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Moderate complexity, at grade level, teacher-led instruction

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Moderate complexity, at grade level, teacher-led instruction

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This text pairing includes a poem and an animated short that explore the same topic in different media and with different purposes.

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by Teri Ellen Cross Davis
-poem-

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Moderate complexity, at grade level, peer and teacher-led instruction

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Moderate complexity, at grade level, peer and teacher-led instruction

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9th grade students & teachers

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by Matthew A. Cherry
-animated short-

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Hair Love | Oscar®-Winning Short Film (Full) | Sony Pictures Animation

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To explore the essential question:
How do we form our identities?

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>RL/RI.2: Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development

>RL/RI.6: Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.

>RL/RI.7: Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.

>RL/RI.9: Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take.

>SL.3: Evaluate a speaker's point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric.

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This poem highlights the role of one’s hair in their identity. The speaker is critical about the expectations they and the people around them had for their hair. It helps explore the essential question by delving into how hair can become a tool to fit into different identities. We have paired the poem with the animated short “Hair Love,” which also explores the role of hair in forming and expressing one’s identity, but with a different tone and purpose.

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The language of the poem is fairly accessible. Some colloquialisms are used that students may not have been exposed to. Hair discrimination is also a prejudice that many students will likely not have experienced. This would benefit from teacher guidance, as well as connections to the animated short. The short doesn’t use very much spoken language and relies more on expressions, body language, and sound to convey meaning. This is different from other texts students encounter in school and may require some discussion.

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Teachers could direct students to analyze and compare the tones of the poem and the animated short. They have related subjects, but the tones and purposes are vastly different. Students could discuss how appearance helps or hinders someone fitting into different groups, and how we use our appearance to express our identity.

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Moderate complexity, at grade level, peer-led instruction

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Moderate complexity, at grade level, peer-led instruction

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by Emily Dickinson
-poem-

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This short poem emphasizes the difference between being somebody and being nobody, but like in Aristotle and Dante, being nobody seems to be the speaker’s preference. The poem addresses the essential question by exploring how identities are perceived and critiquing the value of being “somebody” to people whose opinions do not matter.

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The poem is short and relatively simple with one major theme. The brevity of language may actually make the text more complex as Dickinson does not explain what she means directly. Dickinson’s use of punctuation is fairly complex. The metaphor at the end increases the complexity as well.

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Students could be directed to discuss in general what it means to be somebody or nobody, then discuss the speaker’s opinion and how that may differ. Students might also discuss the value of public vs. private identity.

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High complexity, above grade level, teacher-led instruction

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High complexity, above grade level, teacher-led instruction

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by Gloria Anzaldúa
-poem-

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This poem explores what it means to have multiple identities. The speaker examines the role of a person who is not received by the home group of any of their identities because they don’t seem to be “enough” of any of them. This helps explore the essential question by addressing our background and communities’ role in shaping our identities.

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The poem is eight stanzas and deals with a complex topic. The speaker uses both English and Spanish, and it requires some background and cultural knowledge about physical borderlands and what it’s like to be mixed race or be part of multiple cultures.

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Teachers could guide students in understanding the figurative borderlands in the identity of the speaker. The shifting tone and the speaker’s attitude could create a point of analysis, especially in the transition at the end. Teachers could lead exploration into what it means to belong to a group, especially when it means you can’t belong to another group.

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Low complexity, at grade level, student-led instruction

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Low complexity, at grade level, student-led instruction

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by Ze Frank
-TED Talk-

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Have you ever wondered: Am I a human being? Ze Frank suggests a series of simple questions that will determine this. Please relax and follow the prompts. Let’s begin …

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This short TED talk is a series of questions asking the audience whether they have had certain experiences. It explores common experiences--silly, serious, and shameful--as a reminder that humans are more alike than we think we are. It helps address the essential question by examining our greatest shared identity: being human.

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The language is accessible, and the speaker’s use of humor adds an element of engagement. Some of the experiences he notes may not resonate as much with young teens, but they should recognize most, if not all, of the experiences.

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Students might reflect privately on what they identified with in the talk. Some of the experiences might bring up emotional memories, and other experiences might make them laugh. Students could be asked to reflect on what it means to be human. Additionally, they could consider whether the identity of humanness is important to them.

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Low complexity, at grade level, peer-led instruction

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Low complexity, at grade level, peer-led instruction

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by Rosie King
-TED Talk-

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Rosie King: How autism freed me to be myself

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"People are so afraid of variety that they try to fit everything into a tiny little box with a specific label," says 16-year-old Rosie King, who is bold, brash and autistic. She wants to know: Why is everyone so worried about being normal?

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This TED talk is a call for people to embrace uniqueness and imagination. The speaker talks about her experience as a person with autism and how that has shaped her identity. It helps explore the essential question by examining the role of diversity and difference in forming our understanding of ourselves.

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The speaker is a 16-year-old relating her lived experiences, which makes the talk especially accessible for an audience of young teens. Many students will likely not relate to her specific experience with autism, but her explanations are really illuminating and the overarching issues she discusses are universal.

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Students could explore: is there a difference between the you that you really are and the you that others get to see? Students could discuss the effect of stereotypes and the compulsion to reject things we don’t understand or that don’t fit our labels. They could try to define what it means to be normal and compare responses.

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Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

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Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

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by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
-novel-

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Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe focuses on the life of Aristotle ‘Ari’ Mendoza, a teen in El Paso, TX in 1987. The novel is written in first person from Ari’s point of view. Ari often reflects on his life, and in the course of doing so, he develops or discovers his identity. This identity is formed from his family, heritage, race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, and values. As other selections in this text set focus on facets of identity formation, the anchor text features the viewpoint of one teen who forms his identity from many facets as most people do.

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The novel is moderately complex for 9th grade students. It uses accessible language in the voice of a teenager, but it includes references to pop culture from the 80s as well as some Spanish language that students may not be familiar with. The themes reflect the lived experiences of many young adults, although their exposure to the complexities of the different identities explored will likely vary based on their individual experiences.

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Students would benefit from hearing peer perspectives on the issues explored in the novel. Since it is written in a teen’s voice, students could analyze how that affects their experience reading it (when compared to a book with an adult’s voice). Teacher guidance could enhance the exploration of developing themes, characterization, and point of view.

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Sáenz, B. A. (2012). Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe. Simon and Schuster.

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Davis, T. E. C. (2016). Process. In Haint: poems. Gival Press. https://www.commonlit.org/en/texts/process

Cherry, M. A. (Director). (2019). Hair love [film]. Sony Pictures Animation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNw8V_Fkw28

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Dickinson, E. (1861). I’m Nobody! Who are you? [Poem]. The Morgan Library and Museum, New York, NY, United States.  https://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/online/emily-dickinson/11

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Anzaldúa, G. (1987). To live in the Borderlands means you. Borderlands/la frontera: The new mestiza. Aunt Lute Books.

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Frank, Z. (2014). Are you human? [video]. TED. https://www.ted.com/talks/ze_frank_are_you_human

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King, R. (2014). How autism freed me to be myself [video]. TED MED. https://www.ted.com/talks/rosie_king_how_autism_freed_me_to_be_myself

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Low complexity, at grade level, student led instruction

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Low complexity, at grade level, student led instruction

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This text pairing includes a reflective essay and a movie scene that explore the same topic in different media and in different time periods.

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Moderate complexity, at grade level, peer led instruction

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Moderate complexity, at grade level, peer led instruction

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This text pairing includes a blog post and two visual pieces that explore the same topic to illustrate and contrast.

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Higher complexity, at grade level, teacher led instruction

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Higher complexity, at grade level, teacher led instruction

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Higher complexity, above grade level, teacher led instruction

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Higher complexity, above grade level, teacher led instruction

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Low complexity, at grade level, student led instruction

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Low complexity, at grade level, student led instruction

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by Kelsey Ichikawa
-reflective essay-

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by John Hughes
-film scene-

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by Jenny X.
-blog post-

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by M.C. Escher
-lithograph-

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by Bobbie Carlyle
-sculpture-

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Life After Sport: Depression in the Retired Athlete

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Life After Sport: Depression in the Retired Athlete

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by Emma Vickers
-explanatory essay-

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by Guy de Maupassant
-short story-

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by Lizzie Velazquez
-TED Talk-

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How do you define yourself? | Lizzie Velasquez | TEDxAustinWomen

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This essay contribution to the theme of identity is exploring how identity can be found in a profession that becomes more of a way of life. Athletes in particular have a tendency to focus their identity more from this one aspect of their life to the detriment of other sources of identity. When retirement approaches or a change of profession becomes necessary, this can cause an identity challenge to change or evolve their identity. The results can affect their mental health. Students can benefit from the learning about developing more sources of identity, as well as strategies to cope with identity evolution and change.

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This text was selected for its nonfiction genre, expository essay style, and text complexity. The text is listed at 1540 on the Lexile scale making this selection one of the more complex texts quantitatively. It contains conventions of academic research like in-text citations, and follows an established format. The text does include more complex psychological research, as well as psychological and neurobiological vocabulary.

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This complexity will likely need more teacher intervention in comprehension and analysis. Its potential use with students will likely be group reading and collaborative analysis, and individual reflection.

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Vickers, E. (2013). Life after sport: Depression in the retired athlete. CommonLit.  Retrieved from:

https://www.commonlit.org/en/texts/life-after-sport.

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This selection’s theme brings forward the idea of values and religion affecting identities. Identity, specifically how we learn about ourselves and form identities, is a wide field. We wanted to portray as many aspects as possible to forming identity. This text explores how upbringing, values, religion, and professions can form your identity. It also brings up how people react when they encounter challenges to their identity.

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This text found a place in our text set due to its fictional genre, its format being a short story, and its higher text complexity. Quantitatively, this text has a 1180 Lexile score. However, having been written in 1880, the language is an older style. This style has some more complex sentences, higher level vocabulary, and plenty of figurative language constructions. This results in one of the more complex texts for this set.

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This text will likely benefit from more teacher intervention and group instruction.  Reading and discussion as a whole class or small groups is more likely, as well as comprehension checks, looking for connections and emotional responses, as well as discovery of figurative language constructions.

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Maupassant, G. (2004). Dead Woman’s Secret. In The Entire Original Maupassant Short Stories (Vol. 12). Urbana, IL: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved from: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3090/3090-h/3090-h.htm

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We made this selection due to its theme applications, nonfiction genre, video format, and speech qualities. The text set theme and essential question is exactly the title making this TED Talk an easy choice. The speech explores how appearance affects identity, as well as one woman’s perspective on identity formation affected by bullying. Lizzie acknowledges the hardships she experienced and provides a positive path to not only cope with those hardships, but surpass them.

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This selection is a video format of a speech lasting thirteen minutes. Visually, Lizzie is very striking and commands attention, and her skill in speaking carries the audience through all thirteen minutes. Her language is accessible, and engaging, making her speech lower on text complexity.

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It’s potential use with students can be viewed individually or as a class, with written responses and analysis, a follow-up discussion, and individual reflections.

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Velazquez, L. (2014). How do you define yourself? [Video]. TEDxAustinWomen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzPbY9ufnQY

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These two items are paired together due to their similarity in view of theme. They explore the clique identity of high school, but also the multiplicity of identity.  Funnily enough, the endings of each are very similar in that both end in the same kind of sentence: “I am” or “We are” and a list of the identities they claim. The two selections are from different time periods: the past decade and the eighties. This gives the feeling that this question is timeless, the struggles are similar, and the age that today’s high school students can have similarities to the struggles they are currently feeling.

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Both selections are from teen perspectives short in length with conversational language structures and tone, with similar levels of beginning text complexity.

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This selection could be used for individual reading, viewing, and reflection. The selection could also benefit from peer discussion.

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Hughes, J. (Director). (1985). The breakfast club [Film]. Universal Pictures.

Ichikawa, K. (2013). Teens: Who am I exactly? The Mercury News. https://www.mercurynews.com/2013/03/20/teens-who-am-i-exactly/

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These are paired as they deal with the same theme that we come across in identity: do you find your identity, or do you make it? The text presents the question in the perspective of a freshman college student. The visuals illustrate the two possibilities with additional possible insights.

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Starting with the written selection, this text is a nonfiction reflective essay posted on a visible public blog, and features the perspective of a college freshman, an identity that some high school students may be embodying in the future. It presents a philosophical, (based on psychological) view that we find our identity by discovering it within ourselves, or we create our identities. The tone is conversational, and the language is easy and accessible. It is the perspective of a teenager discovering her approach to the identity creation process at a time in her life that many students will connect with. Contrasting this selection will be two visual pieces that embody this choice. Both art pieces contain details and philosophy to be explored in the concept of identity. This visual exploration of meaning will likely be more complex for students to explore.

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Students will likely need some intervention concerning the visual art pieces, but the text selection can be done individually as well as reflections on all, and small or large group discussions would likely benefit all. The title of being yourself or creating yourself implies one or the other, but it is likely that students would equally find other possibilities true to their view.

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Carlyle, B. (1988). Self-made man [Sculpture]. http://www.bobbiecarlylesculpture.com/SelfMadeMan.php

Escher, M.C. (1935). Hand with reflecting sphere [Lithograph]. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, CA.
Jenny X. (2012). Be yourself or create yourself? MIT Admissions. https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/being-yourself-or-creating-yourself/