Casey Nissenbaum Annie Tremoulis ELAN 7408 Unit Rationale Outsider American Literature Rationale What is America? Who is America? Throughout this course of 11th grade American Literature, we have studied the canonical works typical of a course such as this: Huck Finn, Scarlet Letter, and the Great Gatsby. For our final unit, we would like to expose students to outsider voices; voices that truly represent the melting pot that is America. We are challenging our students to add to the knowledge they have gained about what America is through said texts, and now examine America from a variety of voices and perspectives. We will include works from outsider groups such as African American, Asian American, Native American, Hispanic American, and artists on the margins, such as beat poets, protest singers and contemporary artist that represent what America may be for our students. After the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, patriotism in America awoke like a slumbering giant. The citizens of this country, though deeply divided among partisan lines, have been asked to celebrate what makes America great. This lens can be myopic, as America also deals with class lines, racism and sexism. Students are not immune to being subjects of these divisions, as well as participants. By examining outsider, or multicultural literature, we hope to broaden the lens through which students view our great nation, including the demons it wrestles with. We hope toaddress these issues, as America has had to address them through its short history. It is our hope that students, while examining outsider perspectives, will reexamine their own perspectives. It is imperative that students, who in 11th grade are on the precipice of voting and eligibility to be drafted, are able to understand the many facets of America, and how that is represented through outsider literature. We chose to present this exciting unit as the culminating unit of the course because we feel that the students will benefit from having the historical references from previous units that dealt with more canonical American literature. We will also have established interpersonal relationships with our students and will know if their families would object to them learning about outsider literature. We will start our unit focusing on African American Literature. We understand that the breadth of this canon could be a course within itself. We also recognize, however, that is it not the only multicultural literature that defines diversity; instead, it will serve as an appropriate commencement to introduce the goals of our unit. We will take the first week to examine an excerpt from a slave narrative by Harriet Jacobs, the poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar, many Harlem Renaissance authors, such as Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston and Countee Cullen, as well as contemporary African American poets and short story writers. Through these works, we will address issues of what America is like for African American people, based on evidence from the readings and discussion in a possibly diverse classroom. We will then address how that perspective may differ from what we have encountered through the lens of the other works we have studied in the class. Some parents or members within the community may object to focusing on a particular race if that minority isn’t “traditional” to AmericanLiterature or if that race doesn’t necessarily populate that regional area. However, we rebut that focusing on diverse literature such as African American is still crucial to all students for they will learn and gain new perspectives in order to be more aware, less biased citizens within a pluralistic society. During week two, we will be introducing other outsider and underrepresented voices of American Literature such as Native American, Hispanic American, Asian American, and political voices in the formats of speeches, poems, addresses, and short stories. Again, we are aware that these various avenues of American Literature do not include every unique background of what/who makes up the “melting pot.” Nevertheless, each of these voices can challenge our students to once again re-evaluate our essential questions: Who is America? What is America? Without broadening their perspectives even more widely, we feel that, as teachers who seek to reach ALL of our students, we may increase our chances of having them connect with and value American Literature by exposing them to viewpoints that they can make meaning to their own lives through exploring the lives of others. Therefore, if parents/administrators feel that focusing on these minority perspectives isn’t “kosher” because their children aren’t from one of these descents or may take up too much instructional time, our rebuttal is that the majority of the course has already devoted itself to the mainstream, accepted literature and so this new knowledge, in a mere three week unit, is established to allow students to value their own American heritage e and tolerate, if not embrace others’, too. Finally, in our third week, we will have our students present their summative assessments: their author studies and their exit list poems. The author study will allow students to research more in-depth one outsider author. At the start of the unit, we willhave already given them a “menu” of outsider authors to choose from because we want our students to have personal choice within necessary limits of the curriculum at hand. As a final presentation for this unit, they are to decipher what the climate was for that underrepresented voice during that particular time. In a sense, students are “walking in the shoes of someone else” since they are closely examining their works, how being the “other” in America has effected their philosophical viewpoints and their literary style, and, how this, in turn, compares/contrasts with their own definitions of America. Furthermore, the other summative assessment, the exit list poem, will self-assess how their initial interpretations of the essential questions have at all changed over the course of the unit. Using this inquiry- based assessment allows students to question and re-question their personal viewpoints of America and the various voices that are also included in the “melting pot.” Also in the final week, we will briefly explore the Beat authors of American Literature; the embodiment of outside Caucasian authors of the