Limitations in Many Languages: Memoirs of Immigrant Students

Olga Patricia Cancino, English, Ardrey Kell High School

Curriculum Unit (pdf)

Synopsis

This Multicultural Responsive curriculum unit offers teachers and students a predictable guide of instructional practices for teaching and learning the Memoir genre and its characteristics. It is intended for English language learners (Ell) in ninth grade. The theme in this unit is “Limitations” and students will have the opportunity to read a variety of authors from different cultural backgrounds that will inspire them to evoke memories of their lives experiences and to write about them.

The students will learn and apply different reading and writing strategies to understand concept and content related to the Memoir genre. The students will demonstrate comprehension of the concept by citing textual evidences from a variety of multicultural literacy works. They will build semantic knowledge to understand the relationships between words and phrases across the texts. The students will examine on the limitations characters in the stories experienced and apply newly gained knowledge to new situations by reflecting on their own limitations during class discussions that will help them to foresee the process of writing a Memoir as a problem solving. The students will demonstrate the different processes of writing by rewriting and editing their personal narrative, and applying 21st century skills by using technology to create a digital Memoir book. Students will demonstrate how citizens participate and contribute to the wellbeing of the community by promoting cultural awareness when presenting their digital book during a Ted Memoir Talk to the class and teachers in the school.