Using Informational Text to Teach A Raisin in the Sun

By (author) Audrey Fisch, Susan Chenelle

Not available to order

Publication date:

12 February 2016

Length of book:

230 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9781475821550

The Common Core State Standards mean major changes for language arts teachers, particularly the emphasis on “informational text.” How do we shift attention toward informational texts without taking away from the teaching of literature?

The key is informational texts deeply connected to the literary texts you are teaching.

Preparing informational texts for classroom use, however, requires time and effort. Using Informational Text to Teach Literature is designed to help.

In this second volume (the first volume is on To Kill a Mockingbird), we offer informational texts connected to Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun. Readings range in genre (commencement address, historical and cultural analysis, government report, socioeconomic research study, and Supreme Court decision) and topic (housing discrimination past and present, abortion, the racial and cultural politics of hair, socioeconomic mobility and inequality, the violence associated with housing desegregation, and the struggle against the legacy of systemic racism).

Each informational text is part of a student-friendly unit, with reading strategies and vocabulary, writing, and discussion activities.

Teachers need to incorporate nonfiction in ways that enhance their teaching of literature. The Using Informational Text to Teach Literature series is an invaluable supportive tool.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgements
How to Use this Book

Unit 1: What does Ruth risk by seeing “that woman”?
Rickie Solinger: The Abortionist: A Woman Against the Law
Loretta J. Ross: “African-American Women and Abortion”

Unit 2: Any homes available?
United States Department of Housing and Urban Development: Housing Discrimination Against Racial and Ethnic Minorities 2012

Unit 3: What’s with Beneatha’s hair?
Andrea Benton Rushing: “Hair-Raising”
bell hooks: Black Looks: Race and Representation
Alice Walker: “Oppressed Hair Puts a Ceiling on the Brain”

Unit 4: How does our world shape us and our opportunities?”
Lyndon B. Johnson: “Commencement Address at Howard University: `To Fulfill These Rights’”

Unit 5: How difficult would it really have been for the Youngers to buy a home in Clybourne Park?
City of Seattle: Restrictive Covenant
Chief Justice Fred Vinson: Shelley v. Kraemer
Beryl Satter: Family Properties: Race, Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black Urban America

Unit 6: Is America the land of opportunity?
Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren, Patrick Kline, and Emmanuel Saez: “Where Is the Land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the U.S.”

Unit 7: Do people have the right to live wherever they want, even if they are not wanted?Chicago Commission on Human Relations: “The Trumbull Park Homes Disturbances: A Chronological Report”

Rubrics

About the Authors

Answers to all sections are available on the series website: www.usinginformationaltext.com.

This text takes all the intricacies of the Common Core State Standards and packages them neatly into a format that actually works in a real classroom. With a strong focus on vocabulary building, challenging non-fiction pieces, and digital media to which our secondary students can connect, these units turn A Raisin in the Sun into a cultural, political, analytical learning experience--without taking away the literature.