Lesson Plans > Literature and Language Arts > American Literature > American Literary Voices: Part 2

	American Literary Voices: Part 2 (17)
		1. The New Landscape: Americans Feel the Pain
			1d. William Carlos Williams: Paterson Poet
				William Carlos Williams • High School  2 class periods In this lesson students will explore the concepts of Imagism as they relate to the poetry of William Carlos Williams. Students will also see the connections between visual art and poetry.
		2. America -- Land of Opportunity?
				Life at 97 Orchard Street: Imagining the Immigrant Experience • High School • Middle School  1 class period (plus extensions) In A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, students read about the Nolan family and their experience of Irish immigration and discrimination in the early 20th century. This lesson explores and verifies living conditions in New York City by allowing students to "tour" a tenement building and imagine the immigrant family experience through a creative writing exercise.
			2a. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
				Life at 97 Orchard Street: Imagining the Immigrant Experience • High School • Middle School  1 class period (plus extensions) In A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, students read about the Nolan family and their experience of Irish immigration and discrimination in the early 20th century. This lesson explores and verifies living conditions in New York City by allowing students to "tour" a tenement building and imagine the immigrant family experience through a creative writing exercise.
				Streets Paved With Gold? The Irish in America and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn • High School • Middle School  4 to 5 class periods plus projects and extensions This is a unit of lesson plans designed to validate and give context to teaching A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. It is ideally to be used over several days with an entire class or small groups. It can easily be modified or reformatted for different grade levels and time blocks.
		3. Truth or Dare: Taming the American West
			3e. Native American Perspectives
				Sharing Their Stories: Native American Literature and Culture in 19th Century American Literature. • High School • Middle School  2 to 3 class periods Did Indians contribute to the quest for an American identity? Students investigate the answer by researching and sharing prose, oral literature, biography or speeches, as well as dialogue with a scholar, to extend their awareness and understanding of early Native American contributions to our culture.
				Poetry of Deliverance : “Ghost Dances” and Native American Oral Tradition • High School • Middle School  1 week, plus projects. This lesson introduces students to Native American Poetry with special emphasis on the “ghost dance”, its origin and history. Several activities suggested offer more depth on this specific type of poem. A selection of student projects provides a broader look at other Native poetry, legends, and chiefs.
		4. Poetry Beyond the Rhyme
			4a. Edwin Arlington Robinson: 'Richard Cory'
				Deceptive Appearances: Theme and Inference in "Richard Cory" • High School  2 class periods plus extensions "Richard Cory" by E. A. Robinson is probably one of the most famous poems in American Literature. This lesson introduces the poem, explores the relationship of narrator to subject, examines possibilities for the shocking fate of Cory, encourages inferences and identification of theme, and compares the original to a modern reworking by Paul Simon.
		5. Literature in Exile: The Lost Generation
			5d. Ernest Hemingway
				Ernest Hemingway: The Use of Language to Create Modern Reality • High School  2 class periods plus extensions Style is the technique that an author uses to create his unique reality through writing. Ernest Hemingway's style made an emphatic statement all its own and has influenced the writing of countless modern authors. This lesson introduces students to Hemingway's "famous, flat style" and his disconnected, objective point of view and tone through the analysis of one of his short stories and the examination of critical comment. Several writing extensions give students an opportunity to further measure, reconstruct or evaluate the elements and the impact of his stylistic techniques.
		6 . Bearing Witness: The Harlem Renaissance
				Life During the Jazz Age: The Harlem Renaissance • High School  Approximately 3 class periods or at home Creativity, new ideas, and diversity sprang from the Harlem Renaissance. This lesson will introduce students to the cultural movement and the icons, and help them discover how works from this era reflected and changed American society.
		6. Bearing Witness: The Harlem Renaissance
			6c. 'A Dream Deferred': Langston Hughes
				Love and Loss: Langston Hughes on Friendship • High School • Middle School  1 class period (with extensions) This lesson allows students to reflect on the simplicity and power of one of Langston Hughes' poems on the loss of a friend. Students will discuss the poem and then respond by creating short poems about their own friendship experiences.
		7. The Stage Is Set -- American Drama Flourishes
			7g. Death of a Salesman
				Death of a Salesman: Revealing Character Through Soliloquy and Scene • High School  1 week, plus extensions Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman presents a cast of unforgettable characters and a “hero” unlike any that most students have encountered. This lesson, to be used after reading the play, asks students to analyze how a playwright reveals character and to try their hand at creating soliloquies and scenes that incorporate as well as extend students' understanding of Miller’s vivid, original characters.
		8. Let There Be Light: The South Awakens
			8a. Zora Neale Hurston Their Eyes Were Watching God
				Life During the Jazz Age: The Harlem Renaissance • High School  Approximately 3 class periods or at home Creativity, new ideas, and diversity sprang from the Harlem Renaissance. This lesson will introduce students to the cultural movement and the icons, and help them discover how works from this era reflected and changed American society.
				A “Thought Picture” of Zora Neal Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God • High School  1 class period plus extensions Respite for Zora Neal Hurston’s troubled but intrepid heroine, Janie Crawford, comes in the smallest ways—like when people sit and share "the pictures of their thoughts for the others to look at and see.” After reading her story, students view another student’s visual interpretation of several themes and motifs presented in Their Eyes Were Watching God. The lesson asks them to personalize and interpret what they see in the painting, then compare that to the artist’s own mind-set when he created it. Other listening and writing projects are suggested for further summary analysis.
		9. Innocent No More: Alienation in America
			9h. Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhouse-Five
				Kurt Vonnegut and the "Extremely Dangerous" Harrison Bergeron • High School  2 class periods, plus extension What makes the protagonist of "Harrison Bergeron" so "extremely dangerous?" Kurt Vonnegut's short story satirizes Harrison's desire for non-conformity and quest for freedom in order to raise important questions about a future dystopia where technology and culture have uneasily merged for censorship and control. This lesson challenges students to appraise and discuss their beliefs about present day freedom, equality, technology and the media, to assess Vonnegut's use of irony as a way of illuminating serious issues, and to compare his dark but comic vision as either consistent with or apart from modern definitions of science fiction.
		10. The Diverse World of the Modern Short Story
			10f. Shirley Jackson: 'The Lottery'
				Evil in Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" -- Can We See It Coming? • High School • Middle School  1 or 2 class periods plus extensions In this lesson, students discuss elements of foreshadowing in the carefully constructed plot of "The Lottery." As they analyze the details for clues and hints, they will also deduce what information Jackson withheld to create suspense and enhance the shock of the ending. Creative writing suggestions prompt students to project what might happen after the events of the plot have unfolded.
		11. Total Request Live: 'Pop' Lit -- Instant Hit
			11c. Ray Bradbury Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451
				Ray Bradbury and Fahrenheit 451: Issues of Censorship • High School  3-4 class periods plus extensions This is an adjunct or summary lesson with projects relating to the major theme and ideas of the censorship of books and literature, presented in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. The lesson is most effective after students have read and discussed the novel.
		12. Keeping It Real: African American Voices
			12d. Lorraine Hansberry A Raisin in the Sun
				A Raisin in the Sun: Defining Metaphor and Setting Tone • High School  1 to 2 class periods This lesson introduces the study of Lorraine Hansberry's groundbreaking drama by examining the choice of similes and tone in Langston Hughes' poem "Harlem" which begins the play itself and provides the title. Students are asked to consider their own dreams and goals.
		13. American Voices at the Millennium
			13b. Sandra Cisneros 'The House on Mango Street'
				Sandra Cisneros: Where Do I Belong? Blending into American Culture • High School • Middle School  1 class period Sandra Cisneros is an author who did not appreciate her Mexican/Chicana heritage until she began searching for something to write about. Her works reveal conflicts she faced in childhood over divided loyalties, poverty, and gender discrimination. This lesson invites students into a "virtual" private home (the Garcia family) and allows them to wander about, delving into family pressures, history, secrets, and difficulties of trying to assimilate into American culture while preserving one's original cultural identity.
			13f. Maya Angelou 'The Pulse of Morning'
				Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings • High School  1 to 3 Periods This lesson includes a series of activities that can be used in conjunction with the reading of Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Incorporate the activities into class discussions or use them for homework assignments.