Unit 1
Multi-Genre & Minority Literature
(Bronx Masquerade and Monster)
Unit 1 is the first unit I implemented, and it comprises about seven weeks of my Student Teaching experience. During my first day and week of Student Teaching fourth period, I decided to begin with a writing assignment in order to communicate to my students what was expected of them. Because I had less time with the second, third, and sixth period classes, I compressed the activities into two class periods. Students were required to write "I Am What I Am" pieces, an idea I adapted from Tom Romano. Expressive writing that allowed for individual student creativity, "I Am What I Am" pieces could be either poetry or prose, and they helped me get to know my students. I introduced this assignment by writing my own "I Am What I Am" piece which I shared with the students, thus allowing them to get to know me. As a major part of this assignment, students were required to demonstrate process in their writing, turning in and getting feedback on multiple drafts. To see students' "I Am What I Am" pieces, see the Student Work page.
After this first writing assignment, I introduced multi-genre works of literature to students and discussed some traditional and current works of minority literature. For the first couple weeks of this unit, we read Nikki Grimes Bronx Masquerade, a multi-genre novella that combines poetry and prose. After, we read another multi-genre novel called Monster by Walter Dean Myers, which combines elements of film/screen-play and journal entries. Both of these works are considered current African American literature, and so these novels allowed an excellent opportunity for students and I to discuss Black History month in the context of literature. In addition to these novels, we also read various other works by minorities in America, like "Ballad of Birmingham," some Langston Hughes poetry, Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech, and some short stories by Sandra Cisneros. Throughout this unit, students participated in various activities that complimented the reading, like discussions and Socratic Seminars, and groups projects like Body Biographies and Book Jackets.
Towards the end of this unit, students began another writing assignment, a literary analysis of the book Monster. Students were required to follow a more traditional approach to writing with this piece than with their "I Am What I Am" pieces, stating a formal thesis, having multiple points in their supporting argument, and incorporating multiple textual evidences. To see students' literary analysis papers, see the Student Work page. After this piece, I introduced students to digital portfolios, and this is the space where students turned in, or published, their literary analysis papers. All students created their own digital portfolios as a place to store and publish their writing and their thinking throughout the course of the semester. Also, towards the end of this unit, I distributed the instructions for the next writing assignment due from the Honors classes. This writing assignment required all students think about the conventions of short stories (we read several in class and discussed these conventions) like dialogue, internal and external conflict, characterization, etc. Students then had to write their own short story which they paired with a photograph. For this assignment, students had total freedom to choose the genre of their piece and were encouraged to be creative in both their content and form. To see students' short stories, see the Student Work page. It's important to note that every week students received a new set of stems (prefixes and suffixes), which we studied and tested on bi-weekly. Stems proved very beneficial to learn; it was easy to see their value as we were able to apply them all the time to break down unfamiliar words we encountered in our reading.
The lesson plans for this unit are grouped according to the novel being read at the time. The introductory lessons during the first week are in under the "Bronx Masquerade" page. Please click the links below to see specific lesson plans for this unit.
