“Gatsby’s got the Juice”

Nicole Sparrow, English, Hawthorne Academy of Health Sciences

Curriculum Unit (pdf)

Synopsis

In this curriculum unit, students will research and study the effects of how chemicals (specifically alcohol) can cause great negative affects to the body, both the physical body and the mental state of a person. Students will discuss the importance of the liver. How the liver is a major organ of the body carries out over 500 functions of the body and most importantly needed to relieve toxins, which might build up in the body1. Students will focus on a suggested novel from the AP Language and Composition curriculum, “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The characters and the author all deal with a variety of both social and political issues. The novel will become the basis for students to begin identifying how characters personalities change due to the use of alcohol, as well as legal and illegal drugs during the roaring 1920’s2. Students will rely on deductive and inductive reasoning when discussing the actions of characters. Students will also review ethos (which is an ethical appeal, to convince an audience of the author’s credibility), pathos (which is an emotional appeal, to persuade an audience by appealing to their emotions) and logos, (which is an appeal to logic, to convince an audience by use of logic or reason). Students will then create Public Service Announcements using the persuasion techniques to discuss drug and alcohol usage and the affects in the body. Students will research other authors from the same time as “The Great Gatsby” and make comparisons and contrasts to present day authors, with discussions about the changes in writing due to the induced usage of drugs (legal and illegal) over the times.