Unit 3: Looking Back on America Essential Question: How does learning history through literature differ from learning through informational text?

Objectives Read and discuss a variety of fiction and nonfiction about events from America’s past. Compare and contrast story characters, plots, themes, and settings from stories across American history. Analyze how historical fiction draws on themes, patterns of events, or character types from myths or traditional stories. Determine an author’s point of view in a text and discuss its impact.

Art Appreciation- Photographs by Dorothea Lange How does art help us look back on America in a different way than informational or literary texts do? How does the visual depiction of an event by a photographer tell a deeper story than the text alone?

c. 1933 "Unemployed Worker, Man with Cap, California”

c. 1933 "White Angel Breadline, San Francisco"

c. 1936 "Migrant Mother" Nipamo, CA

Journal Responses

A Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-- And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?

Poetry Response The structure of the poem (type of poem) is Question poem. How does this structure contribute to its meaning in a different manner than prose (regular writing)? What does the poem reveal about life in America?

Poetry Analysis Strategy Symbol Imagery Figures of Speech Theme/Tone

Meter Is a regular pattern, or beat, of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry. Reading a poem aloud can help you hear the pattern. Example: “You’re insecure, don’t know what for”

Notebook Response Imagine you are an American colonist during 1775. You pay heavy taxes to England, but you are denied a voice in its government. Your neighbors are talking about fighting for independence from England. Weigh the pros and cons of a revolution. What might you contribute to this struggle?