Who are we? Who shapes our identity? What makes us? Our interests, our personality and our values are part of our identity but how we have found them, or discovered them, or defined them depends on the community surrounding us and with whom we live and share. Myriad factors affect our identity: race, cultural background, gender, political and/or economic circumstances. They all contribute to create our identity and are the reflections of what we usually define as society or community. My goal in this unit is to offer students an opportunity to study what a community is, what its values and rules are, and who or what really holds power in relationship to how the members of the community react, think, or feel.
In this unit, we will read Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, and other texts. The unit will culminate with a research project of a community close to my students. My goal is also to teach my students to become active thinkers and members of the community, to analyze causes and effects, to be aware of what happens in their surroundings, to understand who they are, and to learn how to contribute to problem solutions
