Objectives
While the learning in this unit is hopeful that students will come away with more than reading and writing practice, we will also consider these skills while exploring the many facets of multicultural study. Students will come away with several understandings beyond the fact that reading is fundamental to both their success within the parameters of the learning herein, and understanding of the human condition and themselves.
Students will explore and analyze “counter-stories” to the dominant American culture, including perspectives of: African-Americans, transgendered people, Nigerians, women, Chinese-Americans, people who grew up in poverty, people at an intersection of two or more of these, and more. We will spend time on stories presented in standard text format such as short stories and essays, as well as poems, videos, and multimedia pieces like graphic novels and multimedia books of poetry, narrative, and visual art. If the purpose of utilizing multicultural study is to challenge our thinking by exploring the perspectives of people other than ourselves, then the purpose of utilizing multimedia formats is to further complicate our thinking and engagement while experiencing these stories.
Students will tackle these topics and formats in order to construct two important products. First, after analyzing and exploring the stories and experiences of others, they will once again look inward in order to craft their own Personal Narratives, or Memoirs. Students will be able to synthesize themes in multicultural works by describing their own such experiences using the source texts and videos as inspiration for both content and style, and class discussions and analysis of said sources as evidence.
Students will then combine both skills and synthesis from multicultural and multimedia sources into the study of both – a counter-story graphic novel – in order to construct a literary analysis. After reading American Born Chinese (2006) by Gene Luen Yang, students will be able to construct an in-depth literary analysis, showing both learning from the previous multicultural texts as well as revelations, new ideas, and “a-ha moments” bread of both.
In order to accomplish all of this, we will explore and celebrate the significance of stories to our human identity.
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