Gloria E.

Anzaldúa Lesson plan

Course: ENG 461 Women and Literature
Date of lesson delivery: Tuesday, March 26th, 2019
Course Instructor: Dr. Kirsch
Created and delivered by: Nikole Gomez
Title of selected text: “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” by Gloria E. Anzaldúa

Objective
Students will be able to:
 Identify the author’s central argument
 Develop a clear stance on whether the author’s argument was successful in making their
argument (effective or not)
 Identify the author’s audience
 Recognize rhetorical strategies and literary devices used by the author to make their
argument
 Extract specific passages from the text that support their claims
 Participate in a classroom discussion

Materials
“How to Tame a Wild Tongue” by Gloria E. Anzaldúa, located in Available Means: An Anthology of
Women’s Rhetoric(s).

Activities
1. The teacher will begin the class by telling the students about Gloria E. Anzaldúa’s life
(background).
2. The students will have 10 minutes to answer the questions on the worksheet that was handed
out at the beginning of class. Translated every time the author used Spanish.
3. The teacher will begin instruction by asking the students how many of them went through the
text.
4. The teacher will ask the students to take turns reading the text aloud. Students will have the
opportunity to ask questions about translations and work through them.
5. The students will be asked to share their initial reactions, thoughts, and questions.
 6. The class will begin a discussion and share their answers to the questions from the handout
they filled out earlier in the class.

Closure
Students will be given a couple minutes to write down bullet points of what they’d like to discuss in
their journals.

Assessment (Informal)
The teacher will observe and assess the level of student preparedness and participation in the
classroom discussion. The students will also be evaluated through their journal entry they turn in at
the end of the semester.

Extension
The instructor will give the students two resources of further readings that are similar to the lesson’s
topic of language and identity. The two readings are: “La Prieta” by Gloria E. Anzaldúa and “Mother
Tongue” by Amy Tan.