Short Stories: Identity & Conflict
Assorted Authors
Daily Lessons and Assignments
Essential Questions
- How do writers use fiction to educate on social injustices?
- How do writers distinguish their communities’ values from mainstream American
values?
- How has the idea of being American changed over time? Why have those changes
happened?
- How do authors use characters’ belongings, homes, and careers as symbols of
heritage and values?
- What is the struggle between who you are (your identity) and how you represent it to others?
Objectives
- Notice aspects of Identity in different pieces of art, embodiment, and text
- Make meaningful connections between identity, conflict, and art
- Pose questions about artist and author intent
- Identify the major conflict in the story
- Notice choices made by artists and authors
- Investigate alternative perspectives through narrative writing
- Analyze a short story through character representations
- Identify quotes in the short story representing identity.
- Infer the plot of the story based on pieces of the story provided and working with classmates.
Assessment and Resources
Assessment
Oral presentation: Near the beginning of the unit, students will be put in groups to research and create a presentation on a particular time period, movement, racial group etc. in America that the class will be discussing in one of the short stories. Presentations should be 3-5 minutes long.
Narrative: Students will use the literary elements they have learned about to construct their own narrative that focuses on identity.
Works
My Son the Fanatic by Hanif Kureishi
Baby Shoes by Earnest Hemmingway
Eleven by Sandra Cisneros
The Man in the Well by Ira Sher
Racitatif by Toni Morrison
Subtotals by Gregory Burnham
Polar Breath by Diane Glancy
Cathedrals by Raymond Carver
Oral presentation: Near the beginning of the unit, students will be put in groups to research and create a presentation on a particular time period, movement, racial group etc. in America that the class will be discussing in one of the short stories. Presentations should be 3-5 minutes long.
Narrative: Students will use the literary elements they have learned about to construct their own narrative that focuses on identity.
Works
My Son the Fanatic by Hanif Kureishi
Baby Shoes by Earnest Hemmingway
Eleven by Sandra Cisneros
The Man in the Well by Ira Sher
Racitatif by Toni Morrison
Subtotals by Gregory Burnham
Polar Breath by Diane Glancy
Cathedrals by Raymond Carver