Text Selections
In this unit, students explore texts for models of adapting, changing, and bolstering identity. The first two texts in this unit are teacher-selected but students will have a chance to choose a third text that mirrors their own experiences or simply includes stories students wish to explore. Because students are at a range of reading levels, I’ll combine out-of-class reading assignments with in-class support including discussion, close-reading analysis, and graphic organizers. Although the texts are introduced briefly here, I offer examples of analysis and identity work throughout the next section.
The first unit text is Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan. The novel follows the protagonist, Esperanza Ortega, from her wealthy upbringing in Aguascalientes, Mexico, through dramatic changes. The sudden murder of her father leaves her family fortune controlled by ill-intentioned family members and forces her to flee to the United States with her mother and three servants.
The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis is the second text. Set in Afghanistan, it centers on an eleven-year-old protagonist, Parvana, and her family, who struggle to adjust to the major life changes caused by Taliban control. When her father is violently arrested, the family is plunged into deeper poverty. Since Parvana is the only household member who can possibly pass as a male child, she dresses as a boy in order to gain access to the outside world.
The third book is individually selected by students. Although I’ll provide a list of books with brief explanations on the changes and challenges the protagonists face, students may search in our school library, the public library, and elsewhere for books that catch their interest.
We’ll also examine a variety of poems including “The Pruned Tree” by Howard Moss and Langston Hughes’ “Dreams” and “Mother to Son.” “The Pruned Tree” personifies a tree as it views its recently loss of limbs as a chance to take a new shape and to interact with the world in a fresh way. Despite his wounds, the tree oozes with optimism for a future where his losses fuel crisp new growth. While the tree affirms its own identity during a moment of challenge, “Mother to Son” features a parent’s voice urging her son to keep moving forward in the face of difficulties. The mother contextualizes her son’s struggles in the breadth of her own difficult life.
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