I am a History and Law teacher at Metropolitan Business Academy in New Haven, Connecticut. MBA has a population of about 400 students in grades nine through twelve. The majority of students come from the city of New Haven, with around 20% coming from neighboring, more suburban towns through the magnet school program. I have taught Modern World History, African American & Latino Studies, and Constitutional Law at MBA for two years. Before coming to New Haven Public Schools, I taught at the middle and high school levels, mostly Social Studies and Language Arts, in Meriden, Bridgeport, Waterbury, and Watertown.
In this unit, students will explore the history and importance of myths and legends in the African or Latino diaspora as part of the African American & Latino Studies course. This unit can be used to look at the African diaspora, the Latinx diaspora, or both. There will be examples of folklore for both diasporas, but this is certainly not an exhaustive list.
Lesson 1 focuses on establishing class norms of respect when discussing religious and/or spiritual beliefs, and defining the term myth, and oral tradition, as well as activating students' background knowledge such as fairy tales, schoolyard rhymes, etc. Lesson 2 looks at how people encode cultural knowledge in song, and how this information can outlast its original audience. Lesson 3 discusses cultural appropriation versus cultural appreciation with the focus texts of Joel Chandler Harris’s Brer Rabbit stories and/or the song and folktale La Llorona. Teachers must be sure to establish a respectful environment for this lesson as personal backgrounds and feelings can escalate over this topic. Lesson 4 looks at how indigenous religious figures have interacted with colonizer Christianity.
The final project is an artistic representation of how one myth has changed over time and space. For example, students might show how Brer Rabbit stories originated in Africa, moved to the plantations of the Southern United States, and eventually were the subject of a Disney film and theme park ride. Another example would be the spread of La Llorona (the Weeping Woman) from Mexico to most of North, Central, and South America, as well as a discussion of similar stories from other parts of the world that are not necessarily related, for example, Medea in Greece. I recommended that students choose one of the myths discussed in the unit for their project, but students can also be encouraged to research myths in either diaspora independently. This may also be a suitable differentiation for students who excel at independent research. What constitutes an “artistic” project is up to the discretion of the teacher, but I recommend projects like posters, paintings, textile arts, or “ebooks” (slide decks) over a traditional essay or slide presentation.
Unit Objectives
- Students will understand the history and legacy of myth in the African & Latino Diasporas.
- Students will be able to analyze the history of their chosen myth as it evolves through time.
- Students will be able to create a dynamic artistic representation of their chosen myth.
Unit Essential Questions
- What are myths/legends/fairy tales & why do they matter? What do they tell us?
- How do people code cultural information in song? Why would people still sing these songs after the information becomes irrelevant? Does cultural information ever really become irrelevant?
- What is cultural appropriation? Who can tell what stories? How does being an outsider to a culture change/bias/influence how a story is told?
- How have indigenous religious figures interacted with the religious values of the colonizer (specifically Christianity)?
