Lesson Plan 1
Introduction of unit Teacher will state the purpose of the unit. In this unit you will explore yourself. You will examine what you believe, who you are and who you want to become.
Distribute vocabulary with definitions and discussions. (Autobiography, biography, narrative, personal voice, values, identity, crisis, goals, ethnic, assimilate, culture, etc.)
Assignment: Have students buy a 8‘ x 11’ notebook, exclusively for use as a journal. Ask students to bring in a valued childhood picture of themselves, explain.
Lesson Plan 2
Have students present their photographs to the class and to explain its importance. This activity is an icebreaker. It is a way for students to begin to get to know each other better. (Depending on the size of the class this activity might require more than one class period.)
Lesson Plan 3
Distribute reading: “
from Invisible Man
,” by Ralph Ellison. Read this segment aloud with the class. Discuss issues raised in this segment.
Assignment: Write a short paper, one to three pages, describing a crisis of identity that you faced and how you resolved it.
Lesson Plan 4
Introduce students to the concept of the journal. Refer to the aforementioned ground rules for the journal and discuss with the class.
Assignment: Have students begin their journals. Suggested topic might be: The First Thing That I Remember . . .
Lesson Plan 5
Photocopy and distribute the ranking sheets of The Most Important Social Problems. When students have finished ranking their sheets, put the results on the blackboard or on a pre-prepared tally sheet. Discuss the results.
Assignment: Have students write a one to three page paper discussing what can be done to correct the problem they ranked as number one.
Activity - Discuss with the class the possibility of forming a student organization to confront the problem that most students ranked number one.
Lesson Plan 6
Have students read: Nicholasa Mohr’s Introduction to “
Remembered” (included in unit). Discuss with students and make a listing on the blackboard of what comprises “The American Dream.”
Assignment: Have students write, a one to three page paper, which discusses which aspects of “The American Dream” are easily attainable and which are not.
Lesson Plan 7
Teacher will define
A chart or recorded ancestors. New World Dictionary.)
Write your own family tree or an example of the form on the blackboard.
Assignment: Have students begin to write out their family trees. Have students interview their parents about the names of their parents and other relatives to complete their family trees as far as they can go. (This assignment can be an early journal entry.)
Lesson Plan 8
Have students read: “Caesar and the Bruteses: A Tradegy” from Edward Rivera’s book,
Family Installments Memoirs of Growing Up Hispanic
. Discuss this segment with the class.
Discuss with students the misspelling of
(tragedy) and why Edward Rivera opted to misspell it.
Assignment: Have students write a one to three page paper that discusses what word they misspell most often and their reasons for misspelling it.