Stories Written from and About Different Cultures Advance Global Awareness and Community

Education, Ambition, and Honor: Connecting Concepts in Between Sisters
Unifying Concept: Ethics and Power / Reading: Informational / Writing: Argumentative
Overview:In this unit, students explore the juxtaposition of academic failure and poverty in the limitations of career options for a young woman in Ghana. The novel, Between Sisters by Adwoa Badoe, takes place in Ghana, West Africa. It illustrates two main types of people—the Nobodies and the Somebodie. The protagonist Gloria feels like a Nobody, and at age 16 decides to quit school since she failed thirteen out of fifteen subjects on her final exams. Although Gloria has both of her parents in her life, her father is unemployed and her mother suffers from major health issues, so her family is unable to support her. Between Sisters explores the difficult choices Gloria has to make when it comes to her future. She leaves her family in order to achieve her ambition. On her journey to success, Gloria becomes an unpaid domestic worker in exchange for financial assistance to attend a vocational school in a middle-class community. This unit also includes “Stories From Ghana: When Cultural Norms and Life-Saving Care Come Together,” an online article that provides an insight to traditional beliefs and practices in Ghana, offering students a deeper understanding of the Ghanaian culture. In their TED Talks, Patrick Awuah and Fred Swaniker both explain how education is the key to developing young people into future African leaders.
Purpose:
To compare and contrast how education is viewed and valued in Ghana and in the US
To evaluate family norms and how they impact different generations
To examine Ghanaian cultural norms
To explore individual understanding of academic success and career opportunities
To write a literary analysis
Enduring Understandings:

Literature provides insight into the human condition, universal dilemmas, and social realities of the world.
Stories written from and about different cultures advance global awareness and community.

/ Essential Questions:

What drives human ambition?
How is it possible to be ambitious and honorable?
How do ideas about ambition and honor change across cultures?
How can ambition impact honor?

Target Standards are emphasized during the quarter and used in a formal assessment to evaluate student mastery.
Highly-Leveraged1 arethe most essential for students to learn because they have endurance (knowledge and skills are relevant throughout a student's lifetime); leverage (knowledge and skills are used across multiple content areas); and essentiality (knowledge and skills are necessary for success in future courses or grade levels).
10.RI.6 Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how an author uses rhetoric to advance that point of view or purpose.
10.RI.8Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is valid and the evidence is relevant and sufficient; identify false statements and fallacious reasoning.
10.W.9Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

Apply grades 9–10 Reading standards to literary nonfiction (e.g., "Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is valid and the evidence is relevant and sufficient; identify false statements and fallacious reasoning").

10.L.4Present information, findings, and supporting evidence clearly, concisely, and logically such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning and the organization, development, substance, and style are appropriate to purpose, audience, and task.
Supportingare related standards that support the highly-leveraged standards in and across grade levels.
10.RL.9 Analyze how an author draws on and transforms source material in a specific work (e.g., how Shakespeare treats a theme or topic from Ovid or the Bible or how a later author draws on a play by Shakespeare).
10.RI.3 Analyze how the author unfolds an analysis or series of ideas or events, including the order in which the points are made, how they are introduced and developed, and the connections that are drawn between them.
10.RI.9 Analyze seminal U.S. documents of historical and literary significance (e.g., Washington’s Farewell Address, the Gettysburg Address, Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms speech, King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”), including how they address related themes and concepts.
10.W.1 Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.

Introduce precise claim(s), distinguish the claim(s) from alternate or opposing claims, and create an organization that establishes clear relationships among claim(s), counterclaims, reasons, and evidence.
Develop claim(s) and counterclaims fairly, supplying evidence for each while pointing out the strengths and limitations of both in a manner that anticipates the audience’s knowledge level and concerns.
Use words, phrases, and clauses to link the major sections of the text, create cohesion, and clarify the relationships between claim(s) and reasons, between reasons and evidence, and between claim(s) and counterclaims.
Establish and maintain a formal style and objective tone while attending to the norms and conventions of the discipline in which they are writing.

e. Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from and supports the argument presented.
10.W.7 Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
10.SL.5 Make strategic use of digital media (e.g., textual, graphical, audio, visual, and interactive elements) in presentations to enhance understanding of findings, reasoning, and evidence and to add interest.
10.L.3 Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different contexts, to make effective choices for meaning or style, and to comprehend more fully when reading or listening.
a. Write and edit work so that it conforms to the guidelines in a style manual (e.g., MLA Handbook, Turabian’s Manual for Writers) appropriate for the discipline and writing type.
Constant Standards are addressed routinely every quarter.
10.RL.1,10
10.RI.1,10
10.W.4,5,6,10
10.SL.1,2,6
10.L.1,2,6
Selected Readings of Complex Texts
Multicultural Adoptions:
Between Sisters by Adwoa Badoe
Electronic Resources and Alternative Media
“Stories From Ghana: When Cultural Norms and Life-Saving Care Come Together” by Ane Adondiwo, Isaac Amenga-Etego, Ireneous Dasoberi, Ernest Kanyoke

United Nations: “Ghana: An Education Revolution” (YouTube Channel)

Patrick Awuah: How to educate leaders? Liberal arts (TED Talk)
Fred Swaniker: The leaders who ruined Africa, and the generation who can fix it (TED Talk)
Performance Assessments
Formative Assessments:
1.Questions/activities over every three chapters of Between Sisters
2. Literary response journals
3. Vocabulary activities / Summative Assessments:
1.Small group research project on Ghana
2. Final Essay: Literary Analysis
3. 0-Question, End-of-Unit SchoolCity Assessment

1This definition for highly-leveraged standards was adapted from the “power standard” definition on the website of Millis Public Schools, K-12, in Massachusetts, USA.