How do the tensions between the individual and society manifest themselves in the literature we read?
11th Grade American Literature
Natalie Sotelo
EDUC463, Fall 2010
Introduction: Course Overview
Course Description
American Literature- 11th Grade
Prerequisites: World Literature and Composition
Recommended for college-bound juniors or seniors, this course is designed as a study of representative works of American Literature. In addition to the literature, the history and culture of each period are studied. Terms of literary analysis are studied and applied. The course also includes vocabulary study, history of words study, preparation for college tests, and composition.
Teaching Context
The anticipated classroom for the following yearlong curriculum plan is an 11th grade American Literature course at Rocky Mountain High School in the Poudre School District serving the city of Fort Collins, Colorado. Ideally, the class size would range from 25-30 students. Though this is a level 11 course, students’ ages will range from 16 to 18 years old.
School Information:
1300 West Swallow Road
Fort Collins 80526
United States
History: Rocky Mountain High School (RMHS) opened in 1973 and was expanded and renovated during the 1994–95 school year. From the beginning, Rocky has focused on excellence in academic and extracurricular endeavors. We have developed a tradition of being on the cutting edge of educational reform.
Learning culture: Rocky Mountain High School inspires, guides, and supports our students, faculty, and staff to reach their maximum potential in a caring, challenging, and safe environment.
Academic environment: Rocky Mountain features a schedule which consists of four 9-week terms per year and four 90-minute classes per day. There is a 50-minute common lunch period for students and staff, as well as an early morning 50-minute period for students in specific curriculum areas. This schedule creates opportunities for students to concentrate on fewer subjects at any one time while allowing students to take more courses per year. Rocky features large, well-lit learning spaces, advanced learning technology systems, a variety of instructional spaces, a unique student commons area and courtyard, a state-of-the-art media center, a modern fitness center and athletic facilities, and exceptional performing arts areas.
Test Scores: Total students tested: ACT – 506, SAT – 44, PSAT – 164
Mean Score / ACT / SAT / PSATEnglish / 22.1 / -- / --
Reading / 23.3 / 598 / 54.4
Writing / -- / 572 / 52.8
Math / 22.2 / 597 / 54.7
Science Reasoning / 22.5 / -- / --
Composite / 22.7
District and Community Information:
Fort Collins, Colorado, located 60 miles north of Denver, has an urban population of approximately 130,000. Colorado State University in Fort Collins is noted for its College of Engineering, College of Veterinary Medicine, and College of Business. Fort Collins is also home to Front Range Community College, Hewlett Packard, Woodward Governor, Water PikTechnologies,LSI Logic and Anheuser-Busch. The Poudre School District includestwo early childhood programs, thirty-twoelementary schools,ten middle schools, sixhigh schools, two charter schools and one online school. The total enrollment for Poudre School District is 25,960 with approximately 3,600 employees. The Fort Collins community is mostly white, 83.3%, with Hispanic coming in at the second largest race, 9.6%. About 94% of Fort Collins residents are educated through the high school level and higher.
http://www.psdschools.org/schools/rockymountain/aboutus/profile.aspx
Rationale for Overarching Theme
The overarching theme of the course is eminent because as long as there has ever been and will be the institution of society, by institution I mean a system with a set of beliefs, rules, norms that it imposes and enforces both formally and informally, there will be tensions between that institution and the individuals within it. The relevance of the overarching theme is derived from the importance for students to understand the power of society for both good and evil, and furthermore, where they position themselves in society. If they understand the dynamics of the relationship between society and the individual, they will be better equipped to maneuver between the inevitable tensions that will arise. In my 11th grade American Literature course, we will consider the texts and literature we encounter as a record of human experience, thus we will be looking for ways the tensions between the individual and society manifest themselves in the literature we read.
Conceptual Units
Fall Semester
Unit 1: Getting to Know You/Respecting Differences (Course Introduction)
Unit 2: Great Visions and Vast Short-sights (Writer’s Workshop)
Unit 3: Conflicting Needs and Desires (Author Study- Sherman Alexie)
Spring Semester
Unit 4: Power of Language
Unit 5: Idealisms and Realities
Unit 6: The Individual in Community (Course Synthesis)
Explanation:
In developing this yearlong curriculum, I have organized the units thematically with some minor attention to chronology. However, my first priority in deciding on unit placement was to order them in a way that mirrors the development of knowledge. That is, we start with a unit that introduces the questions at issue and provides a platform for dialogue and community in the classroom. The following four units delve further into the big questions of the course and require that students stretch their ability to think critically in regards to historical contexts, power structures in language and society, and the relationships and resulting tensions developed between the individual and society. These units create a space for questioning, exploring, testing and proving old and new knowledge. Finally the course concludes with a unit that helps students synthesize all that they have discovered throughout the year, articulate their own positions in society, and critically reflect on their personal growth.
Standards
This yearlong plan was constructed to align with the newly adopted Colorado Academic Standards for Reading, Writing, and Communicating.
How Standards are Addressed
Standard 1: Oral Expression and Listening
1. Verbal and nonverbal cues impact the intent of communication.
· In all units students take part in small and large group discussions of themes, stereotypes, writer’s craft and character development from literary texts.
2. Validity of a message is determined by its accuracy and relevance.
· In Unit 2 students listen to and analyze the sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”.
· In Unit 4 students listen to, perform, and analyze the speech “I Have a Dream”.
Standard 2: Reading for All Purposes
1. Complex literary texts require critical reading approaches to effectively interpret and evaluate meaning.
· In all units students will analyze literary components (e.g., tone, symbolism, irony, extended metaphor, satire, hyperbole) to interpret the themes of each text we read. For example, in Unit 4 students will discuss the symbolism of the Mississippi River in Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
· In Unit 3 students will discuss the historical allusions Sherman Alexie uses in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven in order to create a backdrop for the issues he explores, thus they will be able to explain how historical context lends itself to the form, style, and point of view of the work.
· In Unit 6 students will write reflections on the course and their personal growth in the course, synthesizing the themes across all of the multiple literary texts we have studied and providing support for those interpretations with specific examples.
· In Unit 6 students will also demonstrate their knowledge of classical foundational works of American literature through their personal reflections and portfolio of best work.
2. Ideas synthesized from informational texts serve a specific purpose.
· In Unit 4 students will explain nuances and connotations of the “protean n-word” (nigger) and draw conclusions about author’s intent as well as potential impact on an audience through the study of the word’s etymology.
· In Unit 6 students will make generalizations and draw conclusions from texts we have read over the course of the year, particularly from “On the Duty of Civil Responsibility”, and cite text-based evidence as support when they prepare notes for a Socratic seminar discussion.
Standard 3: Writing and Composition
1. Stylistic and thematic elements of literary or narrative texts can be refined to engage or entertain an audience.
· In Unit 1, while writing their memoir vignettes, students will practice organizing events, details, ideas and reflections or observations strategically to influence their audience’s emotions and understanding of the implicit theme.
· In Units 4 and 5 students will write literary and narrative texts using a range of stylistic devices (poetic techniques, figurative language, symbolism, graphic or visual components) to support their presentation of implicit or explicit themes while writing their choice poems and American Dream personal narratives.
· In Units 2 and 3 students will enhance the expression of voice, tone, and point of view by strategically using precise diction (considering denotation, connotation, and audience associations); diverse syntax; varied sentence patterns; and punctuation for stylistic effect when they write their literary analysis papers and research paper.
· In all units, and especially Unit 6 while preparing their final portfolios, students will evaluate and revise their work to eliminate unnecessary details, ineffective stylistic devices and vague or confusing language through participating in writers’ workshops.
2. Elements of informational and persuasive texts can be refined to inform or influence an audience.
· In Unit 2 students will articulate a position through a concise and focused claim or thesis statement, and advance it using evidence, examples, and counterarguments in their comparative literary analysis papers.
· In Unit 3, while composing their historical context research papers, students will locate and select appropriate information that clearly supports their purpose, topic, or position.
3. Writing demands ongoing revisions and refinements for grammar, usage, mechanics, and clarity.
· In all units students will participate in writing workshops to make ongoing revisions and refinements in their written assignments.
Standard 4: Research and Reasoning
4. Self-designed research provides insightful information, conclusions, and possible solutions.
· In Unit 2 students will develop a thesis statement to address and help guide their comparative literary analysis papers.
· In Unit 3, while conducting research for their historical context papers, students will evaluate quality, accuracy, and completeness of information and the bias, credibility and reliability of their sources.
· In both Units 2 and 3 students will write using MLA (Modern Language Association) format to document sources of quotations, paraphrases, and other information in their literary analysis and research papers.
5. Complex situations require critical thinking across multiple disciplines.
· In all units students will be required to analyze the logic of complex situations by questioning purpose, question at issue, information, points of view, implications and consequences inferences, assumptions and concepts when they make entries to their reader’s response journals and take part in discussions.
· In all units students monitor and assess the extent to which their own beliefs and biases influenced their reactions to the viewpoints and logic of others (authors of what they are reading) when they respond to their reading on their blog journals.
6. Evaluating quality reasoning includes the value of intellectual character such as humility, empathy, and confidence.
· In all units students must determine the extent to which they enter empathetically into competing points of view, exercise confidence in reason, recognize the limits of their knowledge on a topic (intellectual humility), explore alternative approaches to solving or addressing complex problems (intellectual flexibility), and be open to constructive critique (intellectual open-mindedness) as they take part in class discussions and complete readings of texts as records of human experience.
Standards Summary Table
Standards / Unit 1 / Unit 2 / Unit 3 / Unit 4 / Unit 5 / Unit 61. Oral Expression and Listening / 1.1 / 1.1, 1.2 / 1.1 / 1.1, 1.2 / 1.1 / 1.1
2. Reading for All Purposes / 2.1 / 2.1 / 2.1 / 2.1, 2.2 / 2.1 / 2.1, 2.2
3. Writing and Composition / 3.1, 3.3 / 3.1, 3.2, 3.3 / 3.1, 3.2, 3.3 / 3.1, 3.3 / 3.1, 3.3 / 3.1, 3.3
4. Research and Reasoning / 4.2, 4.3 / 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 / 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 / 4.2, 4.3 / 4.2, 4.3 / 4.2, 4.3
Unit 1: Getting to Know You/Respecting Differences in Identity
(six weeks)
This unit will primarily serve as a course introduction. It is designed to help students identify their position in America and articulate their own beliefs and experiences. We will be exploring the issues of how we each identify as an American or not, family histories of coming to America, and the complexities of being of multiple heritages. We will seek to answer big questions such as: Is America a “melting pot” or “salad bowl”? What role does assimilation play on individuals in society? And to ill or good effect? The exploration of these questions and topics will set the tone for the rest of the course, and that is, we must know who we are and what we believe while we still endeavor to respect the differences we find in others.
Standards:
1. Oral Expression and Listening
1.1 Verbal and nonverbal cues impact the intent of communication.
2. Reading for All Purposes
2.1 Complex literary texts require critical reading approaches to effectively interpret and evaluate meaning.
3. Writing and Composition
3.1 Stylistic and thematic elements of literary or narrative texts can be refined to engage or entertain an audience.
3.3 Writing demands ongoing revisions and refinements for grammar, usage, mechanics, and clarity.
4. Research and Reasoning
4.2 Complex situations require critical thinking across multiple disciplines.
4.3 Evaluating quality reasoning includes the value of intellectual character such as humility, empathy, and confidence.
Texts:
The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros (novel)
“Woman Hollering Creek”, Sandra Cisneros (short story)
Assessments and Activities:
1.“This I Believe” Statement- students will write a 350-500 word essay articulating their key beliefs on what they think it means to be an American modeled after the "This I Believe" essays popularized on National Public Radio.
2. Family History Timeline Presentation- students will create a timeline depicting the history of how their family came to America and will present them to the class using a digital mode of their choice (approved by teacher in advance).