Literature, Life-Writing, and Identity

Classroom Activities

From the Young Adult literature classic Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli:

“Maniac kept trying, but he still couldn't see it, this color business. He didn't figure he was white any more than the East Enders were black. He looked himself over pretty hard and came up with at least seven different shades and colors right on his own skin, not one of them being what he would call white (except for his eyeballs, which weren't any whiter than the eyeballs of the kids in the East End). Which was all a big relief to Maniac, finding out he wasn't really white, because the way he figured, white was about the most boring color of all."²¹

Some of the texts in this unit make assumptions or, at least, generalizations about what the main dominant culture is in America – white culture, and what the main suppressed culture is in America – black culture. And it is important to call attention to this American condition to illuminate and eliminate it. However, not every individual is unaware or uncaring or uninvolved in this “cause.” Some don’t need as much illumination, as it were, while still realizing the need for elimination. Like Maniac Magee, a lot of my diverse student population is better at not seeing color. The same is true for many if not most educators I know, and I very much hope is generally true of educators. The following classroom activities will labor under the presumption that most people reading and/or implementing this, and the students for which it is intended, are already starting from a platform, a basis of generally non-discriminatory (or at least not intentionally discriminatory) views of life and people and America. In short, these activities, really this whole unit, assumes the best of people. If we don’t start with that hope, what this unit is attempting will be much more difficult.

While this unit takes on many different cultures, backgrounds, and identities, we start with the black-white divide.

Citizen: An American Lyric and “White Fragility” 

Journal/Warm-ups

With each sub-section in Classroom Activities we will explore possible warm-up questions and/or journal prompts to use with these resources. For this section I encourage the following:

• What purpose does a multimedia approach (the use of verse, narrative, and images combined) serve for the larger conversation?
• Why is cultural awareness important? What are the dangers of cultural insensitivity?
• What is the significance of Rankine’s consistent use of the pronoun “you” in Citizen? What does this say about our experience and how we relate it to others?
• How does the use of images impact Rankine’s message?

The main activity for this section are converse responses to multimedia, synthesizing different media and responding to it in order to exhibit understanding. For excerpts from Citizen, students will respond analytically, exploring in writing their response to the work, as well as analysis. Students will partner to revise each other’s analyses and rate whether they are asking deep questions, exploring higher order thoughts, and we will come back as a class to share and analyze – making concrete what Rankine has done in the abstract.

For “White Fragility,” students will be asked to pick what they perceive as the most provocative, controversial aspect of the piece (or, simply, what they believe the unenlightened would have the biggest problem with) and formulate an artistic response: generally visual art, but students can utilize any of the five main artistic disciplines to illustrate their response to this often dense and analytical work. They can respond in art, poetry or creative writing, dance, a skit, or musical response.

“Olikoye” and “The Danger of a Single Story”

Journal/Warm-ups

• What do you imagine when you hear the phrase, “single story”?
• What is the importance of our names?
• What cultures or stories of others would you be interested in exploring outside your own?

To respond to the work of Adichie, students will mostly be exploring. They will research in groups information about Nigeria and Olikoye Ransome-Kuti. They will team up to explore the differences between Yoruba and Bini cultures. They will research popular Nigerian names and ruminate on the difference between those and American names. How do they sound different? What about these different parts of the world do you think influences our names?

Transgender Voices: Janet Mock and Geena Rocero  

Journal/Warm-ups

• Write about an experience you have had that you believe to be integral to who you are today.
• What unique aspects of Mock’s and/or Rocero’s experiences do you think were the most challenging? The most rewarding?

When exploring the words and experiences of Mock and Rocero, students will mostly be reacting, both to the prompts listed above and to inquiry of their own. This is an opportunity to have students formulate questions about differences in lifestyle, and navigating the world based on who we are, who we feel we are, and who we want to be.

Incorporating quotes from Maniac Magee and Maya Angelou

At this point in the unit it’s about time to lighten things up a bit. We have looked at hard truths and analyses, now we must take a moment to share our common quality – the fact that we, all of us, are humans. We are, genetically, nearly identical. The Maya Angelou quote in the begging of this unit, “we are more alike my friends than we are unalike,”²² is from her poem “Human Family,” a beautiful, inspiring poem about acceptance, interest in, and celebration of our differences. And it reminds us that, yet, these differences are all shades of the same color, so to speak: that of the human family. That we are all studying these topics together is itself a reminder of this, and we should take time to acknowledge that. Both the Angelou quote and the Spinelli quote at the beginning of this section (about a young white orphan boy who at a young age was never taught about race, and is glad to discover that no color on his body matches what people refer to as “white”) are great class-starters, warm-ups, journal prompts, or simply bases for discussion. 

Life-Writing: the Personal Narrative

Students will combine learning from these previous sections to develop a memoir of their own experience, their own life-writing: the Personal Narrative. They will explore their own experience to include what they have learned. They might compare their lives to that of a Nigerian person they research, or a transgendered person. Perhaps they qualify among those categories and wish to compare their experience to that of an American, or cis-gendered person. However they come at it, they will tell two stories: their own, and comparing their own to that of another or others.

Building up to this important project, students will do practiced writing concerning both themselves and the topics and sources we have explored. They will have done several journal entries and responses to warm-up prompts and may refer to them at any time during this process. I will also ask them to consider, along the way, what they would bring to their own memoir in the format of shorter writing assignments. When we explore Citizen, they will have written about any adverse experience they have observed or been through personally. When exploring transgender voices, they will have written about their philosophy on overcoming obstacles. Finally, they will have a short writing assignment before I set them off to craft their Personal Narrative – they will write about their past vs. their present selves. In what ways have they grown, evolved, changed, or even regressed. What are their disappointments and triumphs? How do they perceive themselves with regard to their family and friends? The more we can prompt them to explore about themselves with detail, the better setup they will be for success in this assignment.

American Born Chinese and Literary Analysis

Students will craft a careful literary analysis based on what they’ve previously learned about their own and other cultures, analyzing Jin’s experience and how the author presents that experience though not one, but three different stories.

Students will begin this exploration with similar activities to their foundational short writing leading up to the Personal Narrative. They will explore in writing whether they have experienced or observed similar hardships, questions, or longings similar to Jin. If they have not, what do they think they would do if confronted with those of Jin?

Students will use what they have learned throughout this unit to consider Jin’s experience as a counter-story. Why is it important to tell and to hear this story? What is the significance of the format (it being presented through a graphic novel)?  

To analyze a piece of literature is an advanced task for a 9^th grader, and again, the more detail, the more examples of what exactly to look for when they set out, the more likely they will be successful in this endeavor. And they indeed endeavor here to both read, analyze and write well, and to view themselves and others as important members of this world.

This unit is designed to be implemented over the course of several months: 1 to 2 for the multicultural studies and memoir, and 1 to 2 for novel study and literary analysis. Like any attempt to undertake a survey of different cultures, I feel remiss to disinclude any culture based on time constraints, although I have done so here. I encourage educators to expand the scope of this unit to include stories of any and all cultures they may feel are relevant to their students and/or the skills outlined in this unit. I have included a few (although still regretfully limited) further suggestions in the Teacher Resources section below.