General Introduction

• The overarching goal of our African American narrative unit is to enhance our students’ abilities to read, write, and think critically by addressing the culturally and linguistically diverse demographics of our class in a manner that engages the interest of low achievement students, while also challenging the high achievement students. We plan to assign students to both heterogeneous and differentiated groupings, and to draw upon multiple schools of critical theory (including, but not limited to reader response, historicism, and social critical) to help accomplish this task.

Rationales for Various Activities and Methods of Instruction

• KWL allows us, as teachers, to discover what students already know about slavery and race relations in America, accounts for students’ interests by asking them what they would like to know, and marks what the students have learned throughout the unit.

• The timeline not only provides students with historical context from which to approach the texts, but also presents them with opportunities to engage in online research and hands-on learning.

• A Word Wall will be posted in the classroom to help students to identify and review difficult new vocabulary that appears in the texts.

• DRTA will help the students who struggle with reading by breaking down passages into manageable, comprehensible sections.

Rationales for Various Activities and Methods of Instruction (continued)

• Request Reciprocal Teaching allows the teacher to model analytical and critical questioning so that the students can better relate “good questioning” practices to critical writing.

• Dialogue Journals use a form of Reader Response criticism that relates significant quotations or passages in the left column to critical interpretations or responses in the right column.

• As a mode of writing in a technological context, blogging will decrease students’ resistance to writing while also giving them an opportunity to showcase their work publicly.

• The Telegram Writer activity will challenge students to practice comprehension and summarization skills.

• The What’s In a Name project is an exercise in both symbolism and character analysis.

List of Readings

• The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings – Olaudah Equiano• Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl – Harriet Jacobs• The Autobiography of Malcolm X• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass – Frederick Douglass• “The Song of Ourselves” – Chinua Achebe• “The Ballot or the Bullet” transcript – Malcolm X

Day 1

• Introduce the topic of slavery with KWL– What the students know, what they want to

know, and, later, what they have learned

• Show brief multimodal presentation on slavery

• Introduce http://www.blogger.com with handout, and guide students through account creation.

• Preview Day 2’s timeline activity.

Blogs

• User name should be student’s first name and last initial.• Student must subscribe to teacher’s blog after creating

his or her own.• Clear expectations about form & content

– “Formal” writing style; be sure to proofread before posting– In class responses are 1-2 paragraphs– Outside responses are 2-3 paragraphs

• The entry titles should correspond with titles listed on syllabus

• Students can receive extra credit for responding thoughtfully to one another’s blog posts.

Day 2

• Explain the purpose of the timeline.• Divide class into heterogeneous groups that will

research and add significant dates to the timeline. Five groups:– Equiano

http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schooladventures/slavery/equiano_sailor.html

– Jacobs http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/JACOBS/hj-timeline.htm

– Malcolm X http://www.malcolm-x.org/bio/timeline.htm– Frederick Douglass

http://www.nps.gov/history/museum/exhibits/douglass/time.htm– Significant events in African American history: i.e. 13th

Amendment, Brown v. Board, Civil Rights Act

Day 3

• Introduction: pages ix-xii• Pass out highlighters. Have students read

silently and highlight (1) the places Equiano traveled to and (2) words they do not know.

• Then have the students pin point the locations on large map on wall.– Locate: Nigeria, West Indies, England,

America, Middle Passage

Day 4

• Word Rally – Vocabulary taken from Equiano• Split class into 5 heterogeneous groups. Assign each

group a reading from Equiano’s autobiography that deals with one of the 5 locations identified on Day 3.

• General questions written on board. Answers will be submitted on blogger.com

• Distribute post-it notes to be used to take notes on questions. Instruct students to stick the note on the page where they find the answer to each question. This enables students to reference their readings and ideas while they are typing their homework on blogger.com

Day 4 (continued)

• Group Page Assignments– Nigeria: 38-40, 50-55– Middle Passage: 55-61– Barbados: 95, 101-105– America: 62-66 (include passage to and from)– England: 67-69, 77-79

• Questions:– How do you think white culture was portrayed in the

passage your group read? Positively or negatively? Use evidence to support your answer.

– What were the conditions of slavery in this area?

Day 5

• First part of class will be used for students to finish typing their answers on blogger.com at computer lab

• Hold a class discussion where students present their findings.

• Write student findings under the corresponding location on the map which is posted on a wall in computer lab.

• Have the students add to the "L" part of the KWL chart finishing the discussion about the differences in slavery among the locations

Day 6

• Review Harriet Jacobs portion of the timeline.• Listen to audio of Alice Gaston’s and Irene

Williams’ memories of slavery• Read pages 26-28 and 47-51 using Request

Reciprocal Teaching, and model appropriate higher-level questioning that goes beyond mere plot summary.

• “If God has bestowed beauty upon her, it will prove her greatest curse. That which commands admiration in the white woman only hastens the degradation of the female slave” (Jacobs 27).

Day 7• Divide class into 5 heterogeneous groups.• Groups read pages 41-47 and are assigned a

set of characters from the section to focus on.• Each group must come up with a creative way

to summarize and present what happens to each set of characters. Group with the best presentation receives EC.

• Incorporate word wall.

Day 8

• Read Achebe’s “The Song of Ourselves” as a class using DRTA. Discuss how the proposed justifications for colonization relate to slavery.

• Follow by reading Frederick Douglass’ account of his fight with his master. Teacher reads as two volunteers interpret the scene using tableau.

• To end the class, add to the KWL chart.

Day 9• Pass out transcripts of “The Ballot or the Bullet” speech and

immediately play http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO6Co8v2XjY• Malcolm X poses the question: Can you be an American without an

African identity?• What does it mean to be African American? What does it mean to

be a minority in America and do you agree with what Malcolm is saying?

• Start reading “Satan” (pp. 154-158)• Explain and hand out Dialogue Journals, and read and react as

class.• Put unknown vocabulary on Word Wall.• Blog Assignment: pp. 159-167 Malcolm X says that “history had

been ‘whitened’ in the white man’s history books, and that the black man had been ‘brainwashed for hundreds of years’” (165). What do you think he means by this?

Day 10• Review and read several Dialogue Journals aloud in class and

make connections between students• Finish “Satan” (pp. 168-171) Teacher read to students• Model fluent oral reading: “read aloud serves as a place for

students to hear fluent oral reading. Reading acquisition for students with reading difficulties and some English language learners can be inhibited by their own disfluent reading” (Improving Adolescent Lit p. 80)

• Summarizing: Telegram Writer/ Call Phone Message Writer: You are a reporter on the scene who can only communicate through your cell phone message service. You have to get all the important details down with as few words as possible and send them off.

• In Class Assignment: Using as few words as possible to convey Malcolm X’s message and point of view increases ability to write meaningfully.

Day 11• Begin “What’s In A Name Project”• 1. Work collaboratively to evaluate four stages in the life of Malcolm

X: the periods he was known as Malcolm Little, Detroit Red, Malcolm X, and el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz

• Procedures• 1. On the board, create a list of the names Malcolm X used.

Malcolm X was born in 1925 as Malcolm Little. He was known as Detroit Red in the early 1940s, took the name of Malcolm X in 1952, and finally changed his name to el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz in 1964.

• 2. Ask students why a person would take a name, either legally or casually, other than his or her birth name? What do names tell us about a person? Are there any students in the class who prefer to use a nickname in place of their birth name? Why?

• 3. Now separate the class into groups of four, assigning each group a name from a period in Malcolm X’s life: Malcolm Little, Detroit Red, Malcolm X, el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz.

Day 11 (continued)Character Analysis 1. Which name are you analyzing?2. How old was Malcolm when he used this name?3. What important events happened in his life during this time?4. What influences did he have at this time, religious or otherwise?5. What opinions did he have about violence?7. Did he have any opinions on the African American identity or civil rights in

the United States?8. Personality summary: How did his experiences shape his life and the

choices he made?

• Have a representative from each group share 1-2 comments they feel will most benefit the other groups.

• *Weekend extra credit blog assignment: Read “The Autobiography’s” forward by Atallah Shabazz. Blog 2-3 questions you have for her!

Day 12

• Atallah Shabazz visits as a guest speaker

• Ms. Shabazz will talk about her experiences being the daughter of Malcolm X, and her reaction to some of his more controversial views. How does she feel when reading his autobiography?

• Field extra credit questions from the class.

Day 13• Introduction to THE GREAT PANEL

– Explain debate assignment:– Students will be broken up into five groups of five.– Each group will be responsible for answering one question (given to

them by the teacher). One representative from that group will be responsible for reading their written response paper, but all five students will field questions from the rest of the class.

– There will be another English class working on the same project, and we will conduct our panel discussions as one large group over the next two days.

– As an audience you will be responsible for preparing at least one question to ask any panel, and your participation grade will reflect your involvement in the questioning process.

– Interaction and discussion between panelists and audience members is encouraged.

– Break up into groups and go into the computer lab.

*The Great Panel Rubric*

• Your grade will reflect your research of Malcolm X’s opinions on your topic, and your close reading of “The Autobiography.”

• You must use at least two quotations from “The Autobiography” to support your claims.

• In order to get full credit, you MUST include in your paper ideas, opinions, quotations, or historical information from Harriet Jacobs and Olaudah Equiano.

Day 14

• Continue research in the lab/library.

• Groups must submit a progress report by the end of the period: a paragraph outlining the basic ideas their papers will cover.

Day 15

• Alas, THE GREAT PANEL!

ISBE Standards• 1B4a: Preview reading materials, clarify meaning, analyze overall themes

and coherence, and relate reading with information from other sources. • 1C4f: Interpret tables, graphs and maps in conjunction with related text. • 2B4a: Critique ideas and impressions generated by oral, visual, written and

electronic materials.• 3A4a: Use standard English to edit documents for clarity, subject/verb

agreement, adverb and adjective agreement and verb tense; proofread for spelling, capitalization and punctuation; and ensure that documents are formatted in final form for submission and/or publication.

• 3C4b: Using available technology, produce compositions and multimedia works for specified audiences.

• 4B4a: Deliver planned informative and persuasive oral presentations using visual aids and contemporary technology as individuals and members of a group; demonstrate organization, clarity, vocabulary, credible and accurate supporting evidence.

• 5C4c: Prepare for and participate in formal debates.

http://standards.isbe.net