An American Sunrise
                                                                       By:  Lyndsay Daly

Project at a Glance :

This unit was created to accompany the NEA Big Read 2021 selection, An American Sunrise, by Joy Harjo. This unit is designed to fit within 15-20 class periods (55 minutes per class). Students will be accompanied throughout the book by teacher-designed interactive slides. The final product will be a visual and written analysis of a poem that the student chooses.
       
Driving Question:

How does poetry communicate effectively?            

Standards:

• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.1, RL11-12.2, RL.11-12.4

Team / Culture Building:

• Students will work individually on the performance task for this unit.
• Work within groups on the poems will be common leading up to the PT. Those groups of 4 will be created using poetry comfort levels: students will self-rate and then teacher will create mixed groups.
• Six Word Memoir explaining how they feel about poetry​.

Entry Event:

• ​Motif intro spine poetry:  Teacher provides list of motifs found in poetry collection. Students choose a motif and have 5 minutes to create a “spine poem” with classroom library spines. Spine poetry is when students stack books in a pile and the titles on the spines create a message. Class vote for most creative spine poem after a Gallery Walk.

Stakeholders:

• Poets
• People who read poetry
• Students
• Teachers
• Joy Harjo
• Indigenous peoples 
• West Michigan community (Big Read)​

Empathy Building:

• Empathy Map for Joy Harjo
• Values Cards (students use them with Joy Harjo in mind)
• POETRY: create a Wordle to see how students feel about poetry at the beginning and end of the unit. Hoping to address their lack of confidence.
• HARJO:  So far students have read colonialist diary accounts (John Smith, William Bradford). They have repeatedly heard Native Americans referred to as savage, barbaric, dangerous, and threatening. They will create two columns of the adjectives used by the colonialists and the adjectives students would use to describe the Mvskoke as they appear in Harjo’s poems.

Inquiry / Need to Knows:

• Lectures, interactive slides, Save the last word,  Fishbowl discussion, jigsaw to gain insights for the project
• Read the collection of poems
• Listen to Big Read interview with Jack Riddle, Hope College professor
• Hear from professors with experience at Native American reservation- interview, artifact analysis
• Quick writes about tone, diction, and structure
• Create a Mood Board for a poem
• Innovator’s Compass for a poem
• Chalk Talk for a poem
• Forced connections for a poem

Incubation:

• Jigsaw, field notebooks
• A-Z: read a poem, and then in 5 minutes, students have to fill out as much of the alphabet as they can (R for rhetorical question, A for allusion, etc.)
• The Anti-Problem: how does prose communicate in ways that poetry can’t?​

Checking in:
Interactive slides will be due every 5-6 class periods. 

• https://teachlivingpoets.com/2018/08/23/teaching-poetry-collections-3-engaging-activity-ideas-to-get-your-students-thinking/

• *https://teachlivingpoets.com/2019/01/04/get-your-students-engaged-with-poetry-collections-with-this-hands-on-hexagon-activity/

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Solution Building:

•  Explore Living Nations, Living Words. Write theme statements. 
• Elevator Pitch final product to group: “This is the poem I have selected. The most impactful way to share it with the class will be ____. The devices the poet uses to say ____ include ___, ___, ___, and ___.
• 6 Thinking Hats

Critique and Revision: 

•  Revise elevator pitch using feedback from group. Write a letter to poet student has chosen to study (opposite of break-up letter)
• Show Austin's butterfly video- making sure feedback is helpful, specific, and kind.​

Authentic Audience:

• For audience members, class periods can evaluate each other.  Also, Big Read participants will provide an outside authentic audience and participate in the gallery walk, or they can view presentations on Flipgrid.

Final Presentation:

• Students choose their final project format: Doc cam video on Flipgrid, giant sticky note, one pager, or Prezi.   Their task will be to analyze/explicate a poem from Harjo’s interactive map of indigenous poets: Living Nations, Living Words​

Click here for teacher's full plan.

​Reflection and Feedback:

• Flipgrid
• Gallery walk
• Require student comments and ask panel members/stakeholders to watch as many as they are able.
• Allow all sections access to all videos (not just each class of 30 kids)
• Return to poetry throughout the second semester.
• Last day, post driving question and ask kids to answer in a paragraph: How does poetry communicate effectively?
• Revisit poetry Wordle (hopefully it has shifted in a positive direction now that students have studied more poems)
• Leave pieces of our work (Wordle, gallery walk) up and reference​

Click here to follow the teacher's PBL journey through Padlet . . .

Meet the Educator:

​Lyndsay Daly teaches  English, AP Literature, and SAT prep courses at Allendale High School. 

     "Thinking about units based around a driving question has made my teacher clarity skyrocket!  Students understand that no matter what skills and standards we are learning along the way, their job is to answer the question.  Students have told me that PBL units are the best part of their year in English class."