Unit Rationale
Rationale of Content and Order
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J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye and Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian both have young protagonists that are in search of who they are, conflicted with what they want in life and how others perceive them. Holden and Junior are characters students can relate to regardless of culture, gender and race. Both Holden and Junior go on their own journeys of self-discovery; as Holden makes an impromptu trip to New York visiting various people and staying in an array of hotels, Junior transfers to a high school off the reservation to explore life outside the world he grew to know and tries to fit in as the only Native American in his white school. Catcher in the Rye is the first primary literary text because it is the more challenging and complex read of the two novels, so we felt teaching it first would make the rest of the unit less stressful. Additionally, the setting of Catcher is in the fifties, whereas the setting of Part-Time Indian is within the past ten years, so presenting the novels in chronological order was logical. The final assessment during the last week of the unit is meant to bring the two primary texts together, in which students analyze the two protagonists and look at how they perceive themselves, how they resolve their conflicts and so on. The final assessment gives students the opportunity to choose from a variety of project options, in which they can make a video, skit, comic and so on about their favorite protagonist or fusing the two works together.
Each novel had its own supplemental literature and media, ranging from poetry, to articles, to music and movies. Poetry, music and articles were used in its appropriate lessons to connect the novel to the world students experience and to create lessons that explored recurring themes beyond the primary text. For example, Anna uses songs in her “Catch Your Playlist” lesson plan to give students the opportunity to explore Holden’s identity with a different approach that encourages students to use their own musical tastes to connect with him. Lisa uses T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” in her third lesson plan A to compare the title character to Holden in a moment in Catcher that reveals Holden’s vulnerability. The movies, Dead Poet’s Society and Smoke Signals, were placed after students finished each appropriate novel so they can effectively analyze the movie in context to the text. Additionally, video clips were used to support discussions of controversial topics that emerged in Part-Time Indian, especially when it came to the stereotype society has of Native Americans. Jason uses a video clip to help support his lesson on the controversial use of Native Americans as mascots. In Gintare’s first lesson plan A, she not only uses an essay written by Sherman Alexie, but also a Youtube video, and both address Hollywood’s unfair portrayal of Native Americans. The content of this unit was meticulously analyzed and arranged to connect two innovative pieces of literature, make the unit applicable and relevant to students’ lives, and effectively teach them the over-arching theme of identity exploration to the best of our abilities.
Rationale for Assessments and Methods of Evaluation
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When determining the types of assessments to use in order to evaluate comprehension, we chose a variety of different methods and assessments in order to keep these assessments fair, valid, and reliable. As the students are reading Catcher in the Rye, there are weekly quizzes that combine a multiple-choice section and an open-book essay question that allows the students to further engage with the text. The multiple-choice section is not open-book and will assess whether or not the students are grasping an understanding of the work as we progress through the unit. The second portion of these quizzes is a short essay prompt, which requires the students to refer back to the text to find textual evidence. This will allow the students to produce a more critical analysis of the work. Also, the students will be familiarized with this type of essay for an assessment. This is vital because after finishing Catcher in the Rye, the students will have a larger in-class essay assessment of this same sort.
This in-class essay will focus on the major themes that were discussed as the students read Catcher in the Rye. The students will construct an in-class essay on Friday, February 25. This essay will be graded over the weekend, and the students will be handed back their essays on Monday with feedback. This Monday will serve as a ‘writer’s workshop’ day, where the students will be able to read the feedback, ask questions, and begin to develop their in-class essays into a full take-home essay due by the end of the week. This way, the students have practiced creating an in-class essay, but may now continue to expand on their original ideas—finding the appropriate textual evidence to fit into their papers. The reasoning for this type of final assessment for Catcher in the Rye is mostly because we wanted the students to work on their critical analysis skills and writing skills as they reflected on the book as a whole. Since the students had been taking the weekly quizzes, they would already have clear expectations for how their in-class essay would be graded. However, there would be a rubric for both the in-class essay followed by guidelines and another rubric for their final essay. Thus, the students will have clear, set expectations to follow.
Next, as the students begin Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, there will be a variety of assessments to test both comprehension and urge students to make personal connections to the text. The same types of reading quizzes are integrated into the construction of this section of the unit, also, to allow the students to further connect to the texts. For the students’ vocabulary development, there will be a box in the corner of the room where students may drop in words that they do not understand. These “word drops” must have a citation or reference to where the students heard or read the word. These words will be taken out of the box as it fills up, the potential definitions will be discussed, and then the students will research the word to learn what it means in actuality.
Integrated throughout the unit are smaller assessments, both informal and formal, that adhere to all types of learners. Many of these assessments are described in detail in the individual lesson plans. An example of one of these assessments is a lesson that requires students to connect with music, while many of the assessments require the students to view something from the perspective of the protagonist (or other minor characters). In particular, one assessment, the ‘Tea Party Activity,’ asks students to speak to one another as if they were characters in the text. This activity, along with all other assessments, has a rubric to help students understand the requirements. Lastly, quick-writes and journals are also integrated into the unit as a form of quick comprehension checks or as simple ways for the teacher to get immediate responses from all of the students. These assessments are not graded to allow students to focus on content over logistics.
Lastly, the students will have a variety of options for the ‘end of unit’ assessment. These options will make the students incorporate BOTH books as they either write a comparison paper, create a dialogue between the protagonists, create a performance, or simply create their own form of assessment that incorporates both texts. Seeing as the different types of assessments will not have exactly the same rubric, some aspects of the rubric will be altered towards the specific forms of assessment. The main part of the rubric, incorporating textual references and content, will be the same for all assessments. The students will then present, perform, or interpret their creation or project to the class on the final day. This presentation will also count as part of the assessment grade.
