Class Plan -- Unit One, Day 7

Class Plan -- Unit One, Day 7

Goals

To discuss "Keeping Close to Home," key elements of an AGREE/DISAGREE response, and the assumptions underlying our agreement/disagreement with a text.

Assignment for Day 8
Reading - In PHG, re-read the section on "Interpreting and Reflecting" on pp. 183-4, 278-83; 192-6 (Deborah Tannen essay and the two responses to it); In LL, re-read Julie Jung, "The Pleasures of Remembrance: Raking in Circles and Other Unexpected Delights" (9-14).

Writing

ASAP: Re-read your Agree/Disagree response in light of today's class, and note any changes that you would make in a revision.
Annotate the Jung essay as you read, noting places where you are able to make connections with the text (using personal experience, knowledge, other texts, observations, movies you've seen, etc.);
On p. 15, answer question #4 under "Working with the Text" and #1 and 3 under "Working Beyond the Text" before you write your response.
Write a 1-2 page response (including a brief summary) to the essay. IMPORTANT: REMIND YOUR STUDENTS THAT INTERPRETATION INVOLVES GOING BEYOND MERE SUMMARY. THEY NEED TO ADD TO THE TEXT, TO MAKE IT MORE RELEVANT AND MORE EASILY UNDERSTOOD FOR OTHER READERS BY USING "OUTSIDE" OBSERVATIONS, PERSONAL EXPERIENCES, COMPARISONS, REFERENCES TO OTHER TEXTS, ETC. AT THE SAME TIME, THOUGH, THEY SHOULD NOT COMPLETELY GO OFF ON TANGENTS, TALKING ABOUT RELATED ISSUES WITHOUT REFERRING TO THE ESSAY TO WHICH THEY ARE RESPONDING. ALSO, REMIND THEM THAT THEY NEED TO AGAIN BRING TO CLASS TWO COPIES, AS WELL AS A HIGHLIGHTER PEN (WHICH THEY WILL USE FOR AN ACTIVITY NEXT TIME.)

Related Handouts

Activities
Daily - Take a few minutes to re-read the response to hooks that you wrote for today. Why do you think you responded to this essay the way you did? If you agreed with hooks, what factors do you think led you to agree? (Do age, gender, economic or class status, prior knowledge, ideas from other texts, etc. come into play? Likewise, if you disagreed, how would you explain your disagreement? Take about five minutes to write about this.

Discussion of Daily - The purpose of this daily is to get students to look critically at THEMSELVES as readers. Too often, we make unexamined judgments as we read or absorb information, not pausing to consider the source of these judgments. Class discussion following the daily can touch on the factors that could be involved in determining agreement/disagreement in this case (particularly varieties of personal experiences, prior knowledge, assumptions, and sympathies with Rodriguez's position, along with other student responses). The main function of this discussion, though, is achieving a general understanding of the issues hooks is concerned with. By the end of class, students should understand (at the very least) the basis of her disagreement with Rodriguez on the matter of family/cultural/class connections and their importance in the educational process. The following discussion questions might help you to get started discussing the main points (and difficult passages) in hooks:

What do terms like "bourgeois sensibility" (120) and "counter-hegemonic" (121) mean?
What is the point hooks is making in her discussion of Carol Stack's study?
What is her idea about the possibility of resisting from the margins (121)?
Why does hooks value personal experience ("telling one's personal story") so much? (122)
What was the substance of her argument with her colleague (Sangari) on p. 122?
How does a person in hooks' situation maintain connection with her family and working class background? In other words, how does hooks propose that people like herself can "keep close to home"?
What is her gripe with Richard Rodriguez (126)? What is the point she is making about the idea of rules or standards in that paragraph?

If time permits (and if your students seem to understand the basics of the hooks essay to your satisfaction), you could move onto the next activity, or an abbreviated version of it.

Determining Fact/Opinion/Belief/Prejudice - Review with students the goals and key elements of responding in the agree/disagree mode as a transition into the next activity. Pass out the Fact/Opinion/Belief/Prejudice handout (see Appendix 5). Have students read the handout silently, then put up the OH of possible responses to hooks (see Appendix 6), asking students to identify the use of fact, opinion, belief, and prejudice. Discuss which are appropriate or inappropriate responses and why. Move on to how to revise inappropriate or undeveloped responses. Remind students that opinions are a good starting point but need to be supported. Help them avoid prejudice and to see that belief is appropriate in a response when it is explained or at least identified as such.

Small Group Activity - Next, have students apply these ideas by way of the following group activity. Give them directions for this activity on the board or on the OH.

Form groups of three.
Exchange responses (journal entry) to "Keeping Close to Home."
Look for an example of each of the following--fact, opinion, belief, prejudice--in the response, and indicate these in the margins.
As a group, check the examples you chose against the handout to verify that it is indeed an example of that category.
In any remaining time, discuss how each writer might make any questionable or possibly inappropriate responses better supported or more appropriate.

AS STUDENTS BEGIN WORKING IN GROUPS, COLLECT ONE COPY OF THEIR AGREE/DISAGREE RESPONSE.

Give assignment for next class, explaining that students need not actually revise the agree/disagree response, but simply make plans for revision, and highlighting the points above (in caps) about the complexities of interpretation, bringing two copies to class, and bringing a highlighter pen.

Return summaries of Rodriguez with your comments. If time, mention any common problems you saw in these summaries. Also, if you are returning Personal Essays today, you might want to reserve a few minutes to explain your methods/style of grading and commenting (i.e. the way you use marginal and end comments, the way you are choosing to deal with grammar if you did so in the first essay, or any other particularly noteworthy aspects of your commenting technique).