African Studies - Lesson Plans
Is change always a good thing?
Throughout this lesson, students reflect and understand how the environment has been modified, and how people have been adapted to it. Using the African film Pumzi, students acknowledge the importance of making informed decisions to save the environment.
African! A Diverse Continent Home to Many Countries
It is critical for students to begin their journey of learning diversity among cultures that exist throughout the world.
Using the African Film Pumzi to Understand Narrative Elements
This lesson serves to establish and reinforce background knowledge related to CCSS W.3 Narrative Writing for future lessons in which students are creating their own narrative writing. This lesson additionally incorporates science fiction and film into the curriculum.
While students have had instruction around narrative elements before, I want to promote deep comprehension of narrative elements and how they are used in storytelling. This lesson focuses on film in order to provide an engaging storytelling medium and to highlight a short film made by a Kenyan screenwriter and director.
These lessons feature review of content to support mastery of skill by the end of our narrative writing unit in support of the bilingual (90%), ELL (40%), and special education students (30%) in my classroom.
Finally, these lessons incorporate ‘writing on demand’ practice to support familiarity with PARCC tasks related to narrative writing.
Imagine the Possibilities
This unit provides students with a glimpse into another part of the world (Malawi), encourages them to make connections and relate their experiences and ultimately promotes critical thinking around problems and possible solutions. By providing texts whose main character(s) are children around their age, students should also be able to see themselves and recognize themselves as capable participants in positively contributing to and changing the world around them, and as having an important role and responsibility, even at their age, in helping to make their home, community, and world a better place. Constantly employing critical thinking, as we will do around problems and solutions in this unit, is a practice and skill that is beneficial and transferable not only to all subject areas, but all areas of their lives.
African Independence Allegory Project
Students need to understand the impact of political boundaries in Africa and how the colonial boundaries have had political, economic, and students will read and analyze James Aggrey’s, The Eagle That Would Not Fly. It is important for students to view the independence of African countries from colonial rule as a part of a larger story. Too often African history is studied solely in the context of the colonial period. By looking at independence movements across the continent and how they vary, students will see different paths to independence. Students will practice creative writing skills by writing an allegory in the style of Aggrey’s, The Eagle That Would Not Fly. Students will create original creative artwork to illustrate a scene in their allegory.
The AlterNative States of Africa
Students need to understand the impact of political boundaries in Africa and how the colonial boundaries have had political, economic, and social consequences. By imagining what a more organic evolution of African States would look like without European influence, students should be able to analyze the impact of the Berlin conference and European hegemony.
The Third Space in American and Transnational
Exposure to (accessible) critical theory will equip students with tools for analysis of texts throughout their lifetime.
Exposure to (accessible) critical theory will equip students with tools for analysis of texts throughout their lifetime.
Tram 83: A New Critical and Post-Colonial / Neo-Colonial Approach
This unit will explore Fiston Mwanza Mujila’s novel Tram 83, balancing two approaches that exist in a state of tension: looking at the work art with form and content that work together in interesting ways to speak to a meaningful human experience, and considering the work as an artifact of African literature that can teach us about dynamics of power in a post-colonial and neo-colonial world.
Students will learn to appreciate reading a text for multiple forms of value and applying a variety of readings, evaluating them for usefulness in creating worthwhile interpretations. By the end of the unit, students will have learned something about the beauty of Mujila’s novel as well as the power dynamics of the novel’s context.
Literary Pinwheel Synthesizing Author and Critic Points of View in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, and Achebe’s Images of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
Adopting Author and Critic Points of View Through the Literary Pinwheel Discussion Model to Engage Deeply With Questions of Perception of Otherness in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, and Achebe’s Images of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
Hearing the Voices of the Voiceless: Tracing the Evolution of African Poetry from Colonization to Spoken Word
As a culminating project on a unit on African poetry, students will present a product that exemplifies the evolution of the African poetic tradition from colonization to the present.
Borders and Bridges of Identity: What Can Chimamanda Adichie Teach Me About Myself?
This lesson for introduction to philosophy courses aims to encourage students to think about the notions of race, culture, gender, and identity in relation to existentialism. Existentialism deals with questions of the individual as a free and responsible agent. In this lesson, students will be exposed to some of the struggles of African identity in the work of Chimamanda Adichie in comparison to other Western canonical existentialism texts. Students will determine how, if at all, they can relate to the material. They will self-reflect and attempt to define who they are. This lesson will allow students to start thinking about whom they are and who they are not. They will also determine if and how they can relate to others.
What Is Short Fiction?
This lesson seeks to offer an introduction to the theory of short fiction. The students will be asked to reflect on the short form through a close reading of two short fiction theory pieces: “Defining the Short Story: Impressionism and Form” by Suzanne Ferguson and “Twice-Told Tales: a Review” by Edgar Allan Poe, and through a discussion on a short film entitled “Pumzi” by Wanuri Kahiu.
Organic Writing for Female Writers
Students will read and analyze chapter one of Americanah and consider how blogging could play an important role in conveying personal views to explore women expression. It is important for students to know about African female writers (in this case, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie) and how she constructed the characters in her novel. In chapter 1 author Chimamanda provide us with a good sense of what the novel is about.
Transnational Literature and “Conjunctive Consciousness”: The Translator by Leila Aboulela
Literature Unit for “Introduction to Literature” Course (community college; a course focused on literary genre and devices as well as critical analysis, and a prerequisite to upper-level literature courses)
Exploring the sense of belonging in Gabeba Baderoon’s poetry and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah
To explore and subsequently evaluate the sense of belonging demonstrated by two African writers and synthesize one’s own sense of belonging as students living in another culture.