English Confronting Modernity: Becoming Citizens of the World: Narrowing Knowing: Imperfect Narratives

What are the social forces that create "months" for knowing? What are the implications of such?

More Than a Month, If black history is only told as history in slavery and civil rights, then the people seem knowable in only those contexts. This movie is about starting a petition to end Black History Month to make it all year. What would it look like? It should be taught as American history. Once the filmmaker gets the signatures, where does he go and whom does he see.

Black History Month was a week in 1926. ASALH is the organization that founded it. However, the the petition was deemed a "post modernist identity" gimmick of sorts and just a provocative notion. Acknowledging that it needed to be done, Tilghman, he asks the founder for his support, but the founder says that ending this would end that black history must be included in the curriculum - "be careful what you are asking for."

Is an America without Black History Month an America without black history?

Older generations say "black history saved our lives," and the director's mother is putting on a black history play that is situated culturally during the course of the movie in response to another way of celebrating black history with a play about teenage pregnancy. But the director wants to know why the play -- either one -- has to be relegated to February? Another issue is money -- black actors get paid, black designer fashion show, foods on sale that honor blacks, black history month sneakers (Nike), images and pictures of blacks connected to all ads. There is a spike in ads during "black history season."

It is about claiming a right to an identity far from a month or an advertising season.

Social Dominance Theory -- Black history month is a counter-narrative to the dominant narrative -- it exceptionalizes African Americans with condescension to gratify them enough to have their story told once a month and then get back to telling the story of American people.The research was to assess the value of this history of various black figures-- some saw it as an American history survey and some saw it as a Black history survey. The evidence suggests that Black history month does not have a positive or detrimental effect, no ego-boosting effect. What are the benefits of having a history month?

History is about having the power to control the story -- even for a brief period of time (consider a confederate history month). In telling a story, there is a promise of survival; a promise of existence, even if it is the same four people whose stories are told. History months are about something deep but the stories of Africans in American deserve more than a month. It is about introducing to the world stories that are lost, hidden, or ignored. Doing African American history is doing our history; it is who we are as a nation. Having a history month is a way to be recognized. To not need a history month is a recognition of true equality. It is about the nature of power and equality; it is a bigger problem about which history months are a symptom. What would it mean not to need a history month? A dream? Possible?

There are politics involved in teaching history. Whose history gets taught? How much and from whose perspective? In 2005, the SRC made Black History a graduation requirement -- Philadelphia. Why shouldn't there be an Asian or Latin American history? Well, because African Americans were enslaved and their labor used to build America? We believe it is so important that you cannot graduate from high school without knowing it. Instead of a black history month, it is about transcending it to blend it in with American history as one. Create an inclusive although imperfect narrative. The beauty of public celebration of something is to bring people together who have an interest, of shared knowledge.

The American story is ours. The story of history informs us who we were, but how we tell that story conveys who we are.

Re-imagining the English Classroom

This unit is an example of what English teachers can do to explore global issues of social justice through reading and writing. This is specifically designed using eighth grade Common Core Standards, but the units are appropriate for middle through high school students. The essential question that began this blog is this: How have the Maya responded to signs of change, and what can the Maya teach us about tradition, cooperation, and democracy? However, it expanded to other units that also seek to find the lessons of modernity -- or the belief that knowledge, the economy, technology and even our selves are capable of never-ending improvement. That said, our work is to uncover the darker side of such progress, which is also complex and shows how we are implicated in the lives of people all over the world. The format of these units is mostly inquiry-based, but we hold onto the core of our discipline, which is narrative. History is a narrative just as stories are, so we need to see any story as having gaps that prompt questions and further inquiry.

For the Maya unit, students will learn about cooperation through inquiry by beginning with a central text, developing comprehension and literary analysis skills while reading the central text, and then filling in the narrative gaps with additional inquiry researching a variety of genres. The summative assessment will enact this principle by presenting their research through multiple genres and then sharing their findings in a oral presentation and gallery walk. I try variations of this with each unit.

1. Thus, the first learning goal is to understand that knowledge is constructed by and through multiple sources. For this reason, we will do fishbowl and socratic seminars throughout the 3 weeks . The summative writing and speaking assessment is a multigenre project (see Romano’s Blending Genre, Altering Style or many websites) that synthesizes various sources to answer our essential question using multiple genres. Students are free to select from a variety of topics.

2. The second goal is to consider what different genres do to help us understand Maya experiences; thus, students will be able to examine the structure, authorial language, and authenticity of historical fiction and testimonio and to analyze what impact each has on the reader’s experience.In reading various texts, students will practice comprehension skills, identify and analyze literary devices, and trace the theme of cooperation. The summative reading assessment is a written assessment about figurative language, vocabulary in context, dialogue, and genre.

3.The third goal is to enact inclusivity, participation and critical engagement -- pillars of thick democracy. The texts in this unit captures the resilience of people and the value of cooperation. By focusing on Maya genocide of the early 1980s and exploring their culture, American students can learn the true meaning of cooperation and gain a greater sense of democratic living while also celebrating the resilience of a people. We will see how the Maya maintain their cultural foundation while making modern adaptation.

The novel, Tree Girl, is the central text, so the study guide here follows this book chapter by chapter indicating places for additional inquiry. Students will do inquiry during workshop time and keep notes in their research journals. The testimonio of I, Rigoberta Menchu, and numerous documentary and other media resources capture the social structures that created oppression in Guatemala and the mechanisms people used to resist and maintain traditions such as coops for farming and weaving and integrating Catholicism with indigenous religion. The two books are also a source of comparison as we think about how we learn about history.

As we see in Grandin's book, "Repression severed alliances between reforming elites and popular classes, disaggregated powerful collective movements into individual survival strategies, extracted leaders from their communities, and redefined the relationship between human beings and society" (196). However, individuals, especially activists like Rigoberta Menchu, while extracted did not remain isolated. Out of such manifestations grew a new way of thinking that resisted oppression –granito de arena. This metaphor for cooperation is a powerful message for any democratic society and is particularly relevant for developing classroom ethos. Guatemala advanced democracy not through autonomy or isolated freedom but rather a "collective action laid bare the social foundations of self" (181). This, I think, is what is worth knowing and teaching in our schools; this notion of democracy is worth contemplating, and so this unit attempts to explore these notions by using stories as points of access for these young thinkers.

Ganito de arena – a humble phrase that says “ I alone can’t change things. But I can HELP to change things." It’s a collective concept of change! It signifies a process that change can take many forms. It comes through struggle that unites collective rights and individual rights. What I give is only a tiny contribution (as with all the people we will meet in this unit). There are no heroes, but when the hand of destiny touches you, you have to act – you don’t have a choice.

English Confronting Modernity: Becoming Citizens of the World

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Narrowing Knowing: Imperfect Narratives

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