Shannon L. Ortiz
In order to ensure that students have mastered the objectives, I will use the following assessments throughout the unit.
Journal Writing
Students are expected to write in journals consistently throughout the year. These writings usually take place during class where students answer daily essential questions, writing prompts, and note taking. Students will also be expected to keep any significant passages discussed in class in their journals. Additionally they are expected to close read the passages and write commentary on what the message conveyed. Students get credit for any informal writing they do in their journal. Journals are checked once a week. In order for the grading to not become overwhelming, I will ask students to place a sticky note at two journal entries they want me to grade. This will allow students to showcase the work they feel better demonstrates their understanding of the material.
Responses
Students will be responsible for handing in written responses based on what they have read throughout the course of the unit. In the responses, students should focus on literary and rhetorical devices used in the text. This includes but is not limited to theme, motif, symbols, character, and setting. I want students to consider what these devices reveal about the authors experience and relationship with the United States and Puerto Rico. It will also allow me to determine who is keeping up with the reading or not. Before class students will hand in responses and retrieve corrected ones. Students will write 350 word response three times a week.
Artistic Project
This project will be based on Gardner's Multiple Intelligence. Because our school is an arts school, students are encouraged to engage in interdisciplinary projects. Students will be expected to create their artistic project based on their art discipline. This does not necessarily have to be a project on Puerto Rican culture, rather any group that has had to assimilate into American society. This will allow some students an opportunity to examine their own experience and American students an opportunity to sympathize with another group that has assimilated into American culture. Students will be expected to present their projects to the class at the end of the unit.
This unit will be broken up into three sections. Section I will focus on the causes and effects of American occupation of Puerto Rico. Section II will examine the difficulties with assimilation and the cultural conflicts that occurred for Puerto Ricans into mainstream American society. Section III will examine the results of assimilation and diaspora. After examining both historical events and literature I believe that students will have a better understanding of the Puerto Rican experience both on the island and in the United States.