Annotated Text Set

Short Story

➢ The Moth Episodes (https://themoth.org/stories/jenny, https://themoth.org/stories/unusual-normality,

https://themoth.org/stories/prom)

○ These read-aloud short stories tell of the narrators’ personal experiences, respectively, with being in the
foster care system, facing trauma during childhood, and enduring racism during adolescence. The authors
come from various diverse backgrounds and tell how their identity has been shaped within culture and as a
result of circumstance. Additionally, these narrators add an element of retrospection where they show how
these experiences have shaped them as people over time.

■ We would use these short stories to serve as mentor texts for students when asking them to open up
about hardships that they may have faced in relation to their identity and how those experiences have
helped grow them into the people that they are today. Figuring out identity asks students to be
vulnerable and in-touch with personal stories and feelings which aren’t always the easiest requests,
and stories such as these can bring a sense of comfort and relatability within these activities.

Poems

➢ “Counting Descent” by Clint Smith https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdN4ITOE2Rw

○ This poem is told by an African American narrator who uses numbers to tell his personal life story. He
reveals aspects about his identity, lineage, family, and other experiences through an ongoing use of
numbers. This link provides a read aloud where students will be able to listen to him tell his story in
numbers.

○ We would use this to introduce students to this unique kind of style of identity-exploration. They could adopt
this idea of associating numbers with aspects of their personal life in order to tell their own life story through
this different style.
 ➢ “I am a Black Woman” (1975) by Mari Evans https://blackartsmovementumf.wordpress.com/mari-evans-i-am-a-
black-woman/

○ This poem explores Mari Evans’ intersectional identity, including how her identity as an African American
and a woman interact to form her true identity. Evans uses a lot of imagery and short phrases to express her
identity as a Black Woman.

○ We will read and analyze this text on the second and third day of the unit to explore identity more generally
and then introduce the idea of intersectionality. This will help students grasp the concept of intersectionality
with an example and can serve as inspiration before writing their own reflective journal about intersectional
identity.

➢ “Something you should know” by Clint Smith https://aprweb.org/poems/something-you-should-know

○ This poem explores the author’s old job in a pet store. In describing something seemingly simple, he reveals
a key aspect of his personality and identity

○ This text will be used later in the unit when exploring various modes of expression. It can serve as a mentor
text for any student that chooses poetry for their artistic adaptation in the performance assessment for the
unit.

Non-Fiction Essay/News Article

➢ “Five Reasons Why People Code-Switch” on NPR

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/04/13/177126294/five-reasons-why-people-code-switch

○ This article serves to inform the students about various ways that people code-switch. Although sometimes
this in an unintentional doing as the article explains, it can also occur when people are trying to fit in,
intentionally when wanting something, or to help convey a thought.
 ○ We will use this article as a way to not only tell students about code-switching as it relates to identity, but
also to provide them with examples where this happens in real life. This idea of “code-switching” can be one
that sounds severe or heavy, but it can oftentimes be a natural reflection of how someone’s identity interacts
with the environment and others around them.

Videos

➢ “The Urgency of Intersectionality” Ted Talk (Kimberle Crenshaw)

https://www.ted.com/talks/kimberle_crenshaw_the_urgency_of_intersectionality?language=en

○ Kimberly Crenshaw came up with the term Intersectionality. In this TED Talk, she explains this term through
the example of a court case in which a Black woman argued that she was discriminated against, not
because she is a woman OR because she is Black, but she was not given a job because she is Black AND
is a woman.

○ We would use this early in the unit to give students a background/knowledge on intersectional identities and
how our many identities might influence how we are treated in the world around us.

➢ “Revelations” by Alvin Ailey Dance Theater https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNqaixKbrjs

○ Using African-American spirituals, song-sermons, gospel songs and holy blues, Alvin Ailey’s “Revelations”
fervently explores the places of deepest grief and holiest joy in the soul. It is inspired by Ailey’s childhood
growing up in rural Texas and the Baptist Church.

○ We will use this later in the unit to expose students to various forms of expression. This example of dance
choreography could be a mentor text for a student that chooses to use dance for their artistic adaptation in
the final performance assessments
Song/Piece of music

➢ Landslide by Fleetwood Mac

○ “Nicks has said in interviews that the song was about her romance with Buckingham and their career
struggles, as well as her relationship with her business-executive father. Her months in the mountains
inspired the lines with the song’s title, And I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills/‘Til the landslide
brought me down. And one verse contains questions that most of us ask ourselves at one time or another:
“Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love? / Can the child within my heart rise above? / Can I sail through the
changing ocean tides? / Can I handle the seasons of my life? / It’s an emotional lyric, and while it may seem
simple, the introspection of those words resonated with millions of record buyers.”
https://americansongwriter.com/fleetwood-mac-landslide-behind-the-song

○ We would use this for students to see various ways to express their identity. We would probably listen
to/analyze this in conjunction with other songs. If a student wants to create a song for their final project, they
could use this or another song we view in class as a mentor text.

Graphic text (visual art, advertisement, graphic fiction, info-graphic, cartoon, etc.)

➢ Frida Kahlo - The Two Fridas, 1939

○ “The self-portrait The Two Fridas is one of the most notable and recognized Kahlo's works. Depicting two
versions of Frida Kahlo seated together, the painting symbolizes her pain during her divorce from Diego
Rivera and the subsequent transitioning of her novel identity. Frida on the left is wearing a white European-
style dress, a costume she donned before her marriage to Rivera. During their marriage, she started to
explore the traditional Mexican heritage. Thus, the other Frida is depicted in the traditional Mexican
costume. This painting also symbolizes her dual cultural heritage. The bleeding heart emphasizes her
emotional and physical pain. The blood is a recurring symbol and appears in her other famous self-portraits,
and it often gestures to her ambivalent attitude towards accepted notions of womanhood and fertility.”
(https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/famous-self-portraits/frida-kahlo-the-two-fridas-1939)
○ We would use this later in the unit as a way to show students different ways that people express their
identity. We could compare this self-portrait to others as well. If students choose to do a piece of art for
their final project for the unit, this can also serve as a mentor text.