Revealing Essential Questions
Rather than immediately jumping into reading Invisible Man, my classroom mentor wanted to give the students a chronological overview of literature that addressed racism, race relations, and racial discrimination, starting in the late 1800s, post-reconstruction, to the 1940s, the decade that Ralph Ellison began to write the novel. We read a set of poems and short stories from a variety of authors, both black and white, who gave different perspectives on the racial and social expectations of the times they were set in. I explained to my two senior classes why we were reading these particular authors and how their works would contribute to the students’ understanding of the context of Invisible Man. I also tried to be very clear about the overarching unit big ideas and essential questions by addressing these concepts in some way as we discussed each text.
Unit Essential Questions: How do societal norms and values influence the formation of a person’s identity?
How does an individual come to feel/is made to feel invisible?
We started with Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask” (1895) and “When Malindy Sings” (1903). “We Wear the Mask” was an important starting point, because every text we would read after, including the novel, would address similar themes of hiding one’s true self or masking one’s true emotions. While discussing both poems, I made sure that I kept returning to the unit’s overarching idea of how an individual’s identity is influenced by the society they live in.
Over the next few days we read Charles Chestnutt’s “The Doll” (1904) and Dorothy Parker’s “Big Blonde” (1929). In my lesson plans for these days, I tried to always circle back to the central idea of society’s influence on a person’s identity. The discussions on “Big Blonde” began to touch on how the main character’s physical appearance and gender contributed to her identity and how she acted. We then read and discussed William Faulkner’s “Dry September” (1931) and Ted Poston’s “The Revolt of the Evil Fairies” (1942). With the Faulkner story, the class struggled to interpret the deeper meanings of the text which made it difficult for us to uncover some of the major themes and societal influences. We ended up spending two days on this story before shifting to Poston’s short story, which ended the pre-unit reading on a lighter note because the story was at an easier reading level, had a humorous tone, and more overtly described the racial conflicts that existed within the community in the story.
With these first few lesson plans, I tried to at least plan for increased transparency. While the intention was there, I struggled with the execution, though I think that was partly due to the complexity of some of the texts and not being able to fully discuss them within one class period. I also had difficulty pushing the students to think more critically about what was going on in each story.
Unit Essential Questions: How do societal norms and values influence the formation of a person’s identity?
How does an individual come to feel/is made to feel invisible?
We started with Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask” (1895) and “When Malindy Sings” (1903). “We Wear the Mask” was an important starting point, because every text we would read after, including the novel, would address similar themes of hiding one’s true self or masking one’s true emotions. While discussing both poems, I made sure that I kept returning to the unit’s overarching idea of how an individual’s identity is influenced by the society they live in.
Over the next few days we read Charles Chestnutt’s “The Doll” (1904) and Dorothy Parker’s “Big Blonde” (1929). In my lesson plans for these days, I tried to always circle back to the central idea of society’s influence on a person’s identity. The discussions on “Big Blonde” began to touch on how the main character’s physical appearance and gender contributed to her identity and how she acted. We then read and discussed William Faulkner’s “Dry September” (1931) and Ted Poston’s “The Revolt of the Evil Fairies” (1942). With the Faulkner story, the class struggled to interpret the deeper meanings of the text which made it difficult for us to uncover some of the major themes and societal influences. We ended up spending two days on this story before shifting to Poston’s short story, which ended the pre-unit reading on a lighter note because the story was at an easier reading level, had a humorous tone, and more overtly described the racial conflicts that existed within the community in the story.
With these first few lesson plans, I tried to at least plan for increased transparency. While the intention was there, I struggled with the execution, though I think that was partly due to the complexity of some of the texts and not being able to fully discuss them within one class period. I also had difficulty pushing the students to think more critically about what was going on in each story.
Links to copies of texts:
Text of "We Wear the Mask"
Text of "When Malindy Sings"
Text of "The Doll"
Text of "Big Blonde"
Text of "Dry September"
Text of "Revolt of the Evil Fairies"
Text of "We Wear the Mask"
Text of "When Malindy Sings"
Text of "The Doll"
Text of "Big Blonde"
Text of "Dry September"
Text of "Revolt of the Evil Fairies"
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