Through the simultaneous examination of the familiar, which is Westmoor High School and the community of Westlake in Daly City, and the exploration of the strange, New Orleans and its people, with the aid of the imagination, which is symbolized with the Tree of Life, I have the hope of creating awareness of our universal responsibilities as responsive stewards. This unit will use Documentary, Film and Literature as windows and snapshots of another 'world' to help us all perceive better the actual world, in hopes of becoming, as Mahatma Ghandi encouraged, "the change [we] wish to see." This unit, while containing particular texts and films to illuminate the two specific locales, above, is actually designed to teach the value of developing the Imagination in each of our students and to model the means to be responsive stewards and make meaningful and purposeful changes in our selves and in our communities. The texts and films within can be surrogated with others that are particular to any school's communities and any other large city in the world.

(Developed for Film as Literature, grades 11-12; recommended for English Literature and Film, Film as Literature, History, and Humanities, grades 11-12)