Literary

Essay Unit Plan

Overview of Design

Essential Questions:

How does racism play a part in Preciouss own identity development and how she sees herself?
What story about race relations is Sapphire telling through the character of Precious?
What can psychoanalytic theories and post-colonial theories help us understand about the identity development of Precious?

Texts:

Anchor Text: Push
Supplementary Texts: Kozol, Everyday Use, Alice Walker, Langston Hughes poems, Richard Wright, short stories or poems by
Sapphire, Our America, slam poetry, movies (Crash)
Lenses/Frameworks/Theories: Race theory, psychoanalytical (internalized racism), gender, new historicism, Marxism, post-
colonialism

Sequencing of Instruction

1. Smaller texts: deconstructing literary elements with students to learn what they know
2. Teaching critical lenses and how they apply to interpreting the smaller texts
3. Smaller texts: deconstructing smaller texts using critical lenses
4. Smaller texts: deconstructing smaller texts integrating literary elements and critical lenses
5. Start reading Push
a. Reading chart
b. Reading activities
c. Ways of playing with the literary theories to deconstruct her identity and Sapphires literary choices
d. Ways of interrogating literary elements
e. Culminating In Class Activity

f. Writing assignment

Mimi: post-colonial theory
Paula: psychoanalysis
James: smaller text with psycho
Steph: reading chartsPush and literary elements
Mickayla: Push and literary elements
Jess: smaller text, deconstructing literary elements
Cassie: smaller text: deconstructing literary elements using post-colonial
Nicole: Push and post-colonial
Sara: Writing assignment
Rob: Post-colonial and Push

Cassie, Jess, Mickalya

1. Starting with smaller texts and seeing where their deconstruction skills are
2. Use the observations they made to lead into teaching of critical theory and lenses, putting a name to what they are
already doing
3. Literary elements
4. Introduce anchor text and start with context and background information: setting, history, author, cultural context
5. As they read, smaller activities to practice their writing: charts, dialogue journals, character charts
6. Writing: starting with models of critical literary essays on other texts
7. Outlining

Mimi, Paula, Nicole

1. Introduce the literary elements so as not to assume they understand the theme
2. Teach them what a critical analysis is by showing them models
3. Focus on 3 critical theories: post-colonial, new critical, gender theory
4. Read a class book

5. Work in groups with the people working with different theories

6. Use graphic organizers to help them connect literary elements to the literary theory
7. Helping them craft thesis and topic sentences in class, so when they start their papers, they will have their thesis and
topic sentences, theyll have their quotes and how it connects
8. Drafting: short draft and share their writing and peer editing and writing workshop
9. Checklist: what they need to include and what they are missing
10. Second draft

James, Sara, Stephanie

1. Anchor text: laying ground work: Cultural, historical, political backgrounds
2. Critical lenses: particular to anchor text, to give them ideas to think about as they read
3. Literary elements: model texts and see what they are doing
4. Co-writing introductions and different pieces of the essay to guide their thinking with a different kind of literary
strategies
5. Ethos, pathos, logos
6. Graphic organizers
7. Teaching them how to write in outline and going from there to essay
8. Group Unit Plan: Push