Hi Everyone!! Please view my Screen-cast for the reflection for my MMP and please also take a look at my final piece!! I hope you enjoy browsing through the student's American Dream blog! Feel free to use anything for your classroom !! Enjoy!
Click here: American Dream Unit
I like how you included a tab for the daily lessons. I think this would be very helpful for holding absent students accountable for missed work. You provide an explanation of the classroom agenda and related resources so students really have no excuse to fall behind on their work!
ReplyDeleteI am a student who prefers more structure than less. This means that I like to know what we are doing each class in advance. Organization is a weakness for me so seeing a longterm schedule helps me organize my reading and studying.
I read a critic of "The Great Gatsby" that has forced me to reconsider teaching it in my classroom. I suggest you read the article:
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/actually-the-great-gatsby-is-trash?utm_source=vicefbus
The author describes the book as, "The book's certainly not poetic, nor is it particularly well-paced, mostly either digressing about upbringing or meandering through the motions of yet another bourgeois day. 'Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope,' Nick Carraway admits up front, on the first page. 'I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.'"
This makes me wonder what is Nick's purpose for telling the story in the first place? Before teaching this book, I think it is important to research how to teach the book to a diverse class. Many critics have argued that the book features a white-washed "American Dream."
P.S. I realize vice.com is not a peer reviewed literary journal, but I thought it was an interesting article to suggest a different way about analyzing the "American Dream" in "The Great Gatsby."
ReplyDeleteHi Julia, thank you for complimenting my work! Truly appreciated!
ReplyDeleteSo my essential question for this unit is "To what Extent is the American Dream achievable to all Americans ". Because my classroom is so diverse and I have majority African American and Caribbean , I teach the Great Gatsby in the lens of an outsider. If you take a look at my optic images, many of those images reveal the struggle for working class and middle class, even colored families in attempt to achieve the American Dream. If you also take a look at my tentative reading schedule, much of the informational text I have included to support the Great Gatsby and questions the attainability of the American Dream. Also, if you take a look at my Essay Prompt, students are answering the question of "Is the American Dream truly attainable".
Julia I must say I've received amazing essays arguing both sides the American Dream is/is not attainable. Many of the kids argued Nick failed to achieve the American Dream due to his financial status. Some argued the American Dream is strictly for privileged Americans. It was great!! The best part about teaching this unit is that it ties into U.S history because they were learning about the Great Gatsby