Unit+Plan+Rationale

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 * Discrimination in Literature Rationale

After spending several days pondering possible canonical texts and young adult literature that effectively reflects the dangers of social injustice and discrimination, I’ve come to the conclusion that my unit will revolve around //The Scarlet Letter// by Nathaniel Hawthorne and //The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian// by Sherman Alexie. In creating a culturally relevant unit plan, I want my students to have a thorough understanding of social injustice and discrimination from their assigned literature, while also gaining the ability to generalize their knowledge in their school community and beyond. The central concepts of the unit’s topic will help to further define and build the lessons in this culturally relevant unit. All of the concepts in this unit are effective in furthering students’ knowledge both inside and outside of the classroom. The major concept revolving around this unit is social injustice and discrimination. Discrimination occurs every day in a variety of cultures and a variety of ways. Many of these actions are blatantly obvious in our culture, but some are even invisible to those who are the source of discrimination themselves. Therefore, by creating a unit with a major concept in discrimination, I hope to define and expose the various types of discrimination in our environment. As a class, we will continue to define discrimination while also highlighting the cause and effect through a variety of historical and modern events. Another important concept included in the unit plan will be literature analysis. Students will be expected to carefully analyze //The Scarlet Letter// and //The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian// through independent and cooperative activities. These texts will give students the opportunity to develop their thoughts on discrimination in relation to the text and their experiences. They will also have a variety of activities to actively discuss their interpretations with classmates. In cooperative learning environments I can facilitate discussion between students while giving them the ability to compare and contrast course material for further understanding. Lastly, because many of my students will have special needs, we will focus on the concept of reading ability. Specific additional texts will be chosen for students as many adaptations, accommodations, and modifications will be available for their needs. We will highlight effective reading and studying strategies that will help to develop core academic skills. By reviewing the key concepts of this unit, I can more easily rationalize my purpose in teaching this unit and its concepts to my students. My main purpose in teaching this lesson to my students is to highlight discrimination awareness-how to identify discrimination, what to do about discrimination, and how to prevent discrimination. I want students to see that discrimination is universal across every race, religion, and gender. I believe that this purpose is an element of the hidden curriculum. Having an understanding of respect and equality is often more important than some aspects of the English curriculum. Individuals will not be given the same opportunities if they graduate high school without having respect and appreciation for other cultures that define our community. Therefore, I intend to create and deliver a practical unit that will not only meet the requirements of the English curriculum, but also the authentic skills that govern independent living. I chose to use //The Scarlet Letter// and //The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian// because students can easily relate to the characters’ problems in their own lives with the ability to highlight discrimination in the novels. I’m using literature that students can envision with their background knowledge, keeping them interested and motivated. They will also be more able to generalize the literature to future situations and experiences in their life. With the purpose of this unit being to teach students about discrimination, the types of justification to meet their needs is embedded in cultural awareness and diversity. Discrimination can easily be justified in the unit because all students are faced with some sort of cultural barrier at home and/or at school at some point in time. To meet the psychological needs of students, I’ll be using authentic examples of discrimination in our society and in their school. Therefore, this unit on discrimination is justified because the material is not only age-appropriate but also effective for students’ transitioning throughout high school and into post-school life. In terms of cultural significance, this unit is defined under a local, national, and world-wide issue. Every continent and country is faced with injustice and discrimination. In order to understand these discriminations, students will need a thorough understanding of various cultures in their community-Native American, African American, Hispanic, Asian, etc. Students will be briefly introduced to various cultures before having the opportunity to research and present their findings to the class. In terms of cultural significance, this unit is superfluous in educating students about culture on a local, national, and world-wide level. To justify civic awareness in this unit, students will dive deep into the cause/effect relationship of discrimination to find ways it can be prevented in their school, and hopefully their community. Students will be doing their part to educate their schoolmates about discrimination to help alleviate the issue. Students’ work will help to build a more equal and culturally tolerant community. Lastly, this unit is justified as a current social problem because it occurs every day in all areas of the world. Students will actually have an assignment in which they will find current articles on discrimination in their community or around the globe. As represented above, the unit on discrimination will easily fit into several aspects of the curriculum to help students grow academically and as individuals. Meeting the psychological needs of students, highlighting cultural significance and civic awareness, and connecting to current social problems are all claimed to be relevant to this unit plan and to students’ English curriculum. As summarized above, I’ll be building upon students’ psychological needs by giving them the opportunity to build respect and tolerance to the various cultures around them. For cultural significance, we’ll be highlighting the importance of culture and diversity in our society and economy. Culturally relevant historical findings may also be included into the unit. For civic awareness, I’ll be helping students to find ways to indentify, rectify, and prevent discrimination in their surroundings through a collaborative effort. For current social problems, students will have authentic everyday findings of discrimination in the world around them. They will be able to envision the discrimination in their local communities through a variety of discrimination types. To make these claims a reality in my unit, I’ll be providing a plethora of authentic activities that can be used beyond the classroom for evidence of the issue. To develop students psychological needs, we’ll be reviewing literature, movies, and current events to define the cause/effect of discrimination and the several types of discrimination that occur to build respect, awareness, and tolerance. For the understanding of cultural significance, students will be partnering with a classmate to research and present information about an unknown culture in their community to educate their classmates about the importance of diversity. As a reflection of their civic awareness, students will be creating discrimination awareness posters to spread the world throughout their school. To define current social problems, students will be finding recent newspaper articles that reflect some sort of discrimination in their community. The aforementioned activities will be the main sources of evidence in persuading others about the social injustice and discrimination unit. For all units that target culture and discrimination, a teacher and student must be prepared for counterarguments in their teaching and facilitation. The major counterarguments that I could possibly encounter are ignorance or disrespect toward a particular culture from students and parents, disagreement from parents and co-workers, and disinterest from the student body. To resolve these counterarguments, I’ll have to plan ahead to provide a well-supported argument in defense of my unit plan. Before beginning the unit, I’ll ask other teachers about the appropriateness of my unit’s teaching and materials. Their feedback will be used to provide a letter to students, parents, and coworkers about the subject of our unit. I will also update all of our class information on the class website (I’ll be designing for my classes). I want all parents and teachers to be educated about the topics of our discussions to avoid further confrontation. Before the lesson begins, I’ll design guidelines on inappropriate behavior and language. To resolve ignorance and disrespect, I’ll be having students thoroughly research and present information on a culture different from their own. After all class presentations, students will have a better understanding of how diversity and culture has positively changed their everyday surroundings; as always, parents are welcome to attend by appointment. My beginning letter to students, parents, and coworkers will hopefully help to alleviate disagreement on the unit’s subject. The letter will contain the importance of identifying discrimination to help students develop self-advocacy and self-determination while also positively making a contribution to their community. If disagreements continue, consultations can be scheduled for parents and coworkers to review the prepared content of the unit. Lastly, to resolve any disrespect or disinterest from the study body in hanging our awareness posters, I’ll be sure to remind students about the school-wide rules and consequences on discrimination and racism. A memo will be forwarded to teachers and staff to be consistent with these policies to help strengthen the importance of diversity in the school community. Students, parents, and coworkers will also have the ability to review the assigned course texts for the unit: //The Scarlet Letter// by Nathaniel Hawthorne and //The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian// by Sherman Alexie. I chose //The Scarlet Letter// because it highlights a form of discrimination that often goes unnoticed in our society. The main character, Hester, clearly displays the effects of discrimination on an individual who is mistreated because she is a female and accused of adultery. Most female students will be able to relate to experiences of sexism in their past. I chose //The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian// because it deals with discrimination to individuals of different cultures, different communities, and those who make different decisions from the norm. Students will read and relate to the experiences of being isolated for making independent decisions. Students may also have experienced discrimination based on their family’s culture or heritage. This book also contains a great deal of historical information that portrays the influences of the past on the present. This will open up students’ eyes to the universality of discrimination across race, gender, and religion. Besides these texts, students will also be assigned to read several alternative readings from books that highlight individual culture discrimination across a plethora of cultures. Students will have a better understanding of how diversity makes this world a beautiful melting pot of culture through the culturally relevant pedagogical activities. All students will be able to reflect on how culture impacts their lives, decisions, and opportunities. They will walk away knowing more about individual cultures through their partnered culture presentations and the assigned literature. More importantly, they will have a better understanding of the social injustices that individual cultures face for being different. With their aforementioned activities, students will be able to identify various types of discrimination and what can be done to resolve or prevent their occurrence. This unit will be successful in highlighting culturally relevant pedagogy and social injustice. At the conclusion of this lesson, students will have newfound knowledge on culture, diversity, and discrimination surrounding their school and community.