5 E Model Instructional Guide

Topic/Theme:

Human Advancement and the Joy of Living

Time:

8-10 days (90 min blocks)

Common Core/Essential Standards

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text
says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.5 Analyze how an authors choices concerning how to structure a text, order
events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as
mystery, tension, or surprise.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.6 Analyze a particular point of view or cultural experience reflected in a work
of literature from outside the United States, drawing on a wide reading of world literature.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.10 By the end of grade 10, read and comprehend literature, including stories,
dramas, and poems, at the high end of the grades 9-10 text complexity band independently and proficiently.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.9-10.2 Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course
of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective
summary of the text.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.9-10.7 Analyze various accounts of a subject told in different mediums (e.g., a
persons life story in both print and multimedia), determining which details are emphasized in each account.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.9-10.1 Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts,
using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence
.CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.9-10.2 Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas,
concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of
content.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.9-10.7 Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question
(including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate;
synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.9-10.9 Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis,
reflection, and research.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.9-10.1 Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (oneon-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 910 topics, texts, and issues, building on
others ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.9-10.5 Make strategic use of digital media (e.g., textual, graphical, audio, visual, and
interactive elements) in presentations to enhance understanding of findings, reasoning, and evidence and to
add interest.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.9-10.6 Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and tasks, demonstrating command of
formal English when indicated or appropriate.

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Learner Objective(s)
Students will be able to:
Analyze how a text uses language to achieve purpose
Deconstruct a persuasive argument and the rhetorical strategies used to achieve it
Synthesize multiple texts through the lens of an essential focus
Support claims to original arguments through textual evidence
Answer an essential question using evidence from literary and informational texts to support their
analysis and reflection
Collaborate with their peers to research and create an informational and persuasive product
Present their products in a real world setting, clarifying and reflecting upon their research
Practice reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills during these activities.

Essential Question(s)
How do American cultural perceptions influence the way we approach other cultures?
How has the intersection of culture, change, and human advancement been dealt with in literary works
we have studied?
How can understanding the refugee experience help promote the betterment of our global community?
What area in the world could benefit the most from the power of human advancement and how can we
begin to engineer a better life for people there?

Engage Activity
Approaching Other Cultures: Unpacking Our Single Stories
Overview
In this lesson students will be asked to confront their own prejudices and stereotypes of other cultures by
reading a satirical article detailing a fictitious tribe of people, the Nacirema. Once students have read the
article and discussed its purpose, they will then move on and watch a TED talk by a Nigerian author discussing
the power of Western narrative on dictating the stories of outside cultures. They will conclude this lesson by
writing a short critical response on the authors use of rhetoric, thinking about the way language can be used to
reclaim or expand current stories and their perspectives.
Begin the lesson by passing out The Body Rituals of the Nacirema handout. Ask students to read the article
with an open mind, keeping in mind that once it has been read they will be expected to answer three questions:
1. Where do you think the Nacirema are from based on their culture?
2. What would be one describing word to describe these people?
3. What is the most interesting aspect of their culture you read about?
Once the class had shared their responses, reflect as a whole on the connotations of these three questions and
their responses. After this has been done, reveal to the students this is a fictitious text modeled after an
archeological document. Tell them Nacirema is really American backwards. Using the reflection questions
handout, students will discuss what the process of reading the article reveals about the way we as Westerners
approach other cultures and the way presentation influences the way audiences relate to and think about others
cultures and their differences.
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The next part of the lesson expands on the power of narratives. Students will watch a TED Talk entitled The
Danger of a Single Story, by Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie. In her talk, Adichie discusses her
experiences growing up in Westernized Nigeria and the ignorance she has faced in her life in regards to outside
opinions on her culture. Adichie uses multiple strategies to strengthen her argument. Once students have
watched the video, they will then use the Unpacking Adichies Rhetoric graphic organizer to look at the way
Adichie develops her argument.
Once these rhetorical strategies have been examined, students will then be given a short critical response
question they will answer analyzing the use of rhetoric in the text. They may use the partial transcript handout
to use during their drafting and should be required to model their response in a similar way to their End of
Course assessment.

Products and Artifacts

The Body Ritual of the Nacirema Reflection Questions responses
The Danger of a Single Story Critical Response

Materials/ Equipment
The Body Rituals of the Nacirema Handout + Reflection Questions
The Danger of a Single Story video + transcript handout
Complicating A Single Story: Unpacking Adichies Rhetoric graphic organizer
Practice Constructed Response: The Danger of a Single Story handout

Resources
TED Talk: Chimamanda Adichies The Danger of a Single Story
http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.html

Explore/Explain Activity
Cultural Collisions: Looking at Human Advancement Through a Literary Lens
Overview
Now that students have begun to think about dominant Western approaches to other cultures, they will now use
that knowledge to expand their critical thinking to texts they have read over the past semester.
Begin this lesson by asking students to think about the claims behind American superiority. Tell them they may
use insights examined while reading about the Nacirema and watching A Single Story as jumping off points for
this conversation. Brainstorm a few ways in pairs and then a larger class that have contributed to ideas of
American cultural dominance. Once this question has been properly engaged, focus on the idea of human
advancement, something that is often associated with more developed cultures and societies, and is frequently
used as the impetus for cultural change. From this lens, ask students to discuss and create a rough list of human
advancements that have lead or contributed to cultural change in the texts they have read over the semester.
Some ideas they may come up with, and that should be included, are medicine, education, war technology,
belief systems, mobility, industrialization, urbanization, etc.
Divide students into groups and provide them with the Cultural Collisions: Analyzing Our Texts graphic
organizer. Once they are in groups, instruct them to work with their group mates to look back over the texts we
have read this semester and find evidence of human advancement within the narratives. As they are doing this,
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tell them to begin thinking about the way authors have presented the intersection of advancement and change,
looking specifically at how the cultures depicted in the texts have reacted. Instruct students to take this initial
exploration seriously; they will be forming their own thesis statement around this question, for which they will
need to provide textual support. An example of the students task has been provided for them to model on the
handout. Texts and connections are specific to the course and what the students have read and may be modified
as the teacher sees fit.
Suggested texts for students to review:
Chinua Achebes Things Fall Apart
Kamala Markandayas Nectar in a Sieve
Elie Wiesels Night
William Kamkwambas The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
Erich Remarques All Quiet on the Western Front
Khaled Hosseinis The Kite Runner
Extending upon the main part of this lesson is the major writing component of this unit: a literary analysis paper
comparing two texts. This can be an in class or out of class assignment as the teacher sees fit. Provided is a
handout providing two similar prompts as well as an example thesis and requirements for the paper that may be
adjusted as necessary.
Prompts:
Choose two authors/texts we have studied this semester. In a well thought out essay, citing evidence from the
text, answer one of the following questions:
1. How do these texts depict the convergence of culture, technology, and change; and what do they say
about the motivation of making the world better as outlined in the Grand Challenges of Engineering?
2. How do these texts depict the way technology has influenced social change at moments in human
history? How can that influence complicate the way human advancement and the joy of living is
outlined in the Grand Challenges of Engineering?

Products and Artifacts

Cultural Collisions: Analyzing Our Texts graphic organizer
Cultural Collisions: Literary Analysis Paper Assignment

Materials/ Equipment
Copies of English II texts (suggested texts may be found above)

Resources
Edutopia Literary Analysis Rubric
http://www.edutopia.org/pdfs/stw/edutopia-stw-yesprep-rubric-literary-analysis.pdf
National Academy of Engineering: Grand Challenges
http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/
National Academy of Engineering: Joy of Living video download
http://www.nae.edu/Activities/Projects/grand-challenges-project/Videos_grandchallenges.aspx
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Elaborate Activity
The Middle of Everywhere: Refugees and the Cultural Shift
Overview
At this point in the unit, students will utilize the knowledge they have gained over the course of the semester by
expanding their understanding of cultures around the world and the way such exposure fits within our
increasingly global identity.
Students will begin this exploration by reading two separate texts that offer lenses through which to view
American intersections of culture + change + advancement.
The first text students should look at is Billy Collins The Names, a piece written by the poet laureate to
commemorate the September 11th, 2001 World Trade Center attacks. Using the handout and reflection
questions, students should read and reflect on the poem, thinking about the way it serves as both a reminder and
monument to those who lost their lives.
Students may listen to the poem as read by Collins in PBS News Hour production. After this initial exposure,
they may read it again, in this second reading paying particular attention to Collins craft as outlined in the
reflection questions.
Once the class has a firm understanding of the poem and how it operates thematically and functionally, inform
students that this event, similar to major world wars or Imperial advancements detailed in other texts, is a major
contemporary event that has caused a cultural shift in our own country. To expand upon this point, ask students
to read the Foreword to Mary Piphers The Middle of Everywhere, thinking about the way Pipher frames her
text with the events that occurred on 9/11. There is a post reading journal activity for students to consider on the
The Middle of Everywhere: American Perspective and the Global Community handout sheet.
After students have read, written, and shared their thoughts on this major catalyzing event, break them into
groups for a jigsaw activity that will help them explore the text and the plight of the refugees shared within in.
In this activity, students will begin in heterogeneous groups where they will read an excerpt of the text and
discuss the story of the person they will become an expert on. Suggested excerpts and heterogeneous group
guiding question can be found on the jigsaw handout.
Next students will transition into homogenous groups where they will share the information they have learned
in their heterogeneous groups with their peers. After discussing their individual refugees stories with the group,
students should then collaborate in a discussion that asks them to reflect on the way the refugee experience is
characterized in American culture. Questions for homogenous group discussion can be found on the jigsaw
handout.

Products and Artifacts

The Names Reflection Question responses
The Middle of Everywhere jigsaw questions and group discussions

Materials/ Equipment
Class copies of The Middle of Everywhere, Mary Pipher, 2003

Resources
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YouTube clip: Poet Billy Collins Reflects on 9/11 Victims in 'The Names'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN72xg_Tcj4
North Carolina New Schools Project: Jigsaw Protocol
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZWRnZWNvbWJlZWFybHljb2xsZWdlLmNvbXxiZX
N0cHJhY3RpY2VzbGlicmFyeXxneDo3ZTQyNDljNThkNzAwMDg

Evaluate Activity
Being a Cultural Broker: Instituting a Call to Action
Overview
In this final lesson of the unit, students will be collaborating in groups to research the refugee situation in an
area of the world outside of the United States. After studying American cultural perspectives, literary narratives,
the intersection of culture and advancement, and the current refugee experience, students will now combine all
these pieces to create a well-researched and persuasive call to action to improve poor conditions of struggling
populations around the globe.
In The Middle of Everywhere, Mary Pipher argues that now, more than ever, our world needs a survival strategy
of knowledge, empathy, and respect (20) through which we all can continue to advance and prosper. Many of
the texts students have read over the semester have supported and served as narratives of such a necessity. In
their groups students will find a country via the United Nations Refugee Agency and research places where
Piphers strategy is needed the most. As defined by the National Academy of Engineering, the Grand
Challenges of Engineering focus on promoting advancement for all people, insuring the joy of living.
Students can be encouraged to use this motivating mantra to guide their research and the design of their calls to
action.
The question Calls to Action should answer: What area in the world could benefit the most from the power of
human advancement and how can we begin to engineer a better life for people there?
The specifics of the project and ending presentation can be found on A Call to Action: Becoming a Cultural
Broker Project handout. Requirements may be adjusted according to the teacher.

Products and Artifacts

Call to Action Product and Presentation

Materials/ Equipment
A Call to Action: Becoming a Cultural Broker Project handout
Laptops, Projector, Internet access

Resources
The United Nations Refugee Agency
http://www.unhcr.org
Buck Institute for Education PBL Rubrics
http://www.bie.org/tools/freebies/cat/rubrics

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"Body Rituals Among the Nacirema"

Professor Horace Miner (1936)
Professor Linton first brought the rituals of the Nacirema to the attention of anthropologists 47 years ago but the culture of these
people is still very poorly understood. They are a North American group. Little is known of the origin, although tradition states that
they came from the east[]
Linton says that the Nacirema work very hard and live richly but they spend most of their day in ritual activity. The fundamental
belief underlying the whole ritual system appears to be that the human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and
disease. They believe that the mind is trapped in this diseased body and the only way to avoid sickness is through the powerful
influences of rituals and ceremonies. Every house has one or more shrines or holy places for ceremonies. The more powerful people
in the culture have many shrines - and you can tell how rich a person is by the number of shrines in his house.
While each family has at least one shrine, the rituals associated with it are not family ceremonies but are private and secret. The rites
are normally only discussed with the children, and then only when they are learning the mysteries of the shrine. Professor Linton
was able to get friendly enough with the natives that they let him examine the shrines and they described the rituals to him.
The focal point of the shrine is a box or chest which is built into the wall. In this chest are kept the many charms and magical potions
without which no native believes he could live. These preparations are obtained from a variety of specialized practitioners. The most
powerful are the medicine men whose help must be rewarded by great gifts. The medicine men do not give out the potions though,
but decide what the ingredients should be and then write them down 'in ancient and secret language. The language is only understood
by the herbalist, who for another gift gives out the charm that the person needs. The charm is not thrown away after it has served its
purpose but is placed in the charm box of the household shrine. Each charm is for certain ills and the people have so many sicknesses
that the box is usually overflowing. In fact, the magical packets are so numerous that people forget what their purposes were and fear
to use them again.
Underneath the charm box is a small font (a fountain). Every day each member of the family, one by one, enters the shrine room,
bows his head before the charm box, mixes different sorts of holy water in the font and begins with the rite of cleansing. The holy
water is gotten from the water temple of the community where priests keep it ritually pure.
Another special magician, but less important than the medicine man, is the Holy-Mouth-Man. The Nacirema have a tremendous
horror and fascination with the mouth, the condition of which is believed to have supernatural powers in all social relationships. If
they do not follow the mouth rituals, they believe their teeth will fall out, their gums will bleed, their friends will reject them and
their lovers will desert them. The daily mouth rite is performed by everyone - and to the stranger, it is disgusting. The ritual consists
of inserting a small bundle of hog hairs into the mouth along with certain magical creams and then moving the bundle around. The
Nacirema seek out the Holy-Mouth-Man twice a year in order to exorcise all of the evils of the mouth. This exorcism involves
unbelievable ritual torture of the client.
Some other customs of the Nacirema include the Great Temples, or latipsoh, which are run by the Medicine Men who perform
ceremonies on the very sick. The latipsoh ceremonies are so harsh that it is phenomenal that a fair proportion of the sick natives who
enter the temple ever recover. Small children have been known to resist attempts to take them to the latipsoh because that is where
you go to die. Despite this fact, sick adults are not only willing but eager to undergo the protracted ritual purification, if they can
afford to do so.
It is hoped that, when a thorough study of the Nacirema is made, there will be careful inquiry into the personality structure of these
people. One only has to see the gleam in the eye of Holy-Mouth-Men, as he tortures his clients, to suspect that a certain amount of
cruelty is involved. If this can be established, a very interesting pattern emerges, for most of the population shows definite violent
tendencies. Professor Linton offers, as proof, a daily ritual which is performed only by men. This rite includes scraping and
lacerating the surface of the face with a very sharp instrument. Special womens rites are performed only four times during each
lunar month, but what they lack in frequency is made up in barbarity. As part of this ceremony, women bake their heads in small
ovens for about an hour.

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According to Nacirema mythology, their nation was originated by a culture hero, Notgnihsaw who is otherwise known for two great
feats of strength - the throwing of a piece of wampum across the river Pa-To-Mac and the chopping down of a cherry tree in which
the Spirit of Truth lives.
Our review of the ritual life of the Nacirema has shown that they are a magic-ridden culture. It is hard to understand how these
people have existed so long under the burdens of their beliefs.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Were you surprised when you figured out who the Nacirema were? Explain why or why not.

2. How does Body Ritual Among the Nacirema help us understand our own view of other cultures and how
we are viewed by other cultures?

3. Why do some of the practices and rituals of other cultures seem odd or foreign to us? How do our own
cultural norms affect our understanding and perception of other cultures?

4. According to the article, write definitions of the following:

a) "Household shrine"
b) "Shrine box/chest"
c) "Medicine men"
d) "Herbalists"
e) "Gifts"
f) "Ancient and secret language"
g) "Charm"
h) "Font"

i) "Holy mouth men"

j) "Bundle of hog hairs"
k) "Sharp instrument used by men to
scrape and lacerate the surface of the face"
l) "Small ovens"

5. What did you learn about yourself from reading this article?

6.

In your opinion, what is the most prominent contributor to feelings of American/Western superiority?

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Complicating A Single Story: Unpacking Adichies Rhetoric

What is the subject?
What is the authors claim or main idea?

Give context
Use a strong verb:
Argues
Claims
Suggests, etc.

How does the author develop or support this

claim?

Example: Begins with her background and

personal childhood experiences

(Write a statement using the guidelines

to the left)

Why are these strategies to the left persuasively effective?

By sharing stories from her childhood, Adichie

proves her beliefs are based in experience, making
her more reliable.

Explain your other two below:

List at least two more below:

List three warrants (quotations/evidence) that the

author makes to support this claim.

What is the authors purpose?

The author attempts to persuade the reader to.
in order to.

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Practice Constructed Response: The Danger of a Single Story

Name:

Constructed Response
Directions: Produce one constructed response to the following short answer question. Remember
to include:
a claim that answers all parts of the question
evidence from the text
and be conventionally correct (spelling & mechanics )
Note: quality responses will follow the model we have discussed in class and answer all aspects
of the question thoroughly and succinctly. This should be done in 3-5 sentences as expected on
your End of Course Test.
Question

In the selection, how does the author use rhetoric to achieve her purpose?
Response

DO NOT WRITE MORE THAN THE SPACE PROVIDED

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The Danger of a Single Story by Chimamanda Adichie [Partial Transcript]

I'm a storyteller. And I would like to tell you a few personal stories about what I like to call "the danger of the single
story." I grew up on a university campus in eastern Nigeria. My mother says that I started reading at the age of two,
although I think four is probably close to the truth. So I was an early reader, and what I read were British and
American children's books.
I was also an early writer, and when I began to write, at about the age of seven, stories in pencil with crayon
illustrations that my poor mother was obligated to read, I wrote exactly the kinds of stories I was reading: All my
characters were white and blue-eyed, they played in the snow, they ate apples, and they talked a lot about the
weather, how lovely it was that the sun had come out. (Laughter) Now, this despite the fact that I lived in Nigeria. I
had never been outside Nigeria. We didn't have snow, we ate mangoes, and we never talked about the weather,
because there was no need to.
My characters also drank a lot of ginger beer because the characters in the British books I read drank ginger beer.
Never mind that I had no idea what ginger beer was. (Laughter) And for many years afterwards, I would have a
desperate desire to taste ginger beer. But that is another story.
What this demonstrates, I think, is how impressionable and vulnerable we are in the face of a story, particularly as
children. Because all I had read were books in which characters were foreign, I had become convinced that books by
their very nature had to have foreigners in them and had to be about things with which I could not personally
identify. Things changed when I discovered African books. There weren't many of them available, and they weren't
quite as easy to find as the foreign books.
But because of writers like Chinua Achebe and Camara Laye I went through a mental shift in my perception of
literature. I realized that people like me, girls with skin the color of chocolate, whose kinky hair could not form
ponytails, could also exist in literature. I started to write about things I recognized.
Now, I loved those American and British books I read. They stirred my imagination. They opened up new worlds for
me. But the unintended consequence was that I did not know that people like me could exist in literature. So what
the discovery of African writers did for me was this: It saved me from having a single story of what books are. []
Years later, I thought about this when I left Nigeria to go to university in the United States. I was 19. My American
roommate was shocked by me. She asked where I had learned to speak English so well, and was confused when I
said that Nigeria happened to have English as its official language. She asked if she could listen to what she called
my "tribal music," and was consequently very disappointed when I produced my tape of Mariah Carey. (Laughter)
She assumed that I did not know how to use a stove.
What struck me was this: She had felt sorry for me even before she saw me. Her default position toward me, as an
African, was a kind of patronizing, well-meaning pity. My roommate had a single story of Africa: a single story of
catastrophe. In this single story there was no possibility of Africans being similar to her in any way, no possibility of
feelings more complex than pity, no possibility of a connection as human equals.
I must say that before I went to the U.S. I didn't consciously identify as African. But in the U.S. whenever Africa
came up people turned to me. Never mind that I knew nothing about places like Namibia. But I did come to embrace
this new identity, and in many ways I think of myself now as African. Although I still get quite irritable when Africa
is referred to as a country, the most recent example being my otherwise wonderful flight from Lagos two days ago,
in which there was an announcement on the Virgin flight about the charity work in "India, Africa and other
countries." (Laughter)
So after I had spent some years in the U.S. as an African, I began to understand my roommate's response to me. If I
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had not grown up in Nigeria, and if all I knew about Africa were from popular images, I too would think that Africa
was a place of beautiful landscapes, beautiful animals, and incomprehensible people, fighting senseless wars, dying
of poverty and AIDS, unable to speak for themselves and waiting to be saved by a kind, white foreigner. I would see
Africans in the same way that I, as a child, had seen Fide's family.
This single story of Africa ultimately comes, I think, from Western literature. Now, here is a quote from the writing
of a London merchant called John Locke, who sailed to west Africa in 1561 and kept a fascinating account of his
voyage. After referring to the black Africans as "beasts who have no houses," he writes, "They are also people
without heads, having their mouth and eyes in their breasts."
Now, I've laughed every time I've read this. And one must admire the imagination of John Locke. But what is
important about his writing is that it represents the beginning of a tradition of telling African stories in the West: A
tradition of Sub-Saharan Africa as a place of negatives, of difference, of darkness, of people who, in the words of the
wonderful poet Rudyard Kipling, are "half devil, half child."
And so I began to realize that my American roommate must have throughout her life seen and heard different
versions []
It is impossible to talk about the single story without talking about power. There is a word, an Igbo word, that I think
about whenever I think about the power structures of the world, and it is "nkali." It's a noun that loosely translates to
"to be greater than another." Like our economic and political worlds, stories too are defined by the principle of nkali:
How they are told, who tells them, when they're told, how many stories are told, are really dependent on power.
Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person. The
Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti writes that if you want to dispossess a people, the simplest way to do it is to tell
their story and to start with, "secondly." Start the story with the arrows of the Native Americans, and not with the
arrival of the British, and you have an entirely different story. Start the story with the failure of the African state, and
not with the colonial creation of the African state, and you have an entirely different story.
I recently spoke at a university where a student told me that it was such a shame that Nigerian men were physical
abusers like the father character in my novel. I told him that I had just read a novel called American Psycho -(Laughter) -- and that it was such a shame that young Americans were serial murderers. (Laughter) (Applause) Now,
obviously I said this in a fit of mild irritation. (Laughter). But it would never have occurred to me to think that just
because I had read a novel in which a character was a serial killer that he was somehow representative of all
Americans. This is not because I am a better person than that student, but because of America's cultural and
economic power, I had many stories of America. I had read Tyler and Updike and Steinbeck and Gaitskill. I did not
have a single story of America.
I've always felt that it is impossible to engage properly with a place or a person without engaging with all of the
stories of that place and that person. The consequence of the single story is this: It robs people of dignity. It makes
our recognition of our equal humanity difficult. It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar.
[]
Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used
to empower and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken
dignity.
The American writer Alice Walker wrote this about her Southern relatives who had moved to the North. She
introduced them to a book about the Southern life that they had left behind: "They sat around, reading the book
themselves, listening to me read the book, and a kind of paradise was regained." I would like to end with this
thought: That when we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we
regain a kind of paradise. Thank you. (Applause)
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Cultural Collisions: Analyzing Our Texts

Our review of the ritual life of the Nacirema has shown that they are a magic-ridden culture. It is hard to understand how these
people have existed so long under the burdens of their beliefs. Horace Miner, Body Rituals of the Nacirema
I've always felt that it is impossible to engage properly with a place or a person without engaging with all of the stories of that place
and that person. Chimamanda Adichie, The Danger of a Single Story

Directions: This semester we have had the opportunity to read about moments of great cultural change seen
through the lens of the literature we have read. Your task is to review these texts and look for instances in them
that point to the collision of culture and change. Your goal will be to take the evidence from these texts and
infer what vehicles help to bring about these changes, as well as the human conditions that complicate the way
they are approached and embraced.
For example:
Text:
Culture:
Context:
Vehicle of Change:

Erich Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front

Western European (German/French)
World War I (1914-1918)
War Technology (lethal gas)
Quotations: Inside the gas mask, my head booms and roarsit is nigh bursting. My
lungs are tight, they breathe always the same hot, used up air, the veins in my temples
are swollen. I feel I am suffocating. (70)

Reaction to
Change:

Post Traumatic Stress

Quotation: I imagined leave would be different from this now I see I have been
crushed without knowing it. I find I do not belong here anymore, it is a foreign world
(168)

As a reminder: you may consider the following texts. Included are some suggestions for concepts you should
be considering. Remember, this list is not inclusive; please feel free to consult any other texts we have studied
this semester as you and your group see appropriate.
Texts
Chinua Achebes Things Fall Apart
Kamala Markandayas Nectar in a Sieve
Elie Wiesels Night
William Kamkwambas The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
Erich Remarques All Quiet on the Western Front
Khaled Hosseinis The Kite Runner

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Vehicles/Advancements to Consider:
Medicine
Urbanization
Industrialization
Technology
Belief Systems
Education

Text:

Culture:

Context:

Vehicle of Change:
(Include
quotations/textual
references)

Reaction to Change:
(Include
quotations/textual
references)

Text:

Culture:

Context:

Vehicle of Change:
(Include
quotations/textual
references)

Reaction to Change:
(Include
quotations/textual
references)

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Cultural Collisions: Literary Analysis Paper Assignment

Through the engineering accomplishments of the past, the world has become smaller, more inclusive, and more connected. The
challenges facing engineering today are not those of isolated locales, but of the planet as a whole and all the planets people. Meeting
all those challenges must make the world not only a more technologically advanced and connected place, but also a more sustainable,
safe, healthy, and joyous in other words, better place.
-National Academy of Engineering, Introduction to the Grand Challenges

Over the past semester we have studied works of literature that have helped us as readers and members of a
global community come to a better understanding of the ways our societies and cultures converge, react, and
adapt to change. Now that youve considered those intersections as they have been presented in our texts, you
will now synthesized your knowledge to create an original argument about the nature of culture, advancement,
and change as it has been presented by authors we have read over these past months.

Prompt
Choose two authors/texts we have studied this semester. In a well thought out essay, citing evidence from the
text, answer one of the following questions:
How do these texts depict the convergence of culture, technology, and change; and what do they say
about the motivation of making the world better as outlined in the Grand Challenges of Engineering?
How do these texts depict the way technology has influenced social change at moments in human history?
How can that influence complicate the way human advancement and the joy of living is outlined in the
Grand Challenges of Engineering?

For example
If I were to write an essay using Achebes Things Fall Apart and Markandayas Nectar in a Sieve, my thesis
could be that both authors depict Imperialism as not only a time of great cultural integration and change, but
also as a moment of technological advancement that requires a form of necessary assimilation.
To support this argument I could cite both Okonkwo and Nathans inability to change in the face of Western
Imperial influence, showing in contrast that it is the younger generation (Nwoye and Rukus sons who work at
the tannery) whose openness and willingness to adapt was what kept them moving forward, maintaining that
Joy of Living.
This relates to humanitys desire to make life better by detailing the complicated ways that groups have
historically defined their motivations to help others: the missionaries versus the Disctrict Commissioner in TFA,
the love/hate relationship Kenny often had with Ruku and her stupid peers in Nectar.
As you develop your argument and thesis statements, remember that you will be work-shopping these
with your peers and myself. Before you are allowed to move forward with outlining your paper, I must
approve your thesis.

Your Literary Analysis Should Include:

A well thought out thesis statement that connects two texts
At least one reference from each text, using direct quotations, that provides evidence and support for your
thesis
An answer to how your texts relate to the idea of the joy of living
An answer to how your texts depict human advancements influence on cultural change.

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Requirements

3 page minimum, 4 page maximum

Double Spaced
Times New Roman, 12 pt font
MLA format, including header and Works Cited
Free of conventional errors in spelling, mechanics, and grammar

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The Names
Billy Collins (2001)
Yesterday, I lay awake in the palm of the night.
A soft rain stole in, unhelped by any breeze,
And when I saw the silver glaze on the windows,
I started with A, with Ackerman, as it happened,
Then Baxter and Calabro,
Davis and Eberling, names falling into place
As droplets fell through the dark.
Names printed on the ceiling of the night.
Names slipping around a watery bend.
Twenty-six willows on the banks of a stream.
In the morning, I walked out barefoot
Among thousands of flowers
Heavy with dew like the eyes of tears,
And each had a name -Fiori inscribed on a yellow petal
Then Gonzalez and Han, Ishikawa and Jenkins.
Names written in the air
And stitched into the cloth of the day.
A name under a photograph taped to a mailbox.
Monogram on a torn shirt,
I see you spelled out on storefront windows
And on the bright unfurled awnings of this city.
I say the syllables as I turn a corner -Kelly and Lee,
Medina, Nardella, and O'Connor.
When I peer into the woods,
I see a thick tangle where letters are hidden
As in a puzzle concocted for children. Parker and
Quigley in the twigs of an ash,

Rizzo, Schubert, Torres, and Upton,

Secrets in the boughs of an ancient maple.
Names written in the pale sky.
Names rising in the updraft amid buildings.
Names silent in stone
Or cried out behind a door.
Names blown over the earth and out to sea.
In the evening -- weakening light, the last swallows.
A boy on a lake lifts his oars.
A woman by a window puts a match to a candle,
And the names are outlined on the rose clouds -Vanacore and Wallace,
(let X stand, if it can, for the ones unfound)
Then Young and Ziminsky, the final jolt of Z.
Names etched on the head of a pin.
One name spanning a bridge, another undergoing a
tunnel.
A blue name needled into the skin.
Names of citizens, workers, mothers and fathers,
The bright-eyed daughter, the quick son.
Alphabet of names in a green field.
Names in the small tracks of birds.
Names lifted from a hat
Or balanced on the tip of the tongue.
Names wheeled into the dim warehouse of memory.
So many names, there is barely room on the walls
of the heart.

Personal Reflections on September 11th 2001

What do you remember and how has this event changed your life?

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The Names Reflection Questions:

1. What is the narrators psychological state at the opening of the poem? How do we know?

2. In the beginning of the poem, the poet first sees names reflected in what natural process? Why do you think
Collins uses this simile?

3. As the poem continues, the reader is inundated with names, given in both natural and urban contexts.
Give two examples of each. Why would Collins choose to have this juxtaposition in a poem about 9/11?

4. Some readers have argued there is a metaphorical Ground Zero in the poem. What line would you label as
such and why?

5. As Collins lists the names he sees, readers are given both concrete and abstract examples of their
expression. Why does Collins do this? What are names symbolic of?

6. This poem can be considered one poets expression of grief, but the grieving process is also written into the
poem. When considering coping, it is said that grief can be both finding finality in death as well as
continuity. Where in the poem do you see these two realities?

7. A monument is defined as:

(n); A statue, building, or other structure erected to commemorate a famous or notable person or event. Or
other structure placed by or over a grave in memory of the dead.
How could you argue Collins has created a monument with his words?

8. The poem concludes that the most lasting monument, independent of both stone and word, is located where?

9. How does this text compare/contrast with the ideals that Mary Pipher discusses in her Foreword?

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The Middle of Everywhere:

American Perspective and the Global Community

Journal
After reading Mary Piphers introduction to The Middle of Everywhere (ix-xiii), try and explain your own
attitude toward interacting with individuals of another culture. In the foreword, Pipher discusses how
September 11th changed the way she thought and felt about her novel. In your opinion, do we as a
country view people of different races or nationalities differently post 9/11? Use Billy Collins The
Names as you see fit.

Jigsaw Groups
The Kurdish sisters p 24-40

Linh p 64-68

Kareem and Mirzana p 79-82

Kids at the Sycamore School p 116-160

Liem p 161-163

Anton p 163-166

Jasminka p 196-200

Three Iraqis 208-215

Homogenous Questions for Reflection: Please write thoughtful answers in complete sentences.
Before your group begins, please read the selected excerpt you have been assigned. Then with
your group, begin to reflect on the following questions:
1. Where is this family/individual from?

2. Where are you from (city, state)?

3. Describe their culture. (beliefs, clothing, food, etc.)

4. Describe your culture based on Piphers guidelines of defining culture. (women, gardeners,
Piphers, , Southerners, etc.)(Pipher 13)

5. Why did this family/individual leave their home country?

6. What was their experience like in America?

7. How does this family/individual define what it means to be American?

8. What challenges did this family/individual face?
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9. In your opinion, how could the experience of this family/individual been improved?
10. In your opinion, how is this family/individuals story representative of a larger issue faced by
refugees in our country? If you could define that issue in simple terms, what would it be?

Heterogeneous Questions for Reflection: Please write thoughtful answers in complete sentences.
Before your group begins to share, each member should go around and give a brief overview of
the individual(s) he/she just discussed in their homogeneous group.
1. Define the term refugee based on the definition given from the United Nations in Chapter 1. How
does it differ from an immigrant?

2. With your group, make a list of 10 misconceptions many refugees have about America, according
to the novel. You must include misconceptions noted throughout the novel based on the different
stories youve read.

3. On pg. 88, the novel describes the role of a cultural broker to newcomers. What is a cultural
broker? What particular activities were you surprised to find on this list of responsibilities? How
would this person be of help to you if you were forced to flee to another country?

4. There are many experiences of refugees described in this novel. What is the most surprising to
you? Explain your answer.

5. After finishing the novel, what would your group say is the most dangerous thing in America for
newcomers?

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A Call to Action: Becoming a Cultural Broker Project

Overview
In The Middle of Everywhere, Mary Pipher argues that now, more than ever, our world needs a survival strategy
of knowledge, empathy, and respect (20) through which we all can continue to advance and prosper. Many of
the texts we have read this semester have supported and served as narratives of such a necessity.
On page 23 of her text, Pipher states
We think the world apart, said Parker Palmer. What would it be like to think the world together? Teilhard
de Chardin had a wordunfurlingto describe that infinitely slow, spasmodic movement toward the unity of
mankind. He saw education and love as the twin pillars of this progress. At this amazing point in history, we
have the opportunity to get things right.
One of the things we as individuals can do to start making things right, is to take the knowledge we have gained
over the course of the semester and begin the dialogue on change so many authors have encouraged us to
recognize through their works. Pipher loosely labels such individuals as cultural brokers, people who educate
the world and their peers on the things that exist outside of their own social boundaries.
According to Pipher, cultural brokers can help ease people into each others cultures:
Foucault wrote that knowledge is power. Cultural brokers give newcomers information that directly
translates into power. (89)
The goal for this project is for you and your peers to embody this type of power and create some Call to Action
through which to expand your peers knowledge of experiences and the world around them. The call to action
will detail, explain, and promote social justice in a community around the world who could benefit from the
advancementssocial or technologicalwe as American citizens could offer them.
We have studied the horrors of World War I on the European people, the positive and negative effects of
Western Imperialism on Africa and India, the atrocities of the Holocaust and the negligence that lead to it, as
well as the ongoing reality of genocide in areas such as the Sudan occurring around the world to this day. I have
placed your lens for you up to this point. Now is your time to choose and embody that power which Pipher
speaks.

The Question
What area in the world could benefit the most from the power of human advancement and how can we
begin to engineer a better life for people there?

The Product
You and your group will be producing a Call to Action that explains the refugee situation in the country you
have been assigned. The Call to Action should be seen as a tool to share knowledge and persuade your peers to
use their power to help improve the quality of life of those individuals being affected.
Your product should accomplish three main goals
Give the context of the political/social/cultural conflict of your country
Detail the efforts being conducted to help end the conflict currently
And provide your own personal answer to improving the situation for these people. This solution can be as
broad or specific as your group sees fit.

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For example
To raise awareness of the genocide occurring in Darfur, your group may see funding for refugees in displaced
persons camps as an issue. Your solution to that issue may be starting a STAND club at your school
[standnow.org]. STAND is a national grassroots organization that promotes student led movements to end mass
atrocities abroad. Your call to action could be a video you place on the schools website promoting interest in
the club. This video should cover the current conflict in Sudan, provide an overview of national efforts to end
the genocide, and explain how starting the STAND chapter at our school to lead to our community becoming
involved.

Possible Calls to Action

YouTube Video
PresentationGlogster, Prezi
Microsoft Photostory
Mac iMovie
WebsiteWeebly, Wordpress
Public art displays
Editorials to be published via print or electronic mediums
Podcast

Remember: these calls to action should be persuasive and educational. The goal is to utilize a medium that
represents the connectedness Pipher mentions and utilizes the potential inherent in such advancements in our
society. Please feel free to discuss any ideas with me as you begin this process.

The Presentation
On the due date for this project, each group will be responsible for presenting their Call to Action to the class.
Following each presentation will be a question and answer session where each group will be expected to
facilitate an educated conversation about their product and area of interest.

Areas of Interest
One place I suggest groups begin to focus their search for a country is on the following website:
The United Nations Refugee Agency http://www.unhcr.org. Look underneath the Where We Work tab.
You may also use countries reflected in The Middle of Everywhere. All country selections must be approved by
me. No group may do the same country.

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