Black and British: Re-Imagining British Literature

Kimberly Palmer, English, Merancas Middle College

Curriculum Unit (PDF)

Synopsis

This unit focuses on disrupting the text and the canon by diversifying the traditional British Literature Curriculum and accentuating the limits of teaching a single story. Specifically, the texts in this unit explore assorted ideas of citizenship and ownership of individual and group identity. Students will read texts that are non-traditional for the course and further explore the idea of citizenship and the role it plays in the presentation of diversified literature. In order to complete this unit successfully, students will need to have a firm grasp on how to decipher various themes presented in a text and the deeper meaning behind them. Activities in the unit will enable students to analyze numerous texts and make connections among details, ideas, and events, while always supporting with textual evidence. The goal is to challenge ideas of citizenship as well as showcases a variety of authors, by adding black voices to curricula conventionally dominated by white males. The culminating activity will require students to challenge ideas customarily presented in a classroom, and to examine and explain what they believe to be their personal citizenships. They will complete a digital multimedia narrative as a presentation of their literary acuity, self-citizenship findings and arguments.