Contemporary Congolese Literature
Lesson Plan
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Power Point
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Class Materials
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I taught this lesson titled “Contemporary Congolese Literature” on the second day of our unit about Central and East African cultural history and modern voices. This lesson drew heavily from the previous day’s lesson about the social structure and cultural practices of the Efè people of the Congo’s Ituri Forest. For homework, students were asked to read an excerpt from a work of contemporary Congolese literature, and then in class worked cooperatively to make connections between activities and relationships described in the novel and those of the Efè people.
The class began as students recorded their responses to three plot-based questions about the five-page excerpt of Alain Mabanckou’s Tomorrow I’ll Be Twenty (2013), assigned for homework the day before. Before discussion student answers to these questions, I briefly introduced students to the history of the Congo through the modern era, so they could better contextualize Mabanckou’s account of his boyhood in the Congo during the 1970s. We then returned to the “Do-Now” questions and students offered their responses. These questions were entirely plot-driven and did not require an analysis or interpretation to answer, because I wanted to ensure students’ sound surface understanding of the text before we delved into deeper analysis. To help model an example of a deeper literary analysis of the text, after students shared their answers to the first question about familial relationships I prompted students to further examine the historical significance of these relationships by reading and projecting a passage on the SMART Board. Students then broke into their “number groups” of six or seven students, forming their desks into a circle, to analyze four passages from the Tomorrow I’ll Be Twenty excerpt using a guided handout. Students each had roles in the analysis according to their “letter groups” (A-G). For each passage, students worked cooperatively to determine the quote’s speaker and the listener, write the passage in their own words, and determine the passage’s connection to Congolese cultural roots, learned in the previous class. After completing this process for all four passages, students discussed with their “number groups” and recorded their thoughts on a final questions: “Roger le Prince and Maman Martine were not actually levitating and dancing ten centimeters off the ground. Explain this metaphor.” Finally, we reunited as a class to review students’ analyses of the four passages and the final discussion question. After a few groups shared their interpretation of the metaphor of “dancing ten centimeters off the ground,” I scaffolded this difficult analysis by projecting a quote from the excerpt onto the SMART Board that highlights the metaphor – framing it as the desire of the younger generation to build off of Africa’s cultural roots to modernize the continent, thereby causing tension with the older generation who prefers a stronger adherence to tradition. To conclude, we read the quote aloud and discussed it as a class.
This lesson had mixed results in terms of student learning and engagement. A significant portion of my students did not read the excerpt or did not read it carefully. This made discussing the plot elements at the beginning of the class for the “Do-Now” more difficult, but all the more necessary. I anticipated that some students would not do the reading for homework, and that is part of why I chose to start with plot elements – that way, even students who did not read for homework could approach the passages with enough information to make historical connections and remain engaged. Students enjoyed the idea of sitting in a circle in their “number groups” to imitate the decision-making style of the Efè people, learned in the previous class. The first time I taught this lesson, to my period 2 class, I did not assign roles to each person in the “number groups” of six to seven students. I noticed that some students, particularly those who did not read the excerpt for homework, checked out of the discussion and copied their peers’ answers. My classroom mentor suggested that I assign roles to each person in the group and I implemented a “letter roles” structure to the following two classes. This structure held each member of the “number group” accountable and endured everyone’s involvement. Additionally, students were particularly interested and engaged around the final discussion question about the metaphor of “dancing ten centimeters off the ground.” Based on student interest, I think I should have left more time to discuss the final question. Students were interested in the concept of metaphor and had prior experience with figurative language from English class. Groups theorized numerous interpretations of the metaphor and many individual students wanted to offer their own interpretations. Students especially wanted to know what I thought and what the “right” answer was. This was a good teaching moment because though I explained my interpretation, I also emphasized that literature can be interpreted in many ways (as can history) and that all interpretations are valid so long as they all well-supported. I think that this desire for me to tell them the “right” answer comes from their English teacher ultimately telling students her “right” interpretation of a symbol or metaphor used in a novel.
Looking back on the greatest challenge of the lesson, students’ coming to class unprepared, I think more students would have read the excerpt for homework if I had spent more time in the previous lesson introducing the novel and making it sound as exciting as possible. Despite the challenges of this lesson, I was encouraged by use of literature as a tool for engagement in social studies. I found that students who read the excerpt for homework were drawn in by the story and my very structured directions for analyzing the selected passages helped students zero in on historical connections. Overall, I think student engagement, and thus the effectiveness of this lesson, depended upon whether students read the excerpt for homework and were active participants in small group and class discussions. At the end of the period students submitted their completed handouts, and many showed high levels of engagement with the text. In their open-notes “writing exercise” at the end of the unit, several students cited this novel and the connections we made to the Efè people, further demonstrating the utility of literature as a gateway to historical understanding. Samplings of students’ Tomorrow I’ll Be Twenty classwork can be found below:
The class began as students recorded their responses to three plot-based questions about the five-page excerpt of Alain Mabanckou’s Tomorrow I’ll Be Twenty (2013), assigned for homework the day before. Before discussion student answers to these questions, I briefly introduced students to the history of the Congo through the modern era, so they could better contextualize Mabanckou’s account of his boyhood in the Congo during the 1970s. We then returned to the “Do-Now” questions and students offered their responses. These questions were entirely plot-driven and did not require an analysis or interpretation to answer, because I wanted to ensure students’ sound surface understanding of the text before we delved into deeper analysis. To help model an example of a deeper literary analysis of the text, after students shared their answers to the first question about familial relationships I prompted students to further examine the historical significance of these relationships by reading and projecting a passage on the SMART Board. Students then broke into their “number groups” of six or seven students, forming their desks into a circle, to analyze four passages from the Tomorrow I’ll Be Twenty excerpt using a guided handout. Students each had roles in the analysis according to their “letter groups” (A-G). For each passage, students worked cooperatively to determine the quote’s speaker and the listener, write the passage in their own words, and determine the passage’s connection to Congolese cultural roots, learned in the previous class. After completing this process for all four passages, students discussed with their “number groups” and recorded their thoughts on a final questions: “Roger le Prince and Maman Martine were not actually levitating and dancing ten centimeters off the ground. Explain this metaphor.” Finally, we reunited as a class to review students’ analyses of the four passages and the final discussion question. After a few groups shared their interpretation of the metaphor of “dancing ten centimeters off the ground,” I scaffolded this difficult analysis by projecting a quote from the excerpt onto the SMART Board that highlights the metaphor – framing it as the desire of the younger generation to build off of Africa’s cultural roots to modernize the continent, thereby causing tension with the older generation who prefers a stronger adherence to tradition. To conclude, we read the quote aloud and discussed it as a class.
This lesson had mixed results in terms of student learning and engagement. A significant portion of my students did not read the excerpt or did not read it carefully. This made discussing the plot elements at the beginning of the class for the “Do-Now” more difficult, but all the more necessary. I anticipated that some students would not do the reading for homework, and that is part of why I chose to start with plot elements – that way, even students who did not read for homework could approach the passages with enough information to make historical connections and remain engaged. Students enjoyed the idea of sitting in a circle in their “number groups” to imitate the decision-making style of the Efè people, learned in the previous class. The first time I taught this lesson, to my period 2 class, I did not assign roles to each person in the “number groups” of six to seven students. I noticed that some students, particularly those who did not read the excerpt for homework, checked out of the discussion and copied their peers’ answers. My classroom mentor suggested that I assign roles to each person in the group and I implemented a “letter roles” structure to the following two classes. This structure held each member of the “number group” accountable and endured everyone’s involvement. Additionally, students were particularly interested and engaged around the final discussion question about the metaphor of “dancing ten centimeters off the ground.” Based on student interest, I think I should have left more time to discuss the final question. Students were interested in the concept of metaphor and had prior experience with figurative language from English class. Groups theorized numerous interpretations of the metaphor and many individual students wanted to offer their own interpretations. Students especially wanted to know what I thought and what the “right” answer was. This was a good teaching moment because though I explained my interpretation, I also emphasized that literature can be interpreted in many ways (as can history) and that all interpretations are valid so long as they all well-supported. I think that this desire for me to tell them the “right” answer comes from their English teacher ultimately telling students her “right” interpretation of a symbol or metaphor used in a novel.
Looking back on the greatest challenge of the lesson, students’ coming to class unprepared, I think more students would have read the excerpt for homework if I had spent more time in the previous lesson introducing the novel and making it sound as exciting as possible. Despite the challenges of this lesson, I was encouraged by use of literature as a tool for engagement in social studies. I found that students who read the excerpt for homework were drawn in by the story and my very structured directions for analyzing the selected passages helped students zero in on historical connections. Overall, I think student engagement, and thus the effectiveness of this lesson, depended upon whether students read the excerpt for homework and were active participants in small group and class discussions. At the end of the period students submitted their completed handouts, and many showed high levels of engagement with the text. In their open-notes “writing exercise” at the end of the unit, several students cited this novel and the connections we made to the Efè people, further demonstrating the utility of literature as a gateway to historical understanding. Samplings of students’ Tomorrow I’ll Be Twenty classwork can be found below:
Read transcripts of Faraz, Jenine, and Serena's classwork here:
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