Sandra K. Friday
The high school students, ranging from grades nine through twelve, in my Writing Seminar classes at Wilbur Cross Annex have been consigned or relegated to the Annex because, among other things, they need to catch up on the credits they are missing to be at the grade level appropriate for their age. Along with a shortage of credits, most students, due to erratic attendance, are missing many skills that are crucial for effective speaking, reading, and writing, and for communicating, in general. For my students, ninety-nine percent of whom are African American and Latino, the 'hood is the extent of their world, where they jockey for visibility and voice among their peers. For most of them, their voices do not extend beyond the borders of their neighborhoods. And they have little opportunity to hear the language that professional men and women use to promote themselves and to communicate in politics and commerce. Mostly, they talk and listen to their peers. They have not been encouraged to advocate for themselves or exercise their entitlement beyond their own small world. And they are unconvinced and/or unaware that exploring literature will open possibilities for them and expand their world. Uncertain and fearful, many of them have no interest in pushing beyond their perimeters.
My goal in this unit is to expose my students to a diversity of voices in literature: poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and autobiography, along with the feelings and attitudes behind these voices, ranging from voices that belong to people who think of themselves as victims, and those of people who are trying to break out of the victim image, to voices of people who think of themselves as utterly liberated and empowered. Through listening to these voices, and identifying the range in attitudes and feelings of the people or characters who own them, my students will have the opportunity to discover the attitudes and feelings behind their own voices, and experiment with their newfound awareness.
Interpreting the attitudes and feelings behind the voices in the literature we read, and performing and listening to these voices, students will break out into their own new-found voices and will create a portfolio of their work. Some students may wish to illustrate their pieces, displaying both in the classroom. It is my hope that this unit will make my students more aware of how one's attitudes and feelings influence how he/she sounds, and make them more aware that they can use their own voices creatively and effectively in a context larger than the one in which they now live. At the conclusion of the unit, students will have a portfolio of their own work, with reflections and observations about their own attitudes and feelings and how these drive the voices in the pieces they have crafted. I am going to encourage students to include in their portfolio pieces of published writing that the class has read which they especially like, because in many cases, these pieces will have been the inspiration for their own work. While they will have shared their work orally as the unit unfolds, students will pick their favorite pieces they have written to present in a culminating event.