Grade levels:
Average-to-high 7th or 8th graders
PURPOSE:
This unit includes material that has been selected from four black writers: Paul Lawrence Dunbar, James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, and Maya Angelou. The chief purpose of these selections is to present reading as interesting as possible in the forms of poetry and prose as a basis for developing an appreciation of literature in young readers. The interest value of these selections ranges from middle-school through college and beyond. The quality of the lessons is controlled by the teacher’s presentation of the unit. These lessons will prove valuable to the student as a source of information and ideas and as a means for hours of stimulating reading for both pleasure and purpose.
STRUCTURE:
Each lesson contains a biographical sketch of the author, a motivational activity, a reading selection and an evaluation.
PREPARATION:
These two steps are recommended in helping the instructor prepare for teaching this unit.
1.
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PREVIEW—Read as much background information as possible on the selected writers. Familiarize yourself with some of the major works of these writers. Pay attention to pictures, captions, sub-headings, topic sentences, summaries, so that you can point them out to your students as they come across them in their reading. Listen to all cassettes or tapes beforehand as well as previewing all video materials.
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2.
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RELATE—as you preview materials you will recognize facts and ideas that may relate to other writers or other periods. Tie in the selections of these authors with those of other American writers.
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INSTRUCTION:
These three steps will help your students get as much as possible from the reading selections.
1.
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READ—Students must have ample time to read quietly and undisturbed under your supervision. Some reading can be assigned outside of the classroom, but in order to guarantee that the reading is actually done, time must be allotted by the teacher. It is imperative that the teacher provide a suitable atmosphere for silent reading in his classroom.
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2.
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REVIEW—Have students re-read for main ideas and chief aims of selections. Have them skim over parts which they understand, and concentrate on sections that are difficult or unfamiliar.
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3.
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RECALL—Have students collect information, facts, ideas, that will be useful to them. Have them criticize dogmatic selections, have them list facts, outline sections, etc.
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MOTIVATION:
The presentation of this unit cannot be done in a passive manner. Black literature is not passive, but rigorous, exciting, and unique. In order to get and keep the attention of your students, you must make the effort to keep the lessons as interesting as possible. In order to persuade middle-school youngsters to appreciate black literature, the introduction to such must be as satisfying as the drama and trauma of its most prevalent challenger—the TV set.
OBJECTIVES:
After teaching this unit students should be able to—
—Appreciate some of the contributions of blacks to American Literature.
—Critically place these contributions in the spectrum of literature as a whole.
—Form opinions on the aims and goals of the four writers.
—Analyze, criticize, and evaluate literature more meaningfully.
—Become more selective in their choices of reading materials.
EVALUATING:
A pretest is valuable to the teacher in preparing for this unit. Teachers should not spend valuable time in teaching information that has already been taught by a previous teacher. In order to find out where students rank in their present knowledge of the subject matter covered by this unit, a pre-test is helpful. After all lessons have been taught, a post-test is usually administered. Often it is an interesting practice if the instructor keeps the pre-test results to compare with later post-test results. It is to be hoped that a show of growth will be recorded. Both pre-test and post-test are good tools for measurement and can be easily developed by the instructor.
1.
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PRETEST—Usually composed of true-false questions of a general nature concerning authors and their works.
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2.
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POST-TEST—detailed test consisting of essay questions, multiple-choice, and completions, centering on actual works of the authors.
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