Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun provides a compelling and honest look into one family's aspirations to move to another Chicago neighborhood and the thunderous crash of a reality that raises questions about for whom the "American Dream" is accessible.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
This is an English literature lesson plan that analyzes the motif of home in the context of post World War II segregation in California based on the book Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley. It is one lesson in a series of interdisciplinary lessons that are detailed in the plan.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
This lesson series introduces students to four key figures in LGBTQ history who made incredible contributions to the civil rights movement: James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry, Pauli Murray and Bayard Rustin.
Material Type: Lesson
This reading celebrates the publication of "ascension," the first book of Poems by giovanni singleton, coordinator of Lunch Poems. She has recently been selected by the Poetry Society of America for its biennial New American Poets series. singleton is a recipient of a New Langton Bay Area Award Show for Literature and has been a fellow at Squaw Valley Community of Writers, Cave Canem: A Workshop for African-American Poets, and the Napa Valley WritersŐ Conference. She is founding editor of "nocturnes (re)view," a critically acclaimed journal dedicated to artists and writers of the African Diaspora and other contested spaces. (29 minutes)
Material Type: Lecture
A frustrated schoolteacher in 1940s Louisiana tries to give a condemned man back his dignity before he dies. Vivid and compassionate, this novel asks: Knowing we're going to die, how should we live? The Big Read Readerĺĺs Guide deepens your exploration with interviews, booklists, timelines, and historical information. We hope this guide and syllabus allow you to have fun with your students while introducing them to the work of a great American author.
Material Type: Reading
Zora Neale Hurston's vibrant novel presents Janie Mae Crawford's growth from a voiceless teenage girl into a woman who takes charge of her own destiny. The Big Read Readerĺĺs Guide deepens your exploration with interviews, booklists, time lines, and historical information. We hope this guide and syllabus allow you to have fun with your students while introducing them to the work of a great American author.
Material Type: Reading
Making Evidence-Based Claims ELA/Literacy Units empower students with a critical reading and writing skill at the heart of the Common Core: making evidence-based claims about complex texts. These units are part of the Developing Core Proficiencies Program. This unit develops students' abilities to make evidence-based claims through activities based on a close reading of the Nobel Peace Prize Speeches of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and President Barack Obama.
Material Type: Primary Source, Reading, Teaching/Learning Strategy, Unit of Study
Students read three short stories about women; discuss the development of female characters, gender differences, and society' s expectations; and write scripts in which the characters discuss their similarities and differences.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan, Unit of Study
Professor Elleke Boehmer notes the distinct lack of women writers on the Post/Colonial Writing page of the Great Writers website, and explores why this is the case. She draws attention to the phenomenon of double colonization and, taking Scottish/South African author Zoe Wicomb as an example, looks at the marketing and publishing industries to discuss why postcolonial women writers are less well-known than their male counterparts. This audio recording is part the Interviews on Great Writers series presented by Oxford University Podcasts.
Material Type: Lecture
In sixteen interwoven stories, Amy Tan's characters--four Chinese immigrant mothers and their American-raised daughters--struggle to connect despite the ghosts and secrets of the past. This Big Read Teachers Guide contains ten lessons to lead you through Amy Tans classic novel, The Joy Luck Club. Each lesson has four sections: a thematic focus, discussion activities, writing exercises, and homework assignments. In addition, we have provided capstone projects and suggested essay topics, as well as handouts with more background information about the novel, the historical period, and the author. All lessons dovetail with the state language arts standards required in the fiction genre.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan, Unit of Study
The Lawrence Textile Strike was a public protest mainly of immigrant workers from several countries, including Austria, Belgium, Cuba, Canada, France, England, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Scotland, Spain, Syria, and Turkey. According to the 1910 census, 65% of mill workers (many of whom eventually struck) lived in the United States for less than 10 years; 47% for less than five years. Prompted by a wage cut, the walkout spread quickly from mill to mill across the city. Strikers defied the assumptions of conservative trade unions within the American Federation of Labor that immigrant, largely female and ethnically diverse workers could not be organized. The Lawrence strike is referred to as the Bread and Roses strike and The Strike for Three Loaves." The first known source to do so was a 1916 labor anthology, The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest by Upton Sinclair. Prior to that, the slogan, used as the title of a 1911 poem by James Oppenheim, had been attributed to Chicago Women Trade Unionists. It has also been attributed to socialist union organizer Rose Schneiderman. James Oppenheim claimed his seeing women strikers in Lawrence carrying a banner proclaiming We Want Bread and Roses Too inspired the poem, Bread and Roses. The poem, however, was written and published in 1911 prior to the strike. Later the poem was set to music by Caroline Kohlsaat and then by Mimi Farina. The song and slogan are now important parts of the labor movement and womens movement worldwide. This exhibition was made in collaboration with the Lawrence History Center and the University of Massachusetts Lowell History Department.
Material Type: Diagram/Illustration, Primary Source, Unit of Study
Gene Yang began publishing comic books in 1996. 'American Born Chinese' was the first graphic novel nominated for a National Book Award and the first to win the Printz Award. It also won an Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album. (46 minutes)
Material Type: Lecture
Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Lisa Chen earned a BA from UC Berkeley and an MFA from the University of Iowa. Her debut collection of poetry, mouth, received a 2009 award from the Association for Asian American Studies. Sesshu Foster says that ChenŐs work Ňstartles with soulful complexity.Ó (28 minutes)
Material Type: Lecture
Students get the big picture of the Middle East when they read and analyze Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel "Persepolis".
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
