Carlos A. Lawrence
I plan to begin this unit directly after the completion of the Connecticut Mastery Test (CMT) in April. This is a good time for teachers to reinforce, and students to practice, the skills assessed on the CMT. Troup Magnet Academy of Sciences focuses on the development of all necessary skills. There is a one-hour, fifteen-minute literacy block schedule as well as a one-hour writing block schedule. During our literacy block schedule, classes are split virtually in half. Our school participates in the Read 180 initiative which involves small group instructions with reading specialists who reinforce core reading strategies and behaviors. Students attend during the literacy block on alternating days. This allows for small group instruction in the class room for the half of the class that is not attending Read 180 on a particular day. I will be able to use the block schedule in correlation with the small group setting to provide direct instruction in listening and analyzing poems, songs, speeches, historical documents, movies, and television commercials. The time allotted for the writing block (one hour) will be used for the writing aspects of this unit.
A foreground to speaking is listening. Learning to be a reader is learning to listen to the text. Listening to the voices of the text is the basis of interpretation. Langdon Hammer2
To learn how to analyze voice, it is fundamental that students learn how to listen for voice. Students must gain an understanding that voice conveys information about the speaker. Students must learn some information heard in a human voice include body size, age, race, and gender. The Poetry and Prose to Increase Literacy and Writing Skills unit will begin with direct instruction in listening with respect to voice. Students will then be instructed on the different kinds of voice (human voice, conceptual voice (voice found in the concepts being written about or through visual images being conveyed), voice in nature , etc.) to prepare a foundation for analyzing, interpreting, and expressing voice. Students next will analyze rap songs and compare the interpreted voices of the artists to the interpreted voices of the writers of classic poems, analyze speeches and historical documents with a focus on the writing process, and finally analyze and interpret the voices of characters in movies and television commercials. The culminating projects for this unit will involve students using their analysis and interpretations to develop songs, poems, speeches, and commercials with similar structures and/or organizational patterns as those analyzed while expressing their own individual personalities.
Comparison Matrix
Many of my students are visual learners and graphic organizers are helpful to them and students at all learning levels. Visual learning is a graphic way of working with ideas and presenting information; graphic organizers condense complex information into meaningful displays. A graphic organizer that I often use is called a comparison matrix. A comparison matrix allows students to identify similarities and differences independently, collaboratively, and through explicit guidance. Students simply list the items (in this case the names of the writers) to be compared across the top of the grid and the comparison criteria is listed down the left hand side of the paper. Students then fill in the boxes for each artist and can then visually compare and contrast both writers. For example, if students created a matrix for two artists and had "person" listed on of the comparison criteria, they would simply write "first person" under Nina Simone and "third person" under Talib Kweli since "Four Women" by Nina Simone is written in the first person and "For Women" by Talib Kweli is written in the third person. I suggest that teachers create the comparison matrix grid on a wall and add each item (artist) as they are analyzed thus making the matrix a growing wall of analysis. A completed comparison matrix is also useful for summarizing.
Hip Hop and the Classics
The artists being compared in the Hip Hop and the Classics sub-unit are Talib Kweli, Nina Simone, Notorious B.I.G., Langston Hughes, Rudyard Kipling, Zion I, Tupac Shakur, and Dylan Thomas.
3
These names will be listed across the top of the matrix. The criteria used to compare these artists include:
-
1. Purpose of the voice - who is the speaker talking to and why?
-
2. Speaker of the voice - is the speaker of the voice human or non-human?
-
3. Where the voice can be found - can the voice be found in the concepts being written about or through visual images being conveyed?
-
4. Relationship between speaker and audience - how is the speaker addressing the audience?
-
5. Expressed information about the speaker - what information about the author (age, race, gender, etc.) can be determined?
A sample of a comparison matrix is included in Appendix A
Who Gets It Right the First Time?
The speeches that will be analyzed in the "Who Gets It Right the First Time?' sub-unit are the "I Have a Dream" speech and "The Emancipation Proclamation." The focus of analysis will be on how revisions made the speeches more powerful. The United States Constitution will also be analyzed with a particular focus on how the amendments are revisions to the original document. Both the speeches and the Constitution will be analyzed using a comparison matrix according to the following criteria:
-
1. Purpose of the voice - who is the audience?
-
2. Speaker of the voice - is the speaker speaking from the perspective of an individual or a group?
-
3. Where the voice can be found - can the voice be found in the concepts being written about or through visual images being conveyed?
-
4. Relationship between speaker and audience - how is the speaker addressing the audience?
-
5. Expressed information about the speaker - what information about the speaker (age, race, gender, etc.) can you determine from my speech?
A sample of a comparison matrix is included in Appendix A.
