Before I introduce the novel, I need to arouse my students' interest but I also have to help them understand the concept on which I have built the entire unit: the numerous factors that have contributed to Ellison's view of his time and more specifically to the African-American conditions in the first part of the twentieth century. These elements make Ellison decide to label the protagonist of the novel 'invisible' and make him choose the first person narrative perspective to tell the story. Since these can be difficult concepts for all my students, I start from something they love and care a lot: their art.
To build and increase their interest, I send them to the library lab with the task to research images, if they major in visual arts, videos, if they major in theater or music, or dance, and excerpts of written literary documents (novels, poems, short stories, newspaper articles, or magazine) if they major in creative writing or journalism. They are to come back to class and start decoding their documents. The essential questions for the visual documents – printed images or brief video images – will be:
· What does the author see?
· How does he/she represent what he/she sees?
I do not use the word 'describe' to lead them to the understanding of the landscape concept deductively: each individual has a different perception of the reality or of the events that occur around him/her. At the end of the writing activity, we discuss the different perspective(s) and how they contribute to create a complex scenario. Once my students have understood the concept, they are able to see the complexity that layers Ellison's protagonist.
However, after they have shared their interpretations and we have thoroughly discussed their analysis, I require my students to write one page analysis of the researched written and/or visual/oral documents/sources while taking into considerations the observations their peers expressed during the discussion.
