genres portion of the course, which is offered at Higher Level (at Higher Level, students engage in a two-year course of study with a minimum requirement of 240 hours of study for thirteen works over the two years).  Per the IB Language A:  Literature guide, Part 3 works must be selected from the IB Prescribed List of Authors (PLA) for the language studied (English), all from the same genre.³  The four works in this part are all post-war dramas:  the work used for this curriculum unit, Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire (1947); Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (1949); Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night (1956); and Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962).  I plan to spend four weeks teaching A Streetcar Named Desire.

All of the students enrolled in this course will sit for the IB exams in May 2017.  These exams have incredibly high stakes for low-income students, all of whom have plans to attend four-year universities or to enroll in two-year city colleges and later transfer to four-year post-secondary institutions, and most of whom will be first-generation college students.  High marks on these exams often equate to college credit for the students, and when money is a factor in college persistence, not only do high marks serve as an indicator of success or excellence, they also have a price-tag attached for individual students.  For this reason, I do not want to discount the importance of preparing my students for the external assessment related to Part 3 of this course, Paper 2.  Paper 2 is a two-hour timed essay that comprises 25% of the weight for students’ Language A (English) mark toward the IB diploma or career certificate.  Some of the activities discussed in the teaching strategies below directly relate to preparation for Paper 2.