LITERATURE INSTRUCTION
Transcendentalism Writing
I borrowed this idea from an assignment in my graduate school Philosophy of Education course, and it has fit nicely into this unit. After reading about Transcendentalism and some of the writings of Emerson and Thoreau, students are asked to show how those ideas are prevalent in a sampling of comic strips, children’s literature, and famous quotations. It requires students to not only organize major ideas across several different texts, it also asks them to see those ideas in entirely different mediums. Additionally, the assignment requires them to compare/contrast Transcendentalism with the values from the literature of the founders of our nation; in this manner, students begin to see American literature as a fluent and interacting whole rather than as individual pieces.
Artifact: Transcendentalism Writing
Artifact: Transcendentalism Writing
To Kill a Mockingbird Unit
I've included some of the details of this unit to display how I’ve handled a classic text in a required course. To Kill a Mockingbird is in the curriculum for our 10th grade course, which all sophomores, regardless of ability level, are required to take. I was charged with creating the plan for the entire district. Of particular importance is the first document, To Kill a Mockingbird Justification and Differentiation, which I present to students at the beginning of the unit. First, I think it’s essential to explain to students at the outset why a book is worth their time, worth a spot in a required curriculum, and what our goals in reading the text include. Secondly, the document provides a differentiation opportunity for students seeking to challenge themselves. In this way I can provide for the needs of struggling students without sacrificing the opportunities of the more advanced. The opportunity exists for each and every student to maximize their learning opportunities if they so choose.
The second document is the required essay that students write as part of the final assessment for the book. I’ve included it here to show how I incorporate writing instruction with literature instruction. The essay builds on student knowledge from a previous essay writing unit in the course, adding to their knowledge how to properly write about literature and use in-text citation. My evaluation of their work will be both on their understanding and analysis of the text and on their writing skills.
Artifact1: To Kill a Mockingbird Justification and Differentiation
Artifact 2: To Kill a Mockingbird Final Paper
The second document is the required essay that students write as part of the final assessment for the book. I’ve included it here to show how I incorporate writing instruction with literature instruction. The essay builds on student knowledge from a previous essay writing unit in the course, adding to their knowledge how to properly write about literature and use in-text citation. My evaluation of their work will be both on their understanding and analysis of the text and on their writing skills.
Artifact1: To Kill a Mockingbird Justification and Differentiation
Artifact 2: To Kill a Mockingbird Final Paper
Dark Romantics Found Poem
This assignment has become one of my favorites, as it has produced some of the most creative student work in my literature courses. In it students are asked to collect a required number of quotations from the literature of Poe, Hawthorne, and Melville that vividly portray the dark side of humanity. They then arrange those quotes into a coherent found poem. Through this assignment students must evaluate the qualities of powerful lines and phrases, analyze the authors’ messages about humanity, and create something entirely of their own. The poem can be narrative or lyrical. I find that by working through the texts in a way that makes it their own, students walk away with a greater understanding of and connection with the ideas of the Dark Romantics.
Artifact: Dark Romantics Found Poem
Artifact: Dark Romantics Found Poem
American Literature Term Paper
The term paper is a more classical form of assessment with which I’ve found great success in my Modern American literature course. Rather than giving students a prompt, they are asked to create a thesis statement that they can support using the literature of several different units throughout this course. Rather than giving them a question to answer, I provide them the opportunity to have the last word regarding what they have seen and what they have to say about the literature and what it says about American society. Responses are varied and original. I especially like that it asks students to go back into the literature we’ve already read in order to provide textual evidence. In this way they are never really “done” with any piece of literature that they read for the course; they continue to interact with and across texts, perhaps seeing upon second glance what they could not see at first.
Artifact: American Literature Term Paper
Artifact: American Literature Term Paper