Unit Rationale

The Great American Pastime:

Protest Literature and Dissent in America

We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the
tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are
endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become
irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political
views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe.
-- Elie Wiesel

Anyone who has ever studied American literature or history knows we live in a country
with a rich background of cultural and ideological diversity. One of the cornerstones of
American politics is our right to disagree, to criticize what we find problematic and fight hard for
what we believe in. One of our greatest privileges as American citizens is our ability to define for
ourselves what it means to be an American, and as different minority groups have fought to be
included in that ever-broadening definition, theyve created literature that has shaped and
continues to shape literary and social movements in the U.S. It is for these reasons that an
American literature course would be incomplete without the study of protest literature, the
movements that produce them, and the ways in which dissent is and always has been a
fundamental part of the fabric of American literature and history.
I plan to develop these ideas with students by studying the important role that speeches,
letters, and poems have played in the long history of protest literature. They will explore various
authors organized into movements, starting with the Black/African-American rights movement,
from slavery to modern day protests. They will also study the LGBTQ+ movement, the
Womens rights movement, and the movement by Native Americans for the rights of Natives, all
through the literature produced by and for the people that have fought for their rights as
American citizens throughout U.S. history. Some of the texts we will use to accomplish this are
speeches like Dr. Kings seminal I Have a Dream speech, alongside Malcolm Xs The Ballot or
the Bullet. Well also be examining more traditional texts and essays, including Henry David
Thoreaus Civil Disobedience and the poetry of Langston Hughes, Walt Whitman and Sylvia
Plath. For a full list of resources used in this unit, reference the Textual Materials section of Unit
5 under the Unit Outline tab.
In addition to studying and discussing these texts, students will create two final products
that synthesize their experiences with their new knowledge to create something new. The first
will be a research project on an author of their choice from an American protest movement of
their choice, which they will present to the class. The second will be a piece of creative or
persuasive writing -- primarily a letter, speech, or poem -- that students will model after one of
the texts we will read as a class.
 Both the texts Ive chosen to teach and the projects Im asking my students to complete
directly correlate to Colorado state standards, and are used to help students meet individual
benchmarks. Some of these include students comprehending and analyzing informational and
nonfiction texts -- which this unit is heavily centered around -- as well as gathering and
presenting research, writing exploratory texts, discussing multiple media types with their peers,
and analyz[ing] seminal U.S. documents of historical and literary significance including how
they address related themes and concepts (English Language Arts Standards). In this unit Ive
created lesson plans and assignments to meet each of these standards in the context of American
literature in creative and student-centered ways. For examples of this and a full list of standards
addressed in this unit, reference the day-to-day planning and standards sections.
I recognize this is a nontraditional approach to American Literature. While this unit
doesnt include any Ernest Hemingway, and we will not be reading To Kill a Mockingbird or The
Great Gatsby, students will be introduced to a range of diverse texts and acquire the skills
necessary to comprehend and think critically about the complex writing that arose in times of
tension and change in the U.S. While there were many civil rights movements I could have
chosen to focus on in this unit, I chose to focus on the four I did -- Black/African American,
Native American, LGBTQ+, and women -- because these are movements that are still active and
producing literature today. It is important that students are introduced to modern day protest
literature, as well as the social and political movements that produce them, if they are going to be
educated and well-adjusted participants in a democratic society. While I recognize the modern
day interpretations of these movements and their supporters is a controversial subject, I also
know that my classroom is a place where respect and risk-taking are valued in equal measure.
Im not afraid to facilitate, in an unbiased way, tough conversations about identity and what it
means to be an American, and I dont want my students to be afraid to have those conversations.
Considering that the United States began with an American Revolution -- a declaration of
independence from tyranny and injustice -- my work in an American Literature classroom would
be woefully incomplete without the exploration of the very tradition of dissent which serve as
our foundation.
Finally, part of my job as an educator in the U.S. is to prepare students to be educated and
engaged participants in a democratic society. To do this effectively, I must allow students access
to all parts of the American story -- even and especially the parts we may be ashamed of. Along
with the noble tradition of democratic participation comes tremendous responsibility; by
allowing students access to the historic civil rights movements in American history through their
literature, I hope to lead them to practice this great responsibility with empathy and justice in
mind. By studying history, we can learn from our mistakes. By studying stories and their telling,
we become more empathetic. By combining these truths with the grand American tradition of
protest and dissent, I hope to teach students to know themselves as part of this tradition, and
approach their fellow Americans with understanding and kindness.
 References
"English Language Arts Standards Reading: Informational Text Grade 9-10." English
Language Arts Standards Reading: Informational Text Grade 9-10 | Common Core
State Standards Initiative. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Mar. 2017.
Wiesel, Elie. "Remember." The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Mar.
2017.