An Approach to Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry
Curriculum unit. By by Carolyn L. Streets. This curriculum unit introduces instructional moves for how teachers can use their classroom libraries for deep critical thinking on issues of race, racism, and inequality. This unit uses a middle school level novel Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, but provides content objectives, teaching strategies, primary sources and activities that are applicable to any novel study.
Synopsis
Building upon how classroom libraries function as resources for thought provoking literature and discussions from the 2019 Yale Teachers Institute Seminar Teaching about Race and Racism Across the Disciplines, this unit primarily explores the historical context of the novel primarily using the language of music to analyze characters. Students will develop interpretations about how these conditions influenced characters’ traits, roles, or conflicts and construct a central thesis on a character of their choice. It incorporates pedagogical tools and resources expanding curricular strategies and provides a framework for student discussion beyond the text on issues about race, racism, and forms of inequality.
Strategies used for this unit:
Strategy 1: Didactic journaling (also known as a double entry journal or reader’s response notebook) will use open-ended questioning to deeply engage with the ideas in the text. This strategy supports CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.7.3: where students will use questioning to create a character profile.
Strategy 2: Timeline picture walks will be used as a primary source and build important background information. This strategy supports objective CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.8 The timeline will organize historical events and the accompanying pictures will provide visual aids to help students grasp the context and historical era of the text.
Strategy 3: A graphic organizer will help students analyze the music of the era to help them understand the historical content of the novel and develop deeper character analysis. This strategy connects to objective CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.7.
Strategy 4: Writing graphic organizers will be used to help students plan and organize their written essays. This strategy connect to objective CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.7.2.
Cover of the Bantam Starfire edition of “Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry” by Mildred D. Taylor.
Teacher Introduction
As a middle school English Language Arts teacher, I have taught this novel using traditional English Language Arts strategies in which students examine how dialogue, scenes and setting serve to reveal the characters’ true nature, motivations and intentions. The novel is historical fiction, so an overview of the historical content of the socio-political structures of the Jim Crow era where the plot is set were referenced, but not foregrounded to meet curricular scope and sequence pacing. Lesson outcomes reflected mastery of standard language conventions (such as punctuation in dialogue) and inferred character traits (traits determined by what is said, done, and believed). Although these are important skills, my approach to teaching this novel missed the opportunity to take a deep dive into issues of race, racism, and inequality. It could be argued that my teaching defaulted to a neutral approach to teaching this novel that reinforces issues of colorblindness in the curriculum. This unit considers an approach to de-neutralize perspectives in favor of critical thinking that promotes students’ engagement in character analyses about “aggrieved peoples who have always had to negotiate state violence and cultural erasure, but who also work to build the worlds they envision.”i Recognizing the argument that “it isn’t enough to include texts by historically aggrieved populations in the curriculum and classroom without producing new approaches to reading,”ii this unit presents a different approach to reading the text by foregrounding the socio-political forms of power preluding the Civil Rights era. Students will engage in critical character analysis by analyzing the antecedents of these forms of power that shape the larger story and underpin character motivations.