Curricular Resources > 2015 Volume II > Unit 10 (15.02.10) > Section 5

American Culture in the Long 20th Century

CONTENTS OF CURRICULUM UNIT 15.02.10

Unit Guide

Code Switching: Celebrating Cultural Dialects in American Speech

Barbara A. Sasso

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Resources for Students and Teachers

"11 Disney Movies You Didn't Know Were Racist - Page 6 of 6 - Atlanta Blackstar." Atlanta Blackstar. September 26, 2014. Accessed June 30, 2015. http://atlantablackstar.com/2014/09/26/11-disney-movies-you-didnt-know-were-racist/6/. A good source for choosing popular racist cartoon images.

Anti-Defamation League. PYRAMID OF HATE , 2005. Accessed July 2, 2014. http://www.adl.org/assets/pdf/education-outreach/Pyramid-of-Hate.pdf. A graphic illustration useful to teach many lessons against prejudice.

"Black Lives Matter: The Schott 50 State Report on Public Education and Black Males." The Schott Foundation for Public Education. Accessed June 30, 2015. http://www.schottfoundation.org/. Good source for many statistics important for educators.

Chin, Frank. Aiiieeeee!: An Anthology of Asian-American Writers . New York: Mentor, 1991. Good source for Asian American experiences in stories.

Cleaver, Eldridge. "We Need to Rescue Kids From Ebonics." Los Angeles Times. January 31, 1997. Accessed June 30, 2015. http://articles.latimes.com/1997-01-31/local/me-24029_1_english-language. Ebonics debate.

Cunard, Nancy. "Characteristics of Negro Expression by Zora Neale Hurston." In Negro: An Anthology . New York: Ungar, 1984. Hurston provides her own comments about her writing.

"English Language Arts Standards » Reading: Literature » Grade 9-10." English Language Arts Standards » Reading: Literature » Grade 9-10. 2015. Accessed May 25, 2015. http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RL/9-10/. New Haven Curriculum.

"FFF: Hispanic Heritage Month 2014: Sept. 15–Oct. 15." FFF: Hispanic Heritage Month 2014: Sept. 15–Oct. 15. October 15, 2014. Accessed July 20, 2015. http://www.census.gov/newsroom/facts-for-features/2014/cb14-ff22.html. Census Bureau information.

Faulkner, William. The Sound and the Fury: The Corrected Text . New York: Vintage Books, 1990. A very difficult, but stunning masterpiece. Can be taught with higher level students.

Fiasco, Lupe. "Lupe Fiasco - Bitch Bad [Music Video]." YouTube. August 23, 2012. Accessed May 25, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3m3t_PxiUI. Recommended video that will elicit good discussions on racism and misogyny in hip-hop.

Fishkin, Shelley Fisher. Was Huck Black?: Mark Twain and African-American Voices . New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Good teacher resource.

Gullason, Thomas A., and Stephen Crane. Stephen Crane: Maggie, a Girl of the Streets: (A Story of New York) (1893). An Authoritative Text. Backgrounds and Sources. The Author and the Novel. Reviews and Criticism . New York: Norton, 1979. Highly recommended short Naturalist novel.

Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes . Directed by Byron Hurt. Performed by Carmen Ashurt-Watson, Yasiin Bey, William Jellani. Media Education Foundation, 2006. PBS. Highly recommended video that might change students' views on negative portrayals in rap music.

Hotchkiss, Craig. "Rewriting Huckleberry Finn Twists Twain's Intentions." The Huffington Post. May 25, 2011. Accessed April 04, 2015. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-hotchkiss/finn-rewrite-twists-twain_b_805776.html. Teacher resource.

Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God . New York: HarperCollins, 2000. Huston is brilliant in evoking culture through language. A lovely and uplifting story.

King, Laurie. Hear My Voice: A Multicultural Anthology of Literature from the United States . Parsippany, NJ: Dale Seymour Publications, 2000. An excellent anthology for multicultural stories and essays.

Kingston, Maxine Hong., and Maxine Hong. Kingston. The Woman Warrior; China Men . New York: Everyman's Library, 2005. Perennial favorite. Contains the "Mulan" story.

Marriott, Michel. "Rap's Embrace of 'Nigger' Fires Bitter Debate." The New York Times. January 23, 1993. Accessed June 30, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/1993/01/24/nyregion/rap-s-embrace-of-nigger-fires-bitter-debate.html. Teacher resource.

Matthews, John T. "Whose America? Faulkner, Modernism, and National Identity." In Faulkner at 100: Retrospect and Prospect , by Donald M. Kartiganer, Ann J. Abadie, and William Faulkner, 70-92. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2000. Teacher resource.

Miller, Eric C. "Should English Be the US Official Language?" Aeon Magazine. June 2, 2014. Accessed July 02, 2015. http://aeon.co/magazine/society/does-america-need-to-make-english-its-official-language/. Good teacher resource for discussion.

Minnick, Lisa Cohen. Dialect and Dichotomy: Literary Representations of African American Speech . Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2004. Excellent resource, although very technical.

"MoMA | One Way Ticket: Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series." MoMA | One Way Ticket: Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series. 2015. Accessed June 30, 2015. https://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2015/onewayticket/. These are stunning paintings depicting the Great Northern Migration.

My Fair Lady . Directed by George Cukor. Performed by Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison. Burbank, CA: Warner Bros., 1964. Film. Shaw's Pygmalion in film and a great example of socioeconomic barriers in dialect.

North, Michael. The Dialect of Modernism: Race, Language, and Twentieth-Century Literature . New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Teacher resource.

Ong, Walter J. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word . London: Methuen, 1982. Incredibly interesting book on culture and oral literature. Highly recommended for anyone who teaches anything from mythology to spoken word.

Preston, Mark, Dana Bash, and Rebecca Sinderbrand. "Reid Apologizes for Racial Remarks about Obama during Campaign." CNN. January 09, 2010. Accessed July 21, 2015. http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/01/09/obama.reid/.

Even Harry Reid.

"The Racy Appeal of the Minstrel." In Popular Culture in American History , edited by Jim Cullen. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013. Excellent source for information on the minstrel. Read the rest, too!

Rose, Tricia. The Hip-Hop Wars: What We Talk about When We Talk about Hip-Hop--and Why It Matters . New York: BasicCivitas, 2008. Excellent source for teachers. Many good selections for students to read as well.

Roth, Henry. Call It Sleep . New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1991. One of the best books of the 20th century. More should read it.

Sasso, Barbara. "Power Point: History of English." AP Literature. 2015. Accessed June 30, 2015. http://absasso.com/APLiterature.html. Feel free to use!

"SDE: Portals & Publications." Connecticut State Department of Education. June 4, 2015. Accessed June 30, 2015. http://www.sde.ct.gov/sde/cwp/view.asp?a=2758&q=334898. Source of statistics from the Department of Education for State of Connecticut.

Smitherman, Geneva. Talkin That Talk: Language, Culture, and Education in African America . New York: Routledge, 2000. An excellent resource for discussion on Ebonics, language and power, discrimination, and African American linguistic tropes. An engaging must-read.

Standifer, James. "The Tumultuous Life of Porgy and Bess." National Endowment for the Humanities. November/December 1995. Accessed April 04, 2015. http://www.neh.gov/humanities/1997/novemberdecember/feature/the-tumultuous-life-porgy-and-bess. Teacher resource discussing controversy over lyrics in Gershwin's opera.

Sullivan, Megan. "African-American Music as Rebellion: From Slavesong to Hip-Hop." Cornell University John S. Knight Institute. Spring 2001. Accessed June 30, 2015. http://www.arts.cornell.edu/knight_institute/publicationsprizes/discoveries/publist2001.htm. A terrific paper connecting use of coding in language in slave songs through the blues to hip-hop. Recommended.

"Time Line: Civil Rights Era." PBS. Accessed June 30, 2015. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/aaworld/timeline/civil_01.html. Very useful teacher resource.

Twain, Mark, and Barry Moser. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985. A fixture, but really worth teaching. Best to listen to it read.

Viramontes, Helena María. Under the Feet of Jesus . New York: Dutton, 1995. A really good, modern novel for all student levels.

"Wilbur Cross High School Student Body." US News. 2015. Accessed June 30, 2015. http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/connecticut/districts/new-haven-public-schools/wilbur-cross-high-school-4498/student-body. School statistics.

Winfrey, Oprah, and Jay-Z. "Jay-Z on the N-word." Oprah.com. September 2009. Accessed June 30, 2015. http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Jay-Z-on-the-N-word-Video. They agree to disagree. Student interest plus with Jay-Z. Oprah who ?

Wright, Jay. "The Albuquerque Graveyard." The Poetry Center at Smith College. Accessed June 30, 2015. http://www.smith.edu/poetrycenter/poets/thealbuquerquegraveyard.html. Poem about discrimination, including linguistic discrimination.

Wright, Richard. "Between Laughter and Tears. Review of Their Eyes Were Watching God. The New Masses, Tuesday, October 5th, 1937." UNZ.org. Accessed July 02, 2015. http://www.unz.org/Pub/NewMasses-1937oct05-00022a02. Interesting place to start conversation on controversial use of African American dialect in literature.

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