Institute Projects and Workshops

Fall 2001

Following is a brief sampling of the school-year workshops (with descriptions), curriculum guides, and sets of classroom books purchased as a result of the Summer Literacy Institute.

SAMPLE CURRICULUM GUIDES

• “Reading Poverty: A Critical Reading of Work and Hunger in the United States.”
• “Critical Encounters in High School English: Teaching Literary Theory to Adolescents.”
• “Colonialism and Post-Colonialism in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Using Barbara Kingsolver’s Novel, The Poisonwood Bible.”
• “Women and Social Issues Literature: Writing as Resistance/Speaking As Subversion.”
• “Paying Attention: Nature Writing and The Field Journal.”
• “Looking for Love and Language in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.”
• “American Voices: Expanding the Voice: Sherman Alexie and Smoke Signals.”
• “Language, Manipulation, and Globalization: An Interdisciplinary Multi-Genre Unit.”

CLASSROOM SETS PURCHASED

• Boricuas: Puerto Rican Writings, edited by Robert Santiago.
• Fools Crow, by James Welch.
• Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood.
• House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros.
• Imani All Mine, by Carol Ann Porter.
• In Search of Color Everywhere: A Collection of African American Poetry, edited by Ethelbert Miller.
• In the Time of the Butterflies, by Julia Alvarez.
• Krick? Krack!, by Edwidge Danticat.
• Legacy of Luna, by Julia Butterfly Hill.
• Mama’s Girl, by Veronica Chambers.
• Nervous Conditions, by Tsitsi Dangaremba.
• Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Erhenreich.
• Poetry Like Bread, edited by Martín Espada.
• Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver.
• Savages, by Joe Kane.
• Smoke Signals, by Sherman Alexie.
• Speak, by Laurie Anderson.
• The Skin I’m In, by Sharon Flake.
• Thousand Pieces of Gold, by Ruthanne Lum McCunn.
• Warriors Don’t Cry, by Melba Patillo Beals.
• When I Was Puerto Rican, by Esmeralda Santiago.

SAMPLE WORKSHOPS

• Monster: A Block Party and Close Reading Technique. Are you looking for a novel that provides contemporary, insightful material, yet does not drown students in a sea of new vocabulary? Then join in on the block party and be enticed into the novel as you meet characters from Walter Dean Myer’s Monster. We will also discuss journal strategies that encourage readers to talk back to the text, elicit peer feedback, and present opportunities to infuse art into your curriculum.
• Reading the Media. Many of our students spend their leisure time consuming large quantities of mass media. Yet schools often ignore the impact of such media, leaving students either unaware or struggling to understand the messages they receive. Using clips from Wag the Dog and Beyond Killing Us Softly: The Strength to Resist, this workshop will present strategies to help students read and evaluate media, looking especially at propaganda techniques, deceptive language, advertising techniques, and increasing concentration of media ownership.
• A Powerful Examination of Ethnocentrism. Using a chapter from Barbara Kingsolver’s best-selling novel, participants will read, discuss, and illustrate this section of the novel using symbols and text from five characters’ points of view. This chapter is an excellent stand-alone resource for students to explore ethnocentrism and how it promotes social and political conflict.

Fall 2001