This unit focuses on the theme of love in its widest meaning -- love for a son, love for a parent, love for a special person, love for seeing, love for writing -- and on what a lover sees. The goal is to discover how many details we usually miss because we pay no attention to what passes in front of our eyes. The unit is appropriate for College English 3 and 4, AP English Literature and Composition, and AP English Language and Composition. The unit starts with the following essential questions: "What do I see? What do I notice? Is this love?" It includes a visual section that primarily teaches students to see details, interpret them, and discuss what an artist/author wants to communicate with a visual image. The same section trains students to observe, infer, analyze the context of what they see, draw conclusions, discuss by agreeing or disagreeing, and write. A second section focuses on critical thinking and takes into consideration the following essays: "Seeing" by Annie Dillard, "I Want A Wife" by Judy Brady, "The Breakups That Got Under My Skin" by Kerry Cohen published in The New York Times, and the novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. The objective is to enhance students' ability to see details, pay close attention to context, think, close-read, analyze, discuss, synthesize, and evaluate the theme expressed by an author. It also requires various writing activities throughout the entire unit together with a final project in the form of a documented essay or, for those students who have special needs, a simple documented visual.
