May 12th, 2005 Jessie
Davidson
Unit Plan: Literature for Young Adults Dr.
Mary Warner
Helping Students Identify with Battler Genre Narratives
One way of introducing students to a process writing unit involves
teaching a unit emphasizing personal narrative in accepted and young adult
literature. To teach students how writing serves as a means within an end of
achieving self realization, teach students with exemplary models of personal
narrative. Although the texts represented may arguably not all be defined as
autobiography or biography, they all represent expression of identity through
writing about self and one's place within the community.
More than an exploration of community narrative, this unit plan
exemplifies the "battler" genre of authors who realize cultural identity
through textual expression. The term battler refers to texts within the
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, as marginalized and abused
peoples of Australian descent have faced treatment unknown to the rest of the world
except through their recent accommodation to the Western form of writing and
publishing. The importance of blood to one's personal identity has become a
major point of contention within the production of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander people. Most consider blood the essence of self, and although the
texts within this unit don't show such a strong belief in sticking to one's own
cultural background, the narratives reveal similar themes that seem more
representative of the local population of students.
Many recently published texts have become required reading in high
schools and well represent the creation of voice and selfhood within one's own
community and the more dominant culture. Writing as a powerful way to show self
respect and to create that feeling within readers of similar background
provides a rationale for teaching these texts to students. Marginalized voices
of students from communities not represented in this unit plan can still relate
to the feelings of being an outsider in the dominant culture and of wanting to
feel more comfortable with one's cultural background -- and even proud of the
struggles or battles one's parents and grandparents have gone through as a
minority or silenced fragment of the mainstream.
The unit would be most successfully introduced by listening to the song
"La Bamba." That song actually existed for hundreds of years before being
popularized in the modern era, and it represents not only the long and colorful
history and cultural influences of Mexico, mentioning Veracruz, but also the
statement making power of the individual. More lyrics can be found than those
reproduced in the Internet links given, but the link provides music samples and
lesson plans. "I am not a sailor, I am a captain" are some other lyrics I have
seen for the song, and if any students are familiar with the song, they
probably can relate to its message of self identification as a powerful
individual, and the naming of that same self by others as a person of lower
status than that self-realized identification.
After listening to the song and activating students' prior knowledge of
the song and perhaps singing from memory or from just listening, pass out the
lyrics and translation so students can see the words and their English
translation. The lyrics can go on for many verses, and the theme well
introduces how personal narrative about one's community and one's place in that
community can be self determined as well as shaped by cultural affiliation.
Students should be able to relate, even if they only suffer discrimination due
to status as a minor.
Students should sing along with the music, with all now reading and
understanding the lyrics, although Spanish pronunciation may not come naturally
without a little bit of practice before trying to keep up with the music.
Splitting the class in half and alternating lines would be a fun way for
students to compete in terms of clarity and strength of each side's singing.
Students enjoy opportunities to be orally creative, given the right structure,
practice, and goal.
Explain to students how self respect doesn't always come easily to
individuals from marginalized communities. The texts in the unit show how
writing from the heart about the best aspects of one's culture can build
strength in both the individual writer and reader, and in that community at
large, as its aspects and members are celebrated through words and stories.
Remembering the painful past needs to be shown as purposeful to students, who
may wish to ignore stereotypes and oppression while they are in the classroom
setting, at least in the sense that it affects one's own life and feelings.
These authors have taken their descriptions of life as a minority beyond
polarization and into a genre of self determination through cultural narrative.
If Latino cultures fill your classroom, you may consider also teaching
the poetry of Pablo Neruda, especially in the facing page versions of Spanish
and English. Emphasizing the success of contemporary writers in the Spanish
language can do wonders for student motivation. Even students without a romance
language background can often relate because of Spanish being a popular choice
for meeting a foreign language requirement. Students with experience in a
different mother tongue than English may feel creatively inspired by the
example of a poet whose work transcends the language in which he writes to
survive as a globally known and enjoyed example of the aesthetic communicative
expression: poetry.
"The greatest poet of the twentieth century, in any language," Gabriel
Garcia Marquez proclaims on the cover of Neruda's Selected Poems. "In 1971,
while serving as Chilean ambassador to France, (Neruda) was awarded the Nobel
Prize for literature," the back cover states. Students will judge poetry
themselves, but the validation of the power of Spanish to inspire and achieve
greatness may need to be taught to some local students who feel marginalized in
the greater school community. Bilingualism becomes a strength, as Spanish
speakers can read the original text correctly, even as the teacher instructs in
English and interprets with the English translation.
With an introduction about the interpretive powers of language,
narrative style texts can be appreciated in their choice of words and subject
for aesthetic and thematic effect. The main text in the unit is The Joy Luck
Club by Amy Tan. The novel can be addressed as separate chapters, for some have
been published as short stories. Chinese American women learn about themselves
through the memories of their mothers, who lived in China. The back cover
excerpt from a San Francisco Chronicle review states the book teaches "...a
significant lesson in what story telling has to do with memory and
inheritance," and that indicates the best way of teaching the text within this
unit. The style of addressing one's comfort within one's family's experiences,
especially as passed on cultural knowledge from mother to daughter, will create
an interest in students to search out some of the personal stories of parents,
especially their mothers. The structure of vignettes illustrates the way
knowledge about one's mother's stories is obtained through talking, sharing,
and searching. Even if one tries not to identify with the experiences and
lessons learned by one's mother, Tan shows the power in realizing everyone
comes from somewhere, and the role of the daughters is to understand and accept
how they came to be who they are.
Another required text in many local schools also represents narrative
style with vignettes or linguistic snapshots of a memory, a personal
association, or a description of someone or something within the community. The
House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, represents a story telling structure
becoming more accepted in the literary world. "Acclaimed by critics, beloved by
children, their parents, and grandparents, taught everywhere from inner-city
grade schools to universities across the country, and translated all over the
world, it has entered the canon of coming of age classics" declares the back
cover. Cisneros compares almost every aspect of her life to what others
perceive of her, and how it feels to be stuck in her low socio-economic status.
A similarly presented book also creates a strong sense of wanting to get
out of one's particular barrio, all the while celebrating almost everything
about the people who live there. Living Up the Street, by Gary Soto, addresses
the apathy of many students disillusioned by academics and bridges the gap
between a child of migrant workers and a successful university professor of English
by describing the trials and dreams of outer Fresno. The prose chapters are
simply titled and appealing in their descriptive and deceptively easy to read
settings of adventure for a child of poverty. Hopes and imagination feed
youthful ambition, and a middle of the book class photo provides an even more
poignant element to the story -- creating autobiographical authenticity.
For historical accuracy, no other text can replace the Narrative of the
Life of Frederick Douglass. "Chapter 1 (Birth)" well illustrates the contrast
between freedom and slavery. Although Douglass is rumored to be the son of his
master, he is treated as slave offspring, and being from the slave owner's own
blood doesn't distinguish him much from the many other slaves who were born to
a slave mother and ignored by their master-father. His inability to maintain
family relationships within the confines of slavery clearly demonstrates the
power of the human spirit to overcome hardships and gain strength through self
expression in revealing, detailed, and unblinking narrative.
Douglass's narrative may offer some insight to My Place by Sally Morgan.
Her simply styled book may be the only one of Aboriginal production and content
enjoyed by many White Australians. The policy of removing Aboriginal children
from their mothers and communities has only been halted within this generation,
and her story is very typical of the forced assimilation policy Australia
practiced on all mixed race children until the 1970's. All of Morgan's
narrative traces her search for family and finding her mother, grandmother, and
their Aboriginal community. Excerpts of the text, or reports about it given by
student groups may be the best way to instruct based upon Morgan's book.
Symbolism and identity meet in the autobiography's conclusion, as Morgan
achieves comfort and the place referred to in the title.
Gary Soto's Jesse may be the easiest read of the unit, and it
appropriately contrasts the reality of a field worker with the wishes and
wonder common to the human condition. Even in the narrative of the field
worker, the reader finds poetic, emotive dreams expressed from a young adult's
point of view. Reading it as a class from beginning to end will provide
students many opportunities to share the feelings and uncertainties of the
story's hero as they discuss what might happen next and how they would act in
similar situations.
Struggling to find one's way in the world seems common to most
narratives, but texts of the unit described will create a sense of the human
spirit's ability to find strength through community associations and comfort
with one's cultural identity. Students' inspiration by the authors may serve as
the best source for narrative writing after reading and discussing those
models. Being a student means being ignorant in something needed to succeed,
but in the texts, just feeling and expressing through words seems like success.
Mastery of narrative style may rely upon students looking to the story telling
traditions of their own families and cultural groups. Telling stories came
before academia, and the language and situations told in the autobiographies or
community narratives relate universality while empowering groups of people
often ignored or sidelined by mainstream literary culture.
Cisneros, Sandra. House
on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1984.
Douglass, Frederick.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. Excerpts,
American Tradition in Literature
Volume 1, New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1994.
Morgan, Sally. My Place.
Freemantle, Western Australia: Fremantle Arts Centre Press: 1987.
Neruda, Pablo. Selected
Poems. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1970.
Soto, Gary. Jesse. New York,
N.Y.:Scholastic Inc., 1994.
Soto, Gary. Living Up the
Street. New York, N.Y.: Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers, 1985.
Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club
New York: Ballantine Books, 1989.
www.musicalspanish.com/bambasample.htm