Matthew S. Monahan
2.1 Special Issues:
This curriculum unit is designed with older, more mature students in mind, high school seniors specifically. Although most of these students will be young adults, seventeen years of age and older, one must be aware any time she exposes young minds to potentially objectionable material, and as a result it is always wise to have alternative texts on hand.
In his collection of short stories
Drown
Diaz draws on both the patois and the realities of inner-city life. The third story "Aurora" is when it really gets serious. The first two stories deal with cruelty and infidelity, but "Aurora" takes Diaz's brand of social realism to the next level having its narrator deal drugs and abuse his addict girlfriend.
The film
Sugar
has multiple versions with differing MPAA ratings; one is PG-13 and the other is R. According to IMDB (the Internet Movie Database), the PG-13 version contains a "brief shot of a clothed couple having sex," profanity, and "a man takes some pills."
2.2 Aims: Objectives and Goals
What reasons do people have for migrating, emigrating, and immigrating? How have these reasons changed over time? How do the reasons compare and contrast across lines of ethnicity and countries of origin? How are these similarities and differences reflected in migrant and immigrant fiction? Finally, how do primary and secondary informational texts support and refute ideas explored through literature?
Students answer the 'Superman Question.' Additionally students explore such guiding questions as:
What does it mean to be "a person of good moral character"?
Should the "ability to speak, read, write and understand English" be requirements on the path to citizenship?
2.3 Performance Criteria and Assessment
According to Professor Jason Courtmanche of the Connecticut Writing Project, one of the requirements for Early College Experience credits is for the student/candidate to produce thirty pages of revised writing over the course of one academic year; upon completion of this six to eight week unit, honors contract students will produce a published piece of writing (i.e. a piece that has put through the five-step writing process) between six and nine pages in length; students without honors contracts will publish two, three to four page papers. Regardless the scope of student work, the writing will present an argument and will incorporate both narrative and informational/expository techniques.
In addition to these longer published writing pieces, students write one-page response papers twice weekly. These one-pagers will shape in-class discussion and will be used as prewriting for longer pieces of written argument.