Sleiman 11
Make Your Voice Heard
How can writing bring about change?
How is poetry used/written to express beliefs and ideas?
Can one’s voice influence others and change the world?
How do communities influences our perception on other cultures/communities?
What are the inequalities you believe exist in the world and how can we combat these?
Honors English 10th Grade: 20 students
Jamillah Sleiman
CI 435E
Fall 2017
Rationale
Educational Philosophy: I believe that each student should be an educated active participant in societal issues. They should understand the power of educating themselves of different issues our society if facing, while also understanding the power they hold with the information.
Overview:
My unit covers a variety of topics (racism, discrimination, gender equality, etc.) and texts (The Hate U Give, All American Boys, Romeo and Juliet, etc.). Overall idea of the unit is the idea of empowering students to understand the importance of making one’s voice heard in times of discourse, when they are passionate about something, or when an issue needs to be discussed. Ultimately the unit can be split into 2 sections that reach this understanding of making your voice heard: The All American Boys and The Hate U Give section, and the Romeo and Juliet section each lasting approximately 4 weeks each. I chose All American Boys and The Hate U Give because they compliment each other well as they both deal with issues police brutality, issues that African Americans face today, and speaking up for what is right. Both of these texts are told from teenager perspectives and having both books paired together gives students the option of a story told from the female and male perspectives. Romeo and Juliet is text chosen to expose my students to a traditional form of poetry created by Shakespeare. I chose to pair this with All American Boys and The Hate U Give because all of these texts provide insights into the importance of speaking up for what is important. Starr Carterspeaking up about Khalil’s death, Quinn’s decision of if he should speak up for Rashad, or Romeo and Juliet’s lack of speaking up to their families about their love (inevitably leading to their deaths). I chose to pair these texts because they are able to show examples of how society will inevitably influence the way we perceive things or understand things. I chose to pair these because all three of these show how powerful or convincing writing can change our ideas of issues. Bomer suggests, “ in order for students to develop into participants in a democracy, notebooks can be used to orient their minds towards action their lives and communities” (194). This gives some justification as to why it is important that students are learning about issues our society deals with and why it is important to use their voices through spoken or written outlets to get their voice out there. Also,
Bomer mentions how, “everyone is speaking out, because there isn't even the institutional filter there used to be on what gets published, its more important than ever for students to judge the social and political perspectives of the texts they read and to consider the other perspectives that might be available” (263). All American Boys will specifically give student the opportunity to see the the issue from two racial perspectives. Any of the articles used throughout the Unit are specifically chosen to expose students to new perspectives over issues they may not be familiar with. For example, I am using an article regarding forced marriage from an organization, called End Slavery Now, in order to expose students to the idea of forced marriages that happen all over the world that they might not have even realized exist.
Students’ Existing Literacies:
When choosing the topic of this unit and approaching the different issues I would be talking about I became a little insecure that maybe in 10th grade students may not be ready to discuss some of the issues I will bring to the classroom, some of them including sexuality, racism, or even gender inequality. It was then that I realized I needed to have more faith in my students because, “you cannot teach someone in whom you don’t believe at a fundamental level… teaching involves a faith in the competence of the student— an assured hope for her growth” (Bomer 23). That is what reminded me that we must give students the benefit of the doubt that they are ready to approach issues that our society deals with, a society that they will soon be entering as adults, and that they will be able to grow through new perspectives and ideas that we introduce to them. I chose to approach this unit with the idea that each of my students are ready to learn about issues our society faces and in doing that, assuming that they will be able to relate the issues back to themselves and the lives they live everyday. Bomer specifically states how “we only make reading and writing lives by receiving them, transforming them, and pointing them back to the world,” which is an important factor in making what they are learning relevant to their everyday life (47).
I chose to incorporate a all semester long journal assignment called the APAD, or A Page A Day, where students are expected to write a page worth of writing each time we have that time allotted during our class period. A prompt will be revealed to them and they must take from personal experience or opinion in order to answer the question thoroughly. These APAD’s will be addressed in multiple formats throughout the class period, but mostly through whole class discussion. This way if a student is more timid in sharing their ideas, I can see what their thoughts were when grading them on APAD Collection Days. Bomer encourages that individualized inquiries can come from, “students think(ing) about their own lives, jotting some notes” (Bomer 34). Another way that I will be tapping into students’ existing literacies is by connecting what we are learning to their everyday practices. With my different reading and writing assignments I hope to encourage students to search for new perspectives and write about something that they are passionate about which Bomer says is that it is important to “draw parallels to the kinds of literacy called for in the curriculum” (46). I am asking my students to write a letter to the senator, to write persuasively using evidence to convince others, to write daily journal entries, and even to write poetry to express how they feel. All of these assignments that will be asked of my students can be transferred into real life skills that students may already do. Many students write status updates for different social media platforms expressing opinions or feelings, so it is important we are showing them the power that their words hold and how using different forms of evidence can help us justify the stance we are trying to make on any platform, academic or not.
Reading Writing, and Language Instruction:
I have chosen a variety of reading strategies to utilize over the course of this unit. This unit relies largely on that students will be willing to interact with the text and discuss it. A value line will be distributed at the beginning of the Romeo and Juliet section, which is important because it gives students the opportunity to write about general ideas/statements and give their opinions written or verbally. It is important to “pull on differences” to draw out really good conversation because that will get them talking about the book: “good conversation usually involves negotiating the things that members of the group see differently” (Bomer 139). We will be creating KWL charts for articles we create in class because, “they provide a framework that helps readers across their knowledge about a topic” (Beers 80). I will be participating in a Jigsaw Activity to introduce students to a variety of texts and perspectives over issues we will be discussing because it will help them in “becoming experts on a given topic” and is will promote actively engaging in a discussion about a certain topic (Smagorinsky 43). We will be doing close reading of our Romeo and Juliet text and participate in note taking. We will also be participating in multiple note taking opportunities for students to exercise their ability to pull information from different resources and decipher what is important. With the Literature Circles section of the unit I am having the students participate in various ways to engage with the information they are reading about and learning about through mini lessons through the literature circle jobs and discussions, the APAD journals, and the the different activities throughout the unit. These “give students the opportunity to form their thoughts, mull them over, and decide what they want to say or ask about” (Beers 268). These APAD journals, or “A Page A Day”, provide students a place for “a strong component for reflection, of thinking through ideas and emotions, of developing a personal response to the unit” (Smagorinsky 84). My students will also participate in a difficulty paper writing activity that I was exposed to in my English 680 class. With this assignment students are able to make sense of challenging texts and work through the text as they describe the their process of understanding the information. By having students reflect on the difficult aspects to a text and work through those specific difficulties, it helps them understand the meaning of their texts. Bomer suggests, “This difference in the experience of understanding versus the experience of confusion is an essential part of reading life— both in determining what texts to read and in a disposition toward insistence on meaning” (79).
Writing instruction will spend time with the different steps of writing such as brainstorming, drafts, peer editing, and final products. I have 2 big writing assignments for this unit and both follow a similar path to development. They both begin with a brainstorming period in which they will explore ideas alone and then they will conferencing with either me or discussing with students in regards to their ideas to generate the possibility of other ideas. Conferencing will happen with me as often as I am able to. I will especially make a point when they are picking their topics for each large writing assignment to conference with them in order to ensure that I have written down their topics so I can be on the look out for information or resources for them. By making notes of what students are planning on pursuing it will help me as a teacher because “it is the only thing that makes organized reflection possible so that moments in class add up” (Bomer 33). After they have achieved an idea in each assignment, the students will participate in writing a rough draft then having it peer edited by his/her peers. It is important that we are having students practice giving feedback because it gives “students …experience as critical readers that may help them in reading and revising their own work” (Smagorinsky 98). I have two ways I want to do this peer editing. One way is where they will trade papers with multiple people and they will have a peer editing worksheet where they take notes on the things they liked and the things that need improvements. Another technique that I want to try is a stations peer editing where they take their paper to different stations where their peers will look for a specific thing. So one station might be spelling where the only thing the peer editors look for is spelling. After they have completed that then they will have time to take all comments into consideration in order to compose the final product.
New Literacies:
With our society’s continuous technological advancements, it is important that we are introducing new literacies that students may have to approach at one point or another in their professional life. Many of the activities required of the students throughout this unit will give them opportunities to learn about computers (specifically laptops) and the different literacies that can be learned from them. We will be utilizing programs like PowerPoint, Word, and Kahoot. They will be learning how to create a bibliography, find credible sources, produce and publish documents from Word, and email specific me information needed for a particular assignment. We will also be watching parts of the Romeo and Juliet film to appeal to students’ increasingly visual learning experiences: “Recognizing the appeal of media to students, teachers can use art and fill as tools for enhancing details” (Noden 43). By giving students the opportunities to use the technologies that are prevalent in the 21st century we must all student to explore the different avenues available to them because enhance their understandings of the information we are giving them.
Social Justice:
The guiding quote for my unit was said by Kofi Annan, “Young people should be at the forefront of global change and innovation. Empowered, they can be key agents for development and peace. If, however, they are left on society's margins, all of us will be impoverished. Let us ensure that all young people have every opportunity to participate fully in the lives of their societies.” This is my guiding quote because it reminds me the importance of educating students on not only the different elements of ELA but more importantly the importance of their engagement with the different societal issues we will discuss during this unit. Students are constantly giving their opinion on social media platforms, in groups with their friends, or with family. It is important we are showing them how to give those educated opinions in the diverse world we live in, and to expose them to the diverse issues that are in our world today. My design promotes students’ critical engagement in two big ways. The first way is by reading these two novels that has them engage with the importance of a young person’s voice and how powerful that can be in times of inequality. The other way I am having students engage with issues in a critical manner is that I am exposing them to a variety of articles and opportunities to discuss the information in a safe setting. A lot of students will approach this timidly in the beginning but i hope to have each student feel comfortable to speak up. Hopefully I will be able to teach them at the same time how this world is going to be full of different opinions, lifestyles, or choices and how we should constantly respect the differentness of others. The will also be given the opportunity to write an persuasive piece on a specific issue, and a individually created poem on a topic of their choice.