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Lesson Title: Identity in A Raisin in the Sun

Name: Linda Krakaur

Discipline: English

School: Sherwood High School, Montgomery County Public Schools

Grade Level: 9

I. Conceptual Framework

Enduring Understanding: Identity

Rationale: Identity is an important idea and topic for my students to learn about because as adolescents, they are in the process of developing their own identity and place in the larger society. High school students often experiment with and “try on” new identities as they discover the essence of who they are. This process can be demonstrated in their attire, complex relationships with peers and adults as well as the testing of societal limits. Studying identity through character study, poetry, and West African art will provide students with diverse examples of personal and social identity which can be used to explore the universal themes and issues at the crux of developing one’s sense of self and place in the world.

Essential Questions:

• How does a community shape identity?
• Why are some cultural identities valued more than others?
• How does art reveal social and personal identity?

Key Concepts:

I. Community influences personal identity:	II. Society judges cultural identity:	III. Art communicates personal and social identity:
Attire Values Roles Behavioral norms Self- esteem Historical context Traditions Lineage	Power Status History Education Economics Laws Opportunities Stereotypes	Form Media Theme Ideal Purpose Perspective Time period Artist/Viewer relationship Aesthetic Affective

State and Local Standards:

MCPS Unit Four: Exploring Cultural Perspectives
Enduring Understandings:

• Literature reflects the history of a people and enriches it culture.
• Particular conventions and characteristics define literary genres.
• Effective readers, writers, and speakers engage actively with text to create meaning
• Effective readers, writers, and speakers master the subtleties of text and language

Maryland State voluntary curriculum

• Expectation 1.2: The student will construct, examine, and extend meaning of traditional and contemporary works recognized as having significant literary merit.
• Expectation 1.3: The student will explain and give evidence to support perceptions about print and non-print works.

Essential Questions:

• How do authors reflect the dynamics of a society?
• How do the characteristics of a genre affect the expression of ideas?
• How does subtext deepen understanding of a text?
• How do culture, gender, and social factors affect communication?

Assessed Indicators:

• 1.9.4.3 – Understand, acquire, and use new vocabulary.
• 1.9.5.2 – Use strategies to prepare for reading (pre-reading).
• 1.9.5.3 – Use strategies to make meaning from text (during reading).
• 1.9.5.4 – Use strategies to demonstrate understanding of text (post-reading).
• 3.9.1.3 – Analyze and evaluate elements of narrative texts to facilitate understanding and interpretation.
• 3.9.1.4 – Analyze and evaluate elements of poetry to facilitate understanding and interpretation.
• 3.9.1.5 – Analyze and evaluate elements of drama to facilitate understanding and interpretation.
• 3.9.1.6 – Analyze and evaluate important ideas and messages in literary texts.
• 3.9.1.7 – Analyze and evaluate the author’s purposeful use of language in literary texts.
• 3.9.1.8 – Read critically to evaluate literary texts.
• 4.9.2.1 – Write to express personal ideas using a variety of forms including poetry, drama, narration, and personal essay.
• 4.9.2.2 – Write to inform using a variety of forms including summaries, essays, news articles, business and personal letters, and research papers.

Common Tasks:

• BCR – Analyze the relationship between the speaker and the diction in a poem or story. Explain how imagery and figurative language create meaning.
• Honors – Write a research paper comparing early West African art to
  visual art created during the Harlem Renaissance

II. Topics

Characters: A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry

Mama – maintains the family, pride in achievements despite the setbacks, encourages her children to maintain dignity, sense of respect for history (symbol – plant with little water still growing and reaching for light)

Beneatha – strives to be a doctor (despite sexism, racism, and economic disadvantage), dates Asagai and looks to him to learn about her history (African name, attire, music)

Asagai – Nigerian who has come to study in the U.S. before returning home, chooses to confront the challenges that will confront him (politically), loves and encourages Beneatha but does have some “traditional” ideas about women

Walter – wants to start his own business with the money from his father’s insurance policy, struggles to find a “voice” both in his family and in society in general

Harlem Renaissance: (1920-1939)

• Began after the Great Migration to the North (Mama’s family included) Jacob Lawrence “Migration Images”
  http://www.whitney.org/jacoblawrence
• Artists glorifying racial pride, culture and spirituality, and condemning injustice
• Depicted the political, social, and economic conditions of Black Americans
• Marcus Garvey – return to Africa movement (black and white photographs)
  http://www.moaanbessa.com/garvey.htm

Poets:

• Paul Laurence Dunbar “We Wear the Mask”
• Lanston Hughes (influenced by Dunbar) “Mother to Son,” “The Negro Mother,” “Dream Deferred” (related to the title of the play)

Visual artists:

• The Harmon Foundation (1922-1967)
• Les Fetiches (African Masks)
  http://americanart.si.edu/highlights/artworks.cfm?id=AA&StartRow=33
  http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/exploring/harlem/faces/harmon_text.html)

Early West African Art:

Represents a unified idea which could be connected with the earth or unknown

Its beauty and content combine to make art the vehicle that ensures the survival of traditions, protects the community and the individual, and tells much of the person who used it

Terracotta – Shrine Head (Yoruba – same ethnic community as Asagai)
www.metmuseum.org/toah/he/ifet/hd_ifet.htm

Terracotta – two warriors
http://africa.si.edu/collections/rsdadvnNav.asp?BrowseMode=3&offset=89

Bronze plaque (advanced technology)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Benin_Bronzes.JPG

Ceramic sculptures – Nok (northern Nigeria) earliest examples of figurative sculpture south of the Sahara; made by women
http://artnetweb.com/guggenheim/africa/west.html

Terracotta – funerary head (Ghana)
http://artnetweb.com/guggenheim/africa/west.html
http://www.dia.org/collections/aonwc/africanart/africanart.html)

Modern Art:

Interview with a Yoruba artist
www.metmusem.org/explore/YORUBA/HTM/txt_7a.htm

Griot - modern day poet or playwright Essence, May, 2003
http://worldmusic.nationalgeographic.com/worldmusic/view/page.basic/genre/content.genre/mande_traditional_749
http://www.africultures.com/index.asp?menu=revue_affiche_article&no=3616&lang=_en
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/787998.stm

Transcript from NPR – Universal themes in latest rendition of Raisin (P. Diddy) June 17, 2004

Tupac Shakur – “And 2Morrow”

Nigerian poet – “I Sing of Change”, The Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry

Movie - Rise

III. Lesson

Key Concept: Art communicates personal and social identity

Students will examine and interpret photographs of African-Americans and Whites during slavery, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow.

Students will identify:

• Factual – What do you see?
• Abstract – How do the people feel? Why?
• Theme – A single word or phrase as the caption

Students will read the poem, “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Dunbar.

We Wear the Mask
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, -
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but O Great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!

Students will consider the following:

• Who is the speaker of the poem?
• Why do people wear masks? Why is this speaker wearing one?
• What is the speaker hiding? Why?
• Which symbols suggest a tone?

Connection: How does this poem relate to Walter?

Key concept: Community influences personal identity

Students will examine and interpret examples of ancient West African art.

• Sensory images – Personalized thoughts about the images
• Questioning – Search for the unknown in the images and in the visual narrative
• Determining Importance – Determine what is essential in the visual narrative

Students will be complete a reading about early West African art.

• Synthesis – Organize and summarize the visual narrative
• Connecting – Compare this art to the mask described in Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask”

 

• What are the differences?
• What may have caused this change?
• How are African Americans impacted by these experiences?

Expanding: How does Asagai’s heritage impact his role in the play?

IV. Assessment

Characters:
Students will be able to…

• Demonstrate how cultural identity strengthens the characters in Raisin.
• Identify how Mama’s children are “like the plant that ain’t never had enough sunshine”.
• Identify how the family (community) influences the outcome of the play.

Harlem Renaissance:
Students will be able to…

• Explain the social and economic factors which influenced the Harlem Renaissance.
• Identify how the artists’ sense of community impacted their craft.
• Interpret poetry and identify how meaning is created.
• Compare the speaker in “The Negro Mother” to Mama in Raisin.

West African Art:
Students will be able to...

• Identify essential themes and meanings in a variety of pieces.
• Describe the purpose West African art had in society.
• Clarify how this art was more advanced and why it became marginalized.
• Explain how African-American artists during the Harlem Renaissance incorporated themes from early West African art in their works.
• Provide examples of how West African ideals were portrayed by characters in Raisin.

Modern Art:
Students will be able to...

• Compare Mama’s plant to Tupac’s rose.
• Find similarities between the voices of contemporary African and African-American poets.
• Determine the relevance of Raisin in today’s society.
• Question and assess issues of equality in our society.
• Identify and represent their own identity through words, symbols, and visual art.