Guide Entry to 26.04.07
“Writing as a Form of Resistance” is a five-to-six-week long unit that focuses on allowing students to see a mental shift in their mindset on things that they should value the most. It asks real questions, and explores hard truths, through real life texts and letters from excerpts from the The Freedom Writers Diary and The Diary of a Young Girl. I want them to really grasp the importance of resistance and how they can see it happening in the world around them.
This unit is going to challenge my students’ way of thinking by opening their mindset of what their lives would and could look like if they refuse to learn about the situations the world faces. All of that comes in the form of education. I want them to understand that there is a purpose for every part of their education, and that when they reject education, they are also rejecting the very tool that is going to keep them living in a just society. I will be mainly using excerpts from the book The Freedom Writers, so they can see how they move from distrusting the person teaching them, to showing how they can use their voice to create responsible decisions for themselves.
By connecting real-life texts to their own rea- life scenarios, we will create a community of engaging students that can look at the broader pictures of everyday struggles, and make good, rounded, conscious decisions about their next steps.
(Developed for English 1, grade 9)
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