Independent Thinking

1. Independent Thinking 1st required module: 12B

2. Note: • Be sure to save all of YOUR copies of readings and activities / assignments into your Google Drive folder: Last Name, First Name, ELA 12B  Independent Thinking

3. ACTIVITY 1: QUICKWRITE • Write your response to the following quickwrite under the heading above, in the Word template labeled “Independent Thinking Activities” • BE SURE TO SAVE THIS TO YOUR OWN GOOGLE DRIVE 12B FOLDER. • “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me” is an essay by Sherman Alexie, a Spokane/Coeur d’Alene Indian who grew up on a reservation in Wellpinit, Washington. As a child, Alexie read widely and often, even as economic circumstances on the reservation would have seemed to limit Alexie’s opportunities. Indeed many, if not most, of Alexie’s classmates put little time into schoolwork and even less time into reading. Alexie did well in school and attended Gonzaga University on a scholarship. He is currently a prolific and award-winning novelist, short story writer and poet. He attributes the bulk of his success to the relationship he cultivated, against all odds, with reading. READ AND RESPOND TO ONE OF THE FOLLOWING PROMPTS: • What are your first memories of books? Of being read to? Of reading? and/or • What sorts of things do you read? Do you read for enjoyment? Do you read as often as you think you should? Why or Why not? and/or • What are the benefits of reading? Write about as many as you can think of. Have your views been influenced (negatively or positively) by learning facilitators? Do you trust that your learning facilitators’ attitudes about reading actually apply to your own life? Why or why not?

4. ACTIVITY 2: SURVEYING THE TEXT AND MAKING PREDICTIONS Write your answers to the following questions under the heading above in your “Independent Thinking Activities” Document. • Identify the author. When was the essay first published? Where was it first published? • Skim the first and last paragraphs and answer the following questions as fully as you can (think of this as a quick-write: answer based on what you think) • Rephrase both parts of the essay’s title in question form (you’ll have two questions from the title). How do you imagine Alexie will answer these questions in this essay? • Why do you think Alexie wrote this essay? • Who do you think is the intended audience for Alexie’s essay? • Do you think Alexie’s situation—i.e., growing up on an Indian reservation—will make his words apply less, more, or equally to your own life situation? Explain.

5. ACTIVITY 3: KEY VOCABULARY • Copy the following words and definitions into your document titled “Independent Thinking Activities.” Highlight words or phrases you did not already know so that you can refer to them as you read.

6. ACTIVITY 4: FIRST READ AND SOAPSTONE • Now that you have some idea of what the article is about, read along as the article is read aloud, and highlight / make comments as we do so (+, -, ?, !) • When you are finished, complete a SOAPSTone for the article in your notebook, under the heading Activity 4.

7. ACTIVITY 5: PREPARING TO LOOK AT LANGUAGE • After reading through once, it is time to look more closely at the text and to examine the way in which the author uses language. Remember: all language is argument, and all writers are trying to convince you of something. The trick, for now, for college, and for survival, is to figure out what they are trying to persuade us of, and how they are trying to do it. • For the purposes of this activity, let’s review definitions of: denotation, connotation, metaphor, simile, hyperbole, personification, alliteration. Write these definitions under the heading above, in the document labeled “Independent Thinking Activities”

8. ACTIVITY 6: LOOKING CLOSELY AT LANGUAGE • Now, reread the article and highlight the literary devices you find, and add a comment to notate which literary device(s) you have identified. • After you’ve found at least 5, select one or two and write them in your journal under “Activity 6: Looking at Language.” • Then, reflect on and answer the following questions: • How do you think Alexie’s word choice adds to the story or characters? Give an example. • Look through the text for ways that Alexie describes reservation life. What do you know? Does he provide enough examples? • What kind of tone do these word choices create? Explain. • Notice how Alexie uses humor throughout his piece. What do you think the author hopes to gain from this strategy? • Write a 3-5 sentence reflective response in which you discuss how the sentences/sections you chose above add to the article. You should also consider the tone that is created and what the author is implying.

9. ACTIVITY 7: CRITICAL ANALYSIS • In your final readthrough of the article, evaluate the text more critically. • In your “Independent Thinking Activities” document, answer the following as thoroughly as possible, under the heading “Activity 7: Critical Analysis” • Why did Alexie begin to take reading seriously? What does this characteristic tell you about him? Use textual evidence to support your response. • What do you now think is the most important theme (or message) in this story? Why? • What does Alexie mean by “trying to save [his] life? What does he mean by “trying to save their lives”? • Consider this statement: “Then there are the sullen and already defeated Indian kids who sit in the back rows and ignore me with theatrical precision. The pages of their notebooks are empty.” Examine the phrase “theatrical precision.” How does this phrase capture attitudes of some of your classmates in the past? • Examine the sentence, “The pages of their notebooks are empty.” Identify the metaphor here and discuss its effectiveness. How would this sentence differ if Alexie had written it in plain words, with no figurative language? • In what ways might Alexie’s childhood and teenage experience make it easier for today’s learners to relate with him? In what ways might this experience make it more difficult?

10. ACTIVITY 8: PRE-READING -- CISNEROS Quickwrite (5 min): Read the following, then respond to the questions below. Sandra Cisneros and those in her position could easily be limited by the expectations laid out for them as “the only daughter and only a daughter” of a Mexican-American family. She was born in Chicago in 1954, the third child and only daughter in a family of seven children. She studied at Loyola University of Chicago (for her B.A.) and received her Masters degree in creative writing from the University of Iowa, a world-renowned writing program. She worked as a teacher and counselor to high school dropouts, as an artist in the schools where she taught creative writing, a college recruiter, and a visiting writer to universities such as Berkeley, and the University of Michigan. In her essay “Only Daughter,” she discusses how her own dreams for herself were so different from the ones her family had for her—particularly her father—and how alienated her pursuit of these dreams could occasionally make her feel. By reaching deep into her Chicana-Mexican heritage and articulating sensations of displacement and longing, Sandra Cisneros has created a lasting tribute to those who must conquer similar battles as she, on their way to success. RESPOND TO ONE OF THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS: • Have you ever felt alienated by your family/friends because of something you believed that was different than what was “popular”? Explain. and/or • Has anyone ever assumed something about you, or had expectations for you, based simply on your culture, success in school, the color of your skin, or anything else? How did you react? What would you say to those who make such assumptions?

11. ACTIVITY 9: SURVEYING THE TEXT (CISNEROS) • Answer in your “Independent Thinking Activities” Document. • Identify the author. When was the essay first published? Where was it first published? • Skim the first two paragraphs and answer the following questions as fully as you can. • What predictions can you make about the essay based on the title, “Only Daughter?” • What do you think the essay will talk about? • What do you think the author wants us to do or believe? • Who do you think is the intended audience for her essay? • Do you think Cisneros’s situation—i.e., growing up as an educated daughter in a Mexican-American home—will make her words apply less, more, or equally to your own life situation? Explain.

12. ACTIVITY 10: KEY VOCABULARY Copy the following words and definitions into your document titled “Independent Thinking Activities.” Highlight words or phrases you did not already know so that you can refer to them as you read.

13. ACTIVITY 11: FIRST READ AND SOAPSTONE • Now that you have some idea of what the article is about, read along as the article is read aloud, and highlight / make comments as we do so (+, -, ?, !) • When you are finished, complete a SOAPSTone for the article in your notebook, under the heading Activity 11.

14. ACTIVITY 12: LOOKING CLOSELY AT LANGUAGE • This time, rather than looking at specific literary devices, read the article out loud. • As you do, choose (and mark on your text) 4-5 sentences or phrases that appealed to you as particularly well-written. Go with your gut, and answer honestly. • Then, in their Journals under “Activity 13: Looking at Language,” complete the following: • Understanding what makes another author’s writing style powerful and appealing can make better writers of us all, so really try on this activity! • Choose 3 sentences or phrases from the Cisneros text that you feel are particularly “good.” That is to say, you thought they were powerful or well-written. Write these sentences in your activities, under the heading “Activity 12: Looking at Language,” and for each one, answer the following questions (I know these are hard questions to put into words—but do your best! There’s no wrong answer): • Why do you think this sentence or phrase appeals to you? • Does it contain any figurative language? If so, what? • Say the sentence aloud. Often, it is the sounds of words put together that makes a sentence so appealing. Do you notice anything about sound in the sentence you’ve chosen? Explain. • Where is the verb? The subject? Would writing the words in another order make it less powerful (e.g., “I walked the dog,” instead of, “The dog was walked by me”)? Try re-writing this sentence in a less-powerful way. Why do you think Cisneros’s word choice is better? • Do you think this sentence adds to Cisneros’s argument? Why/why not?

15. ACTIVITY 13: RHETORICAL PRÉCIS • Using your template from previous modules, or the template uploaded to “12B templates” folder on Google Drive, write a rhetorical précis for this module so that you have a quick summary of Cisneros’s arguments.

16. ACTIVITY 14: CRITICAL ANALYSIS • In your document, under the heading “Activity 14: Critical Analysis,” answer the following questions as completely as possible: • How does Cisneros father stereotype her (make assumptions about what she can/should do)? • How does she feel at the end of the story when her father asks for extra copies? • How do you think Cisneros would have reacted if her father had not liked the story? Would she have changed anything? Why/why not? • Think back to Sherman Alexie, who became an avid reader and writer, and succeeded beyond the expectations others for him as an American Indian. In what ways are these two authors’ stories different? In what ways are they the same? • Do the messages of these two authors have anything in common? • How does Cisneros’s message relate to the topic of this unit, “Independent Thinking?”

17. ACTIVITY 15: PRE-READING – OBAMA • Quickwrite (10 min) – Read the following paragraph, then respond to the questions below Four years before he was elected as the first black president of the United States, Barack Obama was a little-known Illinois state legislator running for a seat in the U.S. Senate. His path to the White House was an unusual one: he came from a broken home, with interracial parents, and though born in Honolulu was raised for some time in Indonesia. Well-liked by most, he still endured whispered racial slurs from others, and he felt haunted by a sense of being a misfit African American, struggling with the idea that people were pushing an identity on him—“what it meant to be a black man.” Whether at Occidental College, New York, or Harvard, Obama met with people who tried to tell him what he could or couldn’t do and think. Even today, Obama struggles to find his place in the White House as a man who could have been owned as a slave less than 150 years ago. The following excerpts from his first autobiography, Dreams from My Father, describes the warnings some of his African American friends gave him of learning too much of the “White man’s” way, and his response to these challenges. RESPOND TO ONE OF THE FOLLOWING: • What does success look like, in your opinion? Do you believe you can achieve it? Who or what may present itself as an obstacle to your success? and/or • The road to independent thinking involves going against the grain. Can you remember a time when you went against the grain, and you achieved something because of it? Were there other consequences?

18. PRE-READING NOTE: EXPLICIT WORD USAGE ⋆⋆Please realize in advance that the word “nigger” appears twice on the first page (p. 97) of the excerpt, at the end of the fourth paragraph. The word has not been censored for the reasons described below: Just as Cisneros describes her life from the perspective of a Chicana, and Alexie as an American Indian, Obama tells his life as an African American. The word “negro” and its derogative slang is a deep part of his history. But the word “nigger” has a powerful and very painful history. For many, it is still incredibly offensive, especially when coming from someone outside the cultural circle of understanding (in other words, potentially anyone who isn’t black). To other African Americans, though, it is a word that needs reclaiming. By using it, by stealing it back, it has less power, possibly, to keep others down. In the following reading, Obama uses the word, I believe, for several reasons: first, because it is the word his old friend used; second, because Obama wants to paint for us a realistic picture of his upbringing; and third, because when “Frank,” Obama’s friend, is using the word, he is actually describing how white people will always view Obama, no matter how educated he becomes. Because Obama is black, they will always see him as one step below human, and one step above slave. ⋆⋆While the article has not been censored, you cannot use this word in the classroom or in your writing, out of respect for others. See me if you need help coming up with another way to describe what you want to say.

19. ACTIVITY 16: SURVEYING THE TEXT AND MAKING PREDICTIONS Write your answers to the following questions in your activities document. Questions/Tasks: • Identify the author. When was the selection first published? Where was it first published? • What do you think the text will talk about, based on the other two we’ve read, and the fact that it has to do with Obama’s own educational experience? • Who do you think is the intended audience for her essay? • Do you think Obama’s situation—i.e., growing up as an African American man in a multicultural home—will make his words apply less, more, or equally to your own life situation? Explain.

20. ACTIVITY 17: KEY VOCABULARY Copy the following words and definitions into your document titled “Independent Thinking Activities.” Highlight words or phrases you did not already know so that you can refer to them as you read.

21. ACTIVITY 18: FIRST READ THROUGH • Now that you have some idea of what the article is about, read along as the article is read aloud, and highlight / make comments as we do so (+, -, ?, !) • When you are finished, complete a SOAPSTone for the article in your notebook, under the heading Activity 18.

22. ACTIVITY 19: READ AND RESPOND • Under the heading “Activity 20: Read and Respond,” answer the following questions after discussions in partners/groups about your annotation marks and your predictions previously made in Activity 16. • Is Obama’s writing what you expected it to be about? Why/why not? • This selection has two different parts: one about advice from Frank, an elderly black man living in Honolulu, and another about advice from Marcus, a fellow black college student. What does each of these men tell Obama? Do you think Obama agrees with them? Give textual evidence to support your answer. • What do you now think Obama wants us to do or believe about higher education (college and above)? Use textual evidence to support your response. Do you think he succeeds? • Has this essay changed your thinking in any way? • Are there any parts of the article you found confusing or unclear?

23. ACITIVITY 20: LOOKING AT LANGUAGE • This time, rather than looking at specific literary devices, read the article out loud. • As you do, choose (and mark on your text) 4-5 sentences or phrases that appealed to you as particularly well-written. Go with your gut, and answer honestly. • Understanding what makes another author’s writing style powerful and appealing can make better writers of us all, so really try on this activity! • Choose 3 sentences or phrases from the Obama text that you feel are particularly “good.” That is to say, you thought they were powerful or well-written. Write these sentences in your activities, under the heading “Activity 20: Looking at Language,” and for each one, answer the following questions (I know these are hard questions to put into words—but do your best! There’s no wrong answer): • Why do you think this sentence or phrase appeals to you? • Does it contain any figurative language? If so, what? • Say the sentence aloud. Often, it is the sounds of words put together that makes a sentence so appealing. Do you notice anything about sound in the sentence you’ve chosen? Explain. • Where is the verb? The subject? Would writing the words in another order make it less powerful (e.g., “I walked the dog,” instead of, “The dog was walked by me”)? Try re-writing this sentence in a less-powerful way. Why do you think Obama’s word choice is better? • Do you think this sentence adds to Obama’s message about education? Why/why not?

24. ACTIVITY 21: CRITICAL ANALYSIS In your “Independent Thinking Activities” document, in the chart under the heading above, complete the charting the text in order to analyze and compare the different perspectives we’ve encountered regarding education and thinking. Take the time to thinking critically about whether you agree or disagree with the opinions being presented, and why you respond this way.

25. ACTIVITY 22: SUMMARIZE AND RESPOND Answer the following questions in your “Activities” document, under the heading given above. Answer in complete sentences. • How do Alexie’s assumptions about reading and writing resemble Cisneros’ assumptions about reading and writing? How might the two authors’ assumptions be contrasted? • Both Obama and Alexie refer to reading as a way to “save” their lives. What do you think they mean by this? Do you believe them? Why or why not? • How do both Alexie and Obama challenge the norms—that is, what might be termed the “regular way of thinking,”—of their contemporaries? • None of these readings ever actually use the phrase “independent thinking.” In your opinion, why is that the name of this unit? What does independent thinking mean to you? Do you consider yourself an independent thinker? Explain. • Compare and contrast Alexie’s use of personal detail, figurative language, and descriptions with the selections from Cisneros and Obama. What commonalities do you see? How is each unique? • In what ways do all three authors seek to challenge their readers’ assumptions? That is, how do the authors encourage readers to question their own values? • What aspects of Alexie’s (and Cisneros’s and Obama’s) argument can be said to be universal—i.e., equally applicable to all people, regardless of identity?

26. FINAL WRITING ASSESSMENT • Your final essay for this module will be an in-class, timed write which will focus on your personal definition of independent thinking. • Before coming to class for the timed write, make sure: • You have completed all activities 1-22 for the Independent Thinking Module (and saved them to your Google Drive folder!) • You have reviewed your “Charting The Text” (Activity 22), conversed with other students, and come up with a thesis that answers the following prompt: “Define independent thinking. What is it, why is it important, and how does one achieve it?” • Come up with evidence to support your argument regarding each part of the prompt – you may bring this evidence with you on the day of the in-class essay. Your Charting the Text is the best place to start. • Make sure you are prepared to answer all parts of the prompt!! • If necessary, review the basics of how to write a definition essay with a clear and purposeful thesis.