Learning is Messy:

Confidence and

Community to Write Across the Genres

Nichole Vaughan

Beloved: Texts and Contexts

12th grade IB English Language and Literature Y2

Sequoia High School

Lesson Overview

01.

Introduction: Layers of Quandary! (~15 minutes)

02.

Demo Lesson (~40 minutes)

03.

Student Work (~10 minutes)

04.

Questions and Feedback (10 minutes)

My messy guiding ideas:

• Learning/writing is messy!
• Discussion builds confidence (content before form)
• Application of ideas in different genres builds confidence

Goals and context

The intellectual in literary and non-literary work

Student interviews and writing samples

And concerns!

Beloved: Texts and Contexts

12th grade: IB English Language and Literature Y2

Introduction

01.

Beloved: Texts and Contexts

12th grade: IB English Language and Literature Y2

Introduction

Learning is messy!

Nichole Vaughan

• Sequoia High School (public)
• Health Careers Academy (CA Partnership Academy Qualifications)
• International Baccalaureate
• Historically looped with students 10th and 12th grades
• ℅ 2022 was just 12th
• Highly collaborative dept. culture
• 3 core texts a year + non-literary texts–I choose to use non-literary to support and explore ideas in literary texts

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Other Unit Padlets for your reference– links in chat!

The Language of Resistance

(core text: the work of Sydney Sipho Sepamla, South Africa)

Freedom and Imprisonment

(core text: The Thief and the Dogs by Naguib Mahfouz, Egypt)

Humanity and Collective Resilience

(core text: Beloved by Toni Morrison, United States)

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Paper 1: IB Assessment

• 2 hr. 15 min to write two essays
• 2 “stimulus” or non-literary texts that are unseen
• Students write one essay on each text, responding to a prompt that asks a broad question like:
• How does the author use features to establish purpose?
• We practice the close-reading of shorter, non-literary texts throughout the year, but start exam simulation in February
• I would love feedback on ways to build even more genre knowledge with reading, writing, and discussing without guiding them too much with how they need to sound.

12th grade: IB English Language and Literature Y2

Student voice guided me

Grace’s observation opened a door

How did you become more confident with Paper 1?

Grace’s response: to be honest, I don’t really do the 6-steps. Connecting back to what you were saying about hearing from other people, its really helpful to hear ideas from other people because other people's’ ideas are actually good,..like better than your own.

Beloved: Texts and Contexts

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Discussion created community and confidence

John discussion of the book, Felipe and hearing others’ voices

Beloved: Texts and Contexts

Kick-off

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Similar to a “write into the day,” you’ll do some writing to establish some ideas before discussing and building.

• Get that document ready!

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Beloved: Texts and Contexts

12th grade IB English Language and Literature Y2

Kick-off: 5 min to write, 5 min to talk

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Beloved: Texts and Contexts

“The past is never dead; it isn’t even past.” -William Faulkner

• What does this quote mean?
• How does it apply to you, personally?
• How does it apply to us, societally or historically?
• How does it show up in Beloved so far?

(Fun Fact: Toni Morrison wrote her Master’s thesis on William Faulkner)

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Multimedia practice to build confidence

Felipe, Grace

Beloved: Texts and Contexts

Example of the multimedia, reading, discussion, writing

What is conveyed and how? (slides 15-19)

Beloved: Texts and Contexts

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Beloved: Texts and Contexts

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Tom Feelings’ Artist Statement

(an excerpt)

Beloved: Texts and Contexts

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“Callous indifference or outright brutal characterizations of Africans are embedded in the language of the Western World. It is a language so infused with direct and indirect racism that it would be difficult, if not impossible, using this language in my book to project anything black as positive. This gave me my final reason for attempting to tell the story through art alone. If this part of our history could be told in such a way that those chains of the past could become spiritual links that willingly bind us together now and into the future—Then that painful Middle Passage could become a positive connecting line to all of us.”

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What is conveyed and how?

Beloved: Texts and Contexts

What is conveyed and how?

Beloved: Texts and Contexts

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Haven’t read Beloved? Let’s get caught up!

Disclaimer: I am POSITIVE that this book is not meant to be summarized, but I’m gonna TRY to contextualize it for y’all.

Beloved: Texts and Contexts

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Beloved catch-up: Come along!

Beloved: Texts and Contexts

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After haunting Sethe for years, the ghost of the child comes back in human form in an effort to learn why she was killed.

Beloved returns

She sends her children ahead first and then she escapes by herself, while pregnant, never reunited with her husband, Halle.

Sethe escapes Sweet Home

In that effort, Beloved unveils details of Sethe’s past and also brings information from the afterlife with her.

Beloved forces Sethe to reckon with her past

Sethe is found. Due to the Fugitive Slave Act, her owner attempts to reclaim her and her children. In an act of protection/love, she plans to kill her children, but only kills Beloved.

Sethe kills her child

12th grade IB English Language and Literature Y2

Participatory Reading

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Beloved: Texts and Contexts

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“In the epic and in Morrison's novel, the performance depends on an active audience. This same participatory impulse drives Morrison's novel. She enjoins her readers to help create the text: ''[The reader and I] invent the work together....It's a total communal experience'' (Davis 148).”

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Source: Rummell, Kathryn. Toni Morrison's "Beloved": Transforming the African Heroic Epic. The Griot 21:1 [Spring 2002] p. 1-15.

12th grade IB English Language and Literature Y2

Participatory Reading, cont

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Beloved: Texts and Contexts

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“In a different interview, Morrison describes her works as containing ‘holes and spaces so the reader can come into it [...] My writing expects, demands participatory reading’ (Tate 125). In Beloved, then, she draws readers in as both audience and creators, investing them with a sense of involvement in the novel's community. Additionally, the oral nature of the prose begs to be read aloud; readers in some way share Morrison's role as creator in that they participate in the sound of the work.”

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12th grade IB English Language and Literature Y2

Participatory Reading Discussion

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Beloved: Texts and Contexts

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Discuss with your groups and ADD TO YOUR NOTES (because author’s purpose, y’all):

• What does Toni Morrison mean by the term “participatory reading” and what does this mean for you as the reader? How do you participate in the unfolding of the story?
• Morrison describes her works as containing ''holes and spaces so the reader can come into it [...] My writing expects, demands participatory reading'' (Tate 125). Can you think of examples of this from the novel thus far?

12th grade IB English Language and Literature Y2

Beloved Reading and Discussion (15 min) Approach the chapter like a poem (PDF of the chapter)

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Draw from our exploration (“The past” quote and Tom Feelings).

Make notes in your book when you feel like Beloved is describing:

• Death and the afterlife
• The Middle Passage
• Life as a slave
• (it might be AMBIGUOUS and be more than one)

Add to your writing (5 min):

• What is Morrison suggesting about Beloved’s (and maybe others’) past? How does she link them?
• How is Beloved representative of more than just Sethe’s dead child? How does Morrison convey this?

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Beloved Reading and Discussion (15 min) Approach the chapter like a poem (PDF of the chapter)

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Be ready to share!

I’m going to pull from my cards.

• What is Morrison suggesting about Beloved’s (and maybe others’) past? How does she link them?
• How is Beloved representative of more than just Sethe’s dead baby? How does Morrison convey this?

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Beloved Read, Talk, Write DEBRIEF

One minute of think time, then share:

• What was helpful about being able to read and discuss before writing?
• What was helpful about doing the kick-off and painting analysis beforehand?

Marilyn and Daniella are going to add on ways that discussion was helpful.

Daniella is hard to hear: “So I can get an idea of what I want to write about. I have to have some type of something to write my essay. I can’t just like…automatically. For my outline, for example, I mentioned that it really helps me get my thoughts together in order to write and make sense throughout my essay. When we talk, I put things together, and I have more ideas to write about.

That’s when the 6-step comes in handy…*everyone has a 6-step “ah-ha!”*

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12th grade IB English Language and Literature Y2

Student samples

Beloved: Texts and Contexts

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• Two of the four samples have the entire process included.
• Two of the four samples do not have the pre-discussion notes; one of the two has the discussion notes.
• I want you to look for difference in form, but similarities in content.
• Content before form.

12th grade IB English Language and Literature Y2

Ultimate result

Everything is intellectual + confidence outside of the classroom influences confidence in the classroom + recommend reading and analyzing difficult texts together in-class.

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• Recommendations for next steps? (Daniel planted seed for writing conferences!)

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Beloved: Texts and Contexts

12th grade IB English Language and Literature Y2

Resources Slide

LINK TO THE PAPER 1 PROMPTS

LINK TO THE SAMPLE WRITING

LINK TO THE 6-STEP

‘Preciate ya!

Do you have any questions?

nvaughan24@gmail.com

650-918-9550

www.nicholevaughan.com

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Beloved: Texts and Contexts

12th grade IB English Language and Literature Y2

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