Teaching Situation And Rationale
I teach at a magnet school in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It has a diverse student body, ranging from those students who help support themselves and their families to those who are extremely wealthy. Specifically speaking, at Booker T. Washington High School, our current student body is 35% African American, 36% Caucasian, 3% Asian, 13% Hispanic, 9% Multi-Race, and 4% American Indian with 38% of our population on free and reduced lunch. My classroom reflects this diversity. Also, the two classes I teach, Pre-AP English II IB-MYP (focus on World Literature) and AP Language and Composition (focus on American Literature) and IBHL Literature I, have students with ranging abilities, so it is important that I differentiate and scaffold my instruction, as well as build in some flexibility for those students who need it. This unit will be written for my AP Language and Composition and my IBHL Literature classes, but I feel like the information and texts will be useful for other upper grade levels as well.
Objects and Artifacts: Teaching Historical Context
Art and artifacts can profoundly enhance teaching in the ELA classroom. Visual and material evidence enhances the understanding and analysis of whatever text you engage with. Yet, students often accept the visual image as simple representations of the world, as true. As educators, we need to challenge uncritical, passive modes of reading and looking. We should guide students to address invisible voices and encoded messages from art, artifacts, and literary works, looking at it from all angles and multiple perspectives. Students should always ask themselves when encountering any literary or visual work: Why is this considered important? Whose voices are being heard and whose are not? What is being left unsaid or ignored?
There is a layering of meaning and perspectives to consider when reading The Crucible, which is rooted in American history, its setting based on real events and its characters based on real people in a specific place, albeit fictionalized and exaggerated in many places for dramatic effect and metaphorical life lessons. It is in literary works like this play that we need to teach students to look beyond what is in front of them – to extract information, read between the lines to be able to decipher the message and truly understand and question the author's purpose. We must do the same with objects, art, and artifacts - you need to extract information and see beyond the subject matter to truly get a sense of the artist's intent or an object’s significance. Using objects and artifacts to elucidate a particular text will not only heighten student interest because of their visual, tactile natures, it will allow them to approach a topic they may be unfamiliar with an ease and openness that they would not have when encountering a piece of literature. Ulrich et al. writes how “focusing on a single object can generate excitement, prompt historical curiosity, and produce understanding.”1 Objects and art create a sense of wonder that supplements literature. The goal of this unit then is to use objects and artifacts as a lens to understand the historical context and to peel back the layers of meaning of The Crucible.
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