Studying Protest Writings
Source/Author: Natalie Updike, Upper School English Teacher
December 11, 2020
In eleventh grade English classes, students survey American literature from the Colonial period to the present. The classes review literature that represents the history of the American experience and the currents of thought that have shaped our nation's intellectual and moral history. The aim is to have students better understand what it means to be an American.
The students have recently been focusing on a unit over narratives written by enslaved people as protest writing, with a social justice lens. Within this unit, students have examined songs sung by enslaved people, quotes by author and civil rights advocate Michelle Alexander, abolitionist Sojourner Truth and several others, writing from the Federal Writers' Project, applications of irony, and ways to examine and defeat stereotypes.
Recently, the class got outside for a review (pictured). Names of characters from the memoir “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” were hung around the Charger Commons pavilion. Mrs. Updike read character descriptions and details, and students raced to find the correct name. By turning a review of material into a challenge that allowed everyone to move about, students were more likely to stay engaged and received immediate feedback on their reading comprehension.
The students have recently been focusing on a unit over narratives written by enslaved people as protest writing, with a social justice lens. Within this unit, students have examined songs sung by enslaved people, quotes by author and civil rights advocate Michelle Alexander, abolitionist Sojourner Truth and several others, writing from the Federal Writers' Project, applications of irony, and ways to examine and defeat stereotypes.
Recently, the class got outside for a review (pictured). Names of characters from the memoir “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” were hung around the Charger Commons pavilion. Mrs. Updike read character descriptions and details, and students raced to find the correct name. By turning a review of material into a challenge that allowed everyone to move about, students were more likely to stay engaged and received immediate feedback on their reading comprehension.
