Academic Setting
This is a nine-week curriculum unit
for 11th grade English. English 11
is a study of American literature. The
objective of this unit will be to understand the theme of justice in American literature
by exploring the roots of our modern ideas of justice and rights. The themes of justice
and human rights permeate American literature. This unit will use these themes as a
framework for the study of different generations of American literature. By studying the ideas of justice, rights and
fairness provided by the literature, the students will gain a broad understanding of how
these concepts were perceived by different generations and groups of people. The objective is to transform the students’
point of view from the subjective and egocentric to the objective and geocentric.
This unit is
intended for my Eleventh Grade English Regulars at West Mesa High School in Albuquerque,
New Mexico. West Mesa, with a student
population of over two thousand, is both ethnically and socioeconomically diverse. The
school population is approximately 74% Hispanic, 14% Caucasian, 6% Native American, 4%
African American and 2% other. It is located
on the far west end of the city and serves the western Pueblos. Many of our students are from lower to middle
economic families. Most students have jobs after school and while many need to help their
families or save for college, the motivation for the majority is to own and maintain a car
or afford the accessories that are a requisite for “average” teenage existence.
Attendance is a
major problem at our school. A large number of students show up sporadically because
school does not offer what they feel is necessary for their lifestyles. The provisional
future benefits of education are often no match for pleasure that can be immediately
experienced. The English 11 regular classes are made up of a broad spectrum of students
from very low level students recently exited from the special education programs to
enriched or honor students who are unable to get into the higher level classes due to
scheduling problems. There are many English
as a Second Language students who are getting their first English class and some high-risk
students in and out of the juvenile justice system. The majority of the students fall in
the middle range. They lack the motivation
for long term goals and instead, prefer the quick fix approach to life. If it feels good, looks good, or is more fun than
school, it is the best choice. Many of my
students have experimented with drugs, like to street race and enjoy thwarting authority. Some have had multiple dealings with the justice
system and seem cynical as to any protection of individual rights the law is intended to
provide.
A method that I
have found to be effective to motivate students and involve their attention is to make
what they are taught relevant to them. As a
whole, teenagers can be perceived as self-absorbed. What
they learn has to be applicable to their own lives and capture their interest at a
personal level. Making an English class not
only accessible to this diverse group of students, but relevant as well, is a difficult
but rewarding challenge. Teenagers seem to perceive constructive criticism and discipline
as persecution. They have an acute sense of
unfairness. It is difficult to know from one
teen to the next what will be unfair. The
problem is that fairness and unfairness are highly individualized perceptions. If a student asks for a piece of gum and the
teacher happens to have an extra, unthinkingly, she or he will give the student the piece
of gum. Almost instantly a cry of “May I
have some gum?” will ring out. When told
that there is no more gum, the response will be “That’s not fair.” It was fair to the gum recipient. The teacher, with an offhand act of kindness,
caused a crisis of justice. Justice and
fairness are concerns that teenagers face daily and sometimes hourly.
The violation of human rights is an
outrage, but are daily irritations truly violations?
Perhaps they are merely obstacles in the path of achieving momentary
happiness. Although students have an
awareness of rights and just treatment, is it a valid view?
If something or someone interferes with the pursuit of happiness, does it
follow that this specific interference is a violation of our constitutional rights? As a
value judgment, fairness tends to be egocentric particularly because most of us think
about fairness or unfairness only when it affects us personally. How do we get students to go from a subjective
sense to an objective, outward view? Our
country has difficulty with balancing the rights of the individual against what is best
for the common good. This is the enduring tension in a democracy. This unit will chronicle this tension through the
history of justice, rights, and fairness in American literature. The students will be drawn to the relevance of
this as it mirrors the tension that they will go through in moving from the subjective to
objective realm. This curriculum unit will make justice, human rights and fairness the
central theme binding together generations of American literature. What are the roots of our modern ideals of justice
and fairness? How did we decide upon the
constitution and its amendments? How were
these rights established, upheld and violated? When
did legal rights interfere with human rights and what recourse was there? These are all questions this curriculum unit will
address.
The literature will demonstrate a
sequence of establishing, violating and upholding the rights of citizens. To come to an
understanding of how and why laws were established to protect human rights, students will
have to go far back into the pre-national history of the United States. They will find that many laws often favored those
who had the power to write them. At times,
establishing and protecting the rights of one group of people created a great injustice to
other groups. The constant tension that this
paradox creates will be the focal point of our study. The students will attempt to create
a working definition of justice by studying the same literature that influenced our nation’s
founders as they set forth their ideas in the constitution and other documents. They will
use this definition to discuss the post-revolutionary literature through the civil rights
ideas of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. All
literature in this unit will concern the ideas of justice, rights and the responsibility
that comes with acting on our rights. Do
these rights come into conflict with justice or support justice?
Context and Background
In order to begin this unit, it will be
necessary for the students to provide their definitions of fairness, justice and rights. This is an important starting point for this unit
for several reasons. First, it will give the
teacher a good idea of where the students are in terms of their ideas about these
concepts. Second, it will get the students
thinking about these terms, thus engaging them in the themes that will be discussed. Through this process, students will begin to
personalize and relate to the ideas expressed in the literature.
In Native
American literature, it is ironic that there is no word for justice even though a sense of
justice permeates the literature. They use
words that correspond with the terms harmony and balance.
In “The World on Turtle’s Back,” the mother of the Earth
gives birth to two twins, one agreeable and cooperative, the other stubborn and contrary. These twins were symbolic of the balance in
nature. The right twin created the
herbivores; the left twin created the predators. The twins represent the two sides of the
natural and human world,
The Indians did not call these right and
wrong. They called
them the straight mind and the crooked mind,
the upright
man and the devious man, the right and the
left man…The
world the twins made was a balanced orderly
world…the left
and right twins built balance into the
world.
The concept of
balance is used in the modern Peacemaker Court of the Navajo. In the Court, an elder is selected as a peacemaker
and his duties are to guide or mediate discussions among the parties. “The peacemaker might speak about Navajo
values, give advice, or offer a prayer. Without
coercion, the peacemaker attempts to lead the group to a solution that will help the
victim, be agreed upon by all parties, and restore harmony in the relationship. The object is to solve problems, rather than
determine who is right or wrong. (Creedon, 100). Justice becomes restitution and
restoration.
The desired
outcomes organic justice and natural rights are about balance and harmony. The world, once upset, must be restored to its
natural balance. Humans are a part of the
natural world, in enjoying a symbiotic relationship, humans must also seek to keep the
order and that the natural world functions with. The
balance and order of the natural world was destroyed for the natives when those Europeans
who did not understand this necessary balance imposed their idea of rights onto this
“New World.” “Under Columbus
and other Spanish adventurers, as well as later European colonizers, an era of genocide
was opened that ravaged the native American population through warfare, forced labor,
draconian punishments, and European diseases to which the Indians had no natural
immunities” (Davis, 5). I would
argue that the Indians had no defense against the European ideas of “rights” and
“justice” as well. Approximately 90% of the native population were eventually
destroyed in the name of progress and civilization.
Native
Americans, without whose help the colonists would have died, shared their knowledge of the
land, showed them how to get food and build shelter, and attempted to help the settlers
live with the natural world. The colonists responded by turning on them. As Powhatan said to John Smith in 1607, “Will
you take by force what you may have quietly by love?
Why will you destroy us who supply you with food? What can you get by war?”(Davis, 8). The
balance that Powhatan’s Indians tried to achieve with the new habitants was forever
destroyed and the constant struggle of the Native people against the perceived rights of
the Europeans began.
In 1620 the
Separatists, or Pilgrims, arrived and quickly created the Mayflower Compact. This compact
was a statement of self government agreed upon and signed by the adult men. It should be considered the first constitution of
North America and shows the need that these Pilgrims felt for a form of law and
self-determination. In Of Plymouth
Plantation, by William Bradford, one of the Pilgrims and first governor, he chronicles
the early days in America, hostile encounters with the natives and then the help of an
Indian named Squanto who taught them how to survive.
The Pilgrims, according to Bradford’s account, make a peace treaty with
Massasoit, the Chief of the Wampanoags. This
treaty was the first of many made and broken by the European descendants. The treaty consisted of the following terms in
Bradford’s words,
1. That neither he nor any of his should injure or do hurt to any of their people.
2. That if any of his did hurt to any of theirs, he should send the offender, that they might punish him.
3.That if anything were taken away from any of theirs, he should cause it to be restored; and they should do the like to his.
4. If any did unjustly war against him, they would aid him; if any did war against them, he should aid them.
5.He should send his neighbors confederates to certify them of this, that they might not wrong them, but might be likewise compromised in the conditions of peace.
6.That when their men came to them, they
should leave their bows and arrows behind them (86).
This treaty was honored for the next 24 or
more years, probably the longest era of mutual tolerance between the natives and the
colonists of the time. This may be one of the
few occurrences of fair treatment of the Native Americans by the European colonists.
The Puritans
settled in Massachusetts Bay Colony after 1630. Their
religious convictions led them to be intolerant of Native Americans, persecuting them in a
variety of ways, and eventually sacking and burning Indian villages at night. These Puritans believed that human beings are
inherently evil and must fight to overcome their sinful nature; personal salvation depends
solely on the grace of God rather than the individual’s actions and the Bible is the
supreme authority. The following is an
excerpt from Jonathan Edward’s, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, which he demonstrates the Puritan beliefs in God’s
supreme authority. Right is what God commands
and justice is in the hands of a punitive God.
The bow of God’s wrath is bent, and the
arrow made
ready on the string, and justice bends the
arrow at your
heart, and strains the bow, and it is
nothing but the mere
pleasure of God, and that of an angry God,
without promise
or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow
one moment from
being made drunk with your blood (154).
The
Puritans became a major power in the pre-revolution era.
Unfortunately, they also were a source of intolerance and persecution in
part because it was a church state or theocracy. The
government and church were inexorably linked. The
Puritans, who came to the new country to escape intolerance, became the most intolerant of
the colonists. They waged an all out campaign
against the Indians after nearly forty years of peace and sacked and burned Indian
villages at night. This era was also a time
of minor rebellions against authority. “Nat
Bacon’s rebellion was the first of almost 20 minor uprisings against colonial
government…All of these were revolts against the Colonial ‘haves’ and the
‘have nots,’ those struggling for survival”(Davis,
37).
Puritans also
persecuted the Quakers by passing vicious anti-Quaker laws in all but one colony. Perhaps the most notorious instance of the
Puritans’ religious persecution was the Salem witch-hunts. “Reason was turned upside down. To escape the hangman’s noose, the accused
often ‘confessed’ to any thing. Professions
of innocence or criticism of the proceedings were tantamount to guilt. Refusal to implicate a neighbor meant a death
sentence” (Davis, 38). This incident demonstrated the intolerance of the Puritan
spirit but it also demonstrated the danger of a church state, a lesson the writers of the
Constitution took seriously. In “The
Examination of Sarah Good,” we can see the inability of the individual to get
fairness and justice in a court where guilt has been decided. “Sarah Good, do you see now what you have
done? Why do you not tell the us the truth? Why do you torment these poor children thus?”
The bias of the court made fairness impossible and the authority of the court made justice
for the individual impossible to attain.
As the Puritans’
control over government weakened and secular forces gained power, new and more liberal
ideas were taking root that would eventually appear in the Constitution. In defending John Peter Zenger of the New York
Weekly Journal in a case of seditious libel, Andrew Hamilton said to Zenger, “You
have laid a noble foundation for securing to ourselves that to which Nature and the Laws
of our country have given us a Right-The Liberty-both of exposing and opposing arbitrary
Power by speaking and writing Truth” (Davis, 41)
Zenger’s trial and acquittal marked a milestone in the tradition of the
free press and ended up as the first amendment. Further
instances of establishing rights happened and were reacted to by the Parliament in a
series of acts limiting greatly the liberty of the colonists. In reponse to the acts, the first Congress was
born and passed ten resolutions enumerating the rights of the colonists. It should be clarified that the rights of the
colonists were the rights of the educated, land owning white men.
The motivating
factor in the revolution was liberty for the colonists who owned land. They felt that ownership of land gave them the
right of self-determination and self-government. The
colonists were entitled to the natural rights of all white men. Dependency on a foreign power limited their rights
and liberty. Although there was one author
of the Declaration of Independence, there were many echoes from the European past such as
John Locke, Rosseau, and Thomas Hobbes. Much
of our Constitution is based on Locke’s model for government.
We have an ideal of
government based on the words, “We hold these truths to be self evident: -That all
men are created equal; that they are endowed with certain unalienable rights; that among
these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Jefferson wrote this declaration, ignoring the
lack of rights of women, Indians, and slaves. As
Foner says, “Yet the United States, a nation conceived in liberty, harbored a rapidly
growing slave population, belying the founders’ confident affirmation of freedom as a
universal birthright” (3). One must look at the letters of various parties who hoped
that these enlightened men would take the blanket of liberty and natural rights and spread
it a bit farther. Phillis Wheatley, a former
slave in Boston wrote a letter arguing that calling for liberty while oppressing others is
inherently contradictory. “I desire to
convince them of the strange absurdity of their conduct, whose words and actions are so
diametrically opposite. How well the cry for
liberty, and the reverse disposition for the exercise of oppressive power of others agree
does not require the penetration of a philosopher to determine” (284). In a letter
from Abigail Adams to John Adams, she takes issue with men having absolute power over
their wives and declares that it contradicts the cry for emancipation. Finally, in a letter to Reverend Cram of the Boston
Missionary Society, Red Jacket, a Seneca Chief objects to having to accept the white man’s
religion after they have taken over land and resources.
In a sardonic statement, Red Jacket says that he would be more interested in
Christianity if the settlers actually learned through it to treat the Indians honestly and
fairly.
The writers of
the Constitution ignored any and all pleas from the subjugated and instead created a
constitution based on compromises, negotiations, and expediency mixed up with political
idealism and rhetoric. Some of the
compromises included making Negroes three-fifths human for the purposes of representation,
agreeing not to interfere in slave trade for twenty years, although it would be taxed, and
a way to be able to change the Constitution if called for.
Only the House of Representatives were to be directly elected by the people.
By definition, the people were landowners. In
modern times, we see these men as sexist, racist, and elitist, but at the time it was
inconceivable to consider allowing anyone to have the power to vote.
They took as an article of faith that to participate responsibly
in a democracy required education and
the measure of property
that would allow one the leisure to
read and think. That said,
they also did everything they could to
make sure women,
Indians, blacks, and the white poor
would be excluded from
obtaining such education and property
(Davis,88).
A part of the
compromise to ratify the Constitution rested on promised amendments to pacify those who
feared too strong a central government. The
amendments became the Bill of Rights. The Constitution was a political document that
flagrantly denied the rights of the poor, the women, the blacks and the Indians. Later, it would trample on the rights of other
groups of people. “From the beginning,
critics have said the Constitution and Bill of Rights were selectively enforced and often
ignored…On the other hand, if the Northern states had not compromised on the issue of
slavery, the Constitutional convention would have disintegrated” (Foner, 94).
The history of
establishing rights is rife with contradictions. All
men are not created equal and women are not even mentioned.
The landowners were the ones who were protected. The paradox of oppressed and subjugated people in
a land founded on liberty, justice, and equal rights fills literature for the next 200
years. Through the next centuries, people
struggle with the questions of rights, justice,
responsibility, and the individual. As King
Jr. says,
To accept passively an unjust system is to
cooperate with that
system; thereby the oppressed become as
evil. Non-cooperation
with evil is a much a moral obligation as is
cooperation with good (301).
The years after
the Constitutional Convention were fraught with violations of the rights of the governed. In the quest for continental dominance, land, and
gold, indigenous populations were reduced through war, starvation and disease as well as
outright slaughter. Although the slave trade
was outlawed in 1808, slavery thrived through breeding programs. The question of slavery was one of political and
economic importance, not one of human rights and justice.
With Andrew Jackson, politics became more egalitarian for the white men but
the injustice toward Indians; blacks continued and increased in intensity while women were
still political non-entities. The United
States continued its expansion with no regard to the rights of those they trampled. They were under the pull of manifest destiny to
go west. This was God’s plan for the
white men. Tocqueville saw this time, as a
social leveling that would result in what he called “tyranny of the majority.” This idea became the driving force for United
States policies. The reaction to this idea
was a renewed sense of the individual spirit among some Americans. At the forefront of this movement were Ralph Waldo
Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Emerson, in
“Self Reliance,” urged men to look to their own conscience. As he says,
Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist…Nothing
is at last sacred but
the integrity of your own mind…No
law
can be sacred to me but that of my nature…A foolish
consistency
is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by
little
statesmen and philosophers and divines (366).
The idea of the
Transcendentalists was that people could naturally govern themselves. The individual spirit alone transcends laws and is
good. Those who listen to their conscience
are the ones who are great and achieve morality. The
Transcendentalists, although fundamentally illogical, were great believers in the
democratic spirit where all should be equal and have the natural inalienable human rights. They were abolitionists and feminists as well. Unfortunately, they didn’t address the Indian
injustice.
Thoreau’s
“Civil Disobedience” was a remarkable treatise that influenced civil rights
leaders in the years to come. Gandhi
implemented the ideas of Thoreau and in turn, influenced Martin Luther King, Jr. All civil rights leaders owe homage to Thoreau for
his ideas of passive resistance and anti-establishment protests. In “Civil Disobedience,” Thoreau,
spending a night in jail for refusing to pay the poll tax to finance the Mexican war he
felt was wrong, affirmed individual conscience and proposed nonviolent acts of political
resistance when the government violated the compact with the governed. As he says,
The government itself, which is the only
mode which the
people have chosen to
execute their will, is equally liable
to
be abused and perverted before the people can act through
it…a
government in which the majority rules in all cases
cannot
be based on justice (370).
The essay is a remarkable attempt to show
that the individual is responsible for the government and that the individual makes the
difference in asserting his or her authority and acting on beliefs. “The world works, as Emerson reminds us, by
individuals making it work” (Howard 140).
The Mexican war,
which Thoreau protested, was fought for territorial expansion and a great injustice to a
weaker nation. Frederick Douglas called the
war “disgraceful, cruel and iniquitous” (Douglas 1843) Douglas was the editor of The North Star
newspaper in Rochester, New York. He was a
renowned abolitionist speaker devoted to the cause of freedom who in one of his most
famous speeches said, “Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate
agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without
thunder and lightening, they want the ocean without the roar of its waters” (1857).
He wrote of his experiences as a slave and his escape, giving hope to other blacks and
advice to Lincoln concerning the plight of the blacks.
As the abolitionist movement grew, so did the severity of fugitive slave
laws. The burden of proof, contrary to the
justice system, was on the accused. As the
accused was a non-citizen, he was allowed neither a trial nor any venue through which he
could defend himself.
The Civil War,
although not about the morality of slavery, was supported because of a sensationalist
novel by the wife and daughter of a pastor, Harriet Beecher Stowe. Uncle Tom’s
Cabin caused abolitionist fervor to reach a peak that no legal arguments could garner. Support for liberation of slaves became support
for the war, particularly for many fence-sitters. In
fact, Lincoln said to her when he met Stowe in 1862, “So you’re the little woman
that wrote the book that made this great war” (Davis, 152). Although the cause of the war was not civil rights
and justice for all, an individual writing about moral outrage stirred people to act in a
way that economics and political strength could not.
While the Civil
War preserved the Union and emancipated the slaves, it also left the South in ruins. In addition to burned cities, sickly and starving
livestock, and unplanted fields, there was a population of over 3.5 million former slaves
who possessed neither education, political power, nor money. The Southern Homestead Act,
intended to open land to former slaves, backfired as wealthy northerners used loopholes to
take the land for themselves. Sharecropping
and tenant farming increased. Tenant farmers worked for people who again treated them like
slaves, and the former slaves, knowing no different lifestyle, were again subjugated by
wealthy white landowners. White supremacists societies formed from fear that blacks would
gain political strength and take jobs from them. White sheets were worn to symbolize the
ghosts of confederates and disguise the identities. These
societies were ignored because the nation had more to think about and the civil rights of
the blacks was never really the issue for the majority of the people fighting to free
them.
While ostensibly
industrialization and progress characterized the period following the Civil War, it
carried a steep price for the poor. The
individual and human rights were crushed under the few powerful and wealthy industrialists
who had politicians in their pockets.
Pitted against them were the powerless. Immigrant laborers
dying
as the railroad inched across the West. The
urban poor
working
in the factories…Homesteaders who lost out to railroad
czars
and cattle barons…Women filling sweatshops but still
invisible
on election days…and the Indians (Davis, 191).
dominion
over ‘heathens,’ ‘pagans,’ ‘savages.’…You
created
laws to justify the pillaging of our lands. We
were
systematically
stripped of our resources, religions and dignity (Ewen, 33).
After the battle of Little Bighorn, the
Indian population in the United States fell to fewer than 250,000 and it would not be
until 1917 that the birth rate exceeded the death rate and the Indians began to gain some
rights. For the moment, the “Indian
problem” had been taken care of ruthlessly and outrageously.
Although the
thirteenth amendment officially abolished slavery, the Jim Crowe laws in the South legally
supported discrimination. Blacks were denied
the right to vote, attend public universities and use public facilities. Though free, the blacks were not part of a free
society that guaranteed rights and justice for its citizens. In Coming of Age in Mississippi, Anne Moody
reveals her experiences as a college student during the 1960’s civil rights movement. She participates in a sit-in at a lunch counter. She and the other participants were harassed and
beaten and as a result of the protest, she thinks,
Many more will die before this is over with. Before the sit-in
I had always hated the whites in Mississippi. Now I knew
that it was impossible for me to hate sickness. The whites had
a disease, and incurable disease in its final stage. What were
our chances against such a disease? (614).
As
the civil rights movement grew, more outbursts of violence followed. In “The Ballad of Birmingham,” a mother
and child argue over her participating in civil rights demonstrations and the mother
instead sends the child to church where she will be safe from the strife and
violence.
That
mother smiled to know her child
Was
in the sacred place
But
that smile was the last smile
To
come upon her face (Randall 619).
The child is portrayed as one of four
little girls killed in the church bombing of 1963. The
result of the Civil Rights Movement was the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This guaranteed the
rights of all citizens to have equality under the law in all things. This is a great ideal but justice is subjective
and prejudice is still active and civil rights are still violated. The might of the majority is still powerful and
the right of the individual is upheld at the expense of another or at the expense of the
common good. The pendulum of justice and
rights keeps swinging and the balance has not yet been found. The responsibilities of the individual and of
government seem to be forgotten in the fervor of voicing and acting on our rights. As Howard says, “A constitution designed to
provide a government respecting common values is now invoked to avoid all values”
(55).
The American literature
in the twentieth century is full of accounts of injustices, violations of civil rights
against minorities and individuals, and violent outbursts as a result of attempts to
establish civil rights. In A Farewell to Manzanar, we get the account of a
Japanese-American girl forced to live in an internment camp after the Pearl Harbor attack. A law was quickly made to justify the uprooting of
Japanese-Americans and the forced internment of them. Is it justified to pass a law for
homeland protection that violates the rights of so many?
We are left with the question of when this will happen again and how do we
make sure that the rights of the individual are not suppressed?
This unit will
involve a great deal of reading which will require that students use new vocabulary, read
to evaluate, critically question, and draw conclusions.
This will fulfill the Strand I requirement of the State Standards for
Language Arts. The students must then analyze
what they read, understanding various literary elements and applying what they read to a
larger worldview. This will fulfill Strand II
of the State Standards. The students will
satisfy Strand III, which is Expressive Writing, by writing assignments through which they
must connect themes, compare ideas, emphasize their own ideas and apply their knowledge,
experiences and background to the ideas about which they write. The students will present debates and speeches to
the class, fulfilling the requirement of Strand IV, which is Expressive Language:
Speaking. This will also fulfill Strand V,
which is Receptive Language: Listen and View because students will have to pay attention
and respond to the speeches and debates. This
unit will satisfy most of the State Standards and Benchmarks for Language Arts while also
satisfying required readings for 11th grade English.
Implementation
Lesson 1
Objectives
The students will know and use the terms that they define.
The students will have a clearer idea of what the terms mean.
The students will understand the themes that will be explored in the literature.
In general, this unit is flexible in the
literature that can be chosen to demonstrate the themes and ideas; however one lesson that
is not flexible is this first one. This is
necessary in order to get a working idea of the following words: “Justice,” “Rights,” “Fairness,”
and “Equality.” The first task is
to put each of these words on a poster board and create a Venn diagram. The students will each get 12 post-it notes. They must use three notes for each word. They need to write a word or phrase that comes to
mind for each of these and then post it on the appropriate board. This should take about 15 minutes because the idea
is to get the first thoughts that pop into their heads.
There will then follow a discussion to group the ideas into subheadings such
as cultural, individual, legal and social. The
teacher can make up the headings for the class. From
these groups we will create a working definition for the ideas that will give the students
access to the themes about to be explored.
Key
Questions
What is justice?
What is a right?
What is fair?
What does it mean to be equal?
How do we agree on what these terms mean and how to use them?
Assessment
Points awarded on participation
Materials
needed
Post-it notes
Poster board
Markers
Time
Allowance: 2 days
Performance
Standards met: Strand IV: Expressive Language
Speaking
Lesson 2
Objectives
The students will read “The World on the Turtle’s Back.”
The students will link the idea of justice with balance.
The students will understand and apply the idea of fairness to the story.
The students will write their own story to illustrate the idea of fairness.
This lesson will be based on the idea of
justice and fairness as balance. I will ask
students to write on notecards the day before. They
will suggest an offense that needs to be resolved. This
can either be real or made up. The students
will be given slips of paper on which will be written “offender,” “victim,”
“friend of either the victim or offender,” “elder.” “Objective
witness.” They will hold a Navajo
Court based on the information in the background for this unit. The idea will be to restore balance and harmony
among the tribe and come to an equitable agreement. This
agreement must be written up and signed by both parties and witnessed by the elder. Each Court must hand in a transcript of the
proceedings and the agreement made by the end of the next day.
Key
Questions
How do we achieve balance?
Does restoring balance seem to be equitable and fair to everyone?
How does this seem like justice?
Assessment
20 points for performance
40 points for equitable solutions
40 points for written transcript
Materials
needed
Index cards
Markers
Time
Allowance: 3 days
Performance
Standards met: Strand III Expressive Language Writing and Strand IV Speaking
Lesson 3
Objectives
Students will read excerpts from the first settlers’ experiences.
Students will read excerpts from the Native American point of view.
Students will apply the words “fairness,” “justice,” and “rights”
to these perspectives.
Students will demonstrate understanding of the readings through quizzes.
Students will demonstrate knowledge of the perspectives through writing.
After reading the excerpts, the students will write two essays. First, they will write as a Native American, betrayed by the colonists. They will then write as a colonist asserting his/her “rights.” These will both be one-page essays illustrating the ideas of “rights” and “justice” for both sides.
Time
Allowance 2 weeks
Performance
Standards met: Strand I Reading Process, Strand II Reading Analysis, Strand III Expressive
Language Writing
Assessment
Quizzes 40 points each
Essays 50 points each
Lesson 4
Objectives
The students will read literature leading up to and about the American Revolution.
The students will read excerpts from the Civil Rights Revolution.
The students will create their own constitutions based on their knowledge of legal and
natural rights.
The students will use their knowledge from revolutionary literature to engage in a debate
about the merits of “might for right.”
The students will write position papers taking a position and using logic and rhetoric to
make their points.
The students will demonstrate knowledge of reading content through quizzes.
After reading selections from the
Revolutionary period, students will have several activities to help them refine their
ideas of justice and rights. The first of
these will be to get into groups of no more than four people and write their own
constitutions for teenagers. These will list
their rights and responsibilities as they see them. They
must agree on them in the group. These will
be presented to the class and from these group presentations, we will decide based on
votes, what will be in the teenage constitution for the class.
These same groups will
then be given a pro or con stand on “might for right.” They will have to prepare research to support the
stand and argue for their position. Each
group will choose the initial spokesperson to introduce their stand. They will have to make a two-minute introduction
for each side. There should be three main
ideas that the other members of the group present. Each
of these will be two minutes in length and one person from the opposing side will have one
minute to respond. After each side concludes,
they will have ten minutes to respond to questions from the audience. The audience will vote on which side presented the
strongest argument.
The final activity for
this section will be to write a position paper on the ideal of rights and justice for all. Each student will have to decide how to guarantee
the rights of the majority without violating the rights of the individual. This will be a two-page paper.
Time
Allowance 3 weeks
Performance Standards met: Strand I,II,III,IV,V
Assessment
Quizzes 40 points each
Constitution 50 points
Presentation 30
Debate 80 points each member
Position paper 50 points
Poster board for the constitutions
Markers
Timer for debates
Library access
Lesson 5
Objectives
Students will read “Civil Disobedience” and “Self Reliance.”
Students will read excerpts from Fredrick Douglas.
Students will understand the importance of individual rights.
Students will demonstrate understanding by producing editorials either condemning or
supporting the Civil War.
After reading the assigned texts, students will produce editorials that show their support of the war or their condemnation of the Civil War. They must make it clear whether they are Southern or Northern. They must first state their position then they will provide reasons for their opinion. Next, they must speculate on the consequences that the War will have for their particular side. Finally, they must conclude with thoughts about the nature of individual rights in wartime and how one is able to assert those rights.
Performance
Standards met: Strand I, II, III
Assessment
2 Quizzes 40 points
Editorial 40 points
Documentation
Boyer, Paul and Nissenbaum, Stephen. Salem
Possessed. Cambridge: Harvard
*The Bill of Rights and the Amendments
*The Constitution of the United States
*Creedon, Sharon. Fair is
Fair; World Folktales of Justice. Little
Rock: August House, 1994.
(Justice folktales from various
cultures with discussions of the tales and modern applications.)
Davis, Kenneth C. Everything
You Need to Know about American History but Never Learned. New York: Perennial, 1990.
(Excellent resource for the history of
the United States. Highly readable)
*De Crevecoeur, Jean. “What is an American?” The Language of Literature; American Literature. Boston: McDougal
Littell, 2000.
De Tocqueville, Alexis. Democracy
in America. Mattituck: Amereon House.
*Edwards,
Jonathan. “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” The
Language of
*Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Self Reliance.” The Language of Literature.
Ewen, Alexander, ed. Voice of
Indigenous Peoples. Santa Fe: Clear
Light, 1994.
(Essays and speeches from indigenous
people from different nations in the world.)
*The Examination of Sarah Good.”
The Language of Literature.
Fayer, Steve and Hampton, Henry. Voices of
Freedom. New York: Bantam, 1990.
Finkel, Norman J. Not Fair:
The Typology of Commonsense Unfairness. Washington:
(Textbook type resource for
understanding issues of fairness and justice.)
Foner, Eric. The Story of
American Freedom. New York: W.W. Norton,
1998.
(The history of the idea of freedom
past and present.)
Forer, Lois G. A Chilling
Effect; the Mounting Threat of Libel and Invasion of Privacy Actions to the First
Amendment. New York: W.W. Norton, 1987.
Graebner, Norman A. Freedom in
America. University Park: Pennsylvania
State
(Fourteen scholars acquaint readers with the history, nature and significance of freedom
in America.)
*Henry, Patrick. “Speech in the
Virginia Convention.” The Language of Literature.
Howard, Philip K. The Lost Art
of Drawing the Line. New York: Random
House, 2001.
(A call for personal responsibility
and initiative in government while educating the reader about the enforcement and abuse of
the justice system.)
*Jefferson, Thomas. “The
Declaration of Independence.” The Language of Literature.
Joseph, Joel. Black
Mondays; Worst Decisions of the Supreme Court. Bethesda:
(An interesting look at some of the
mistakes the Supreme Court has made.)
*King jr., Martin Luther. “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” The Language of Literature.
*King jr., Martin Luther. “Stride toward Freedom.” The Language of Literature.
King, Wilma. Stolen
Childhood; Slave Youth in Nineteenth-Century America.
(Accounts of the abomination of slavery
against the young.)
Kleg, Milton and Totten, Samuel. Human
Rights. New Jersey: Enslow, 1989.
(A discussion of global human rights
issues.)
Kolchin, Peter. American
Slavery 1619-1877. New York: Hill and
Wang, 1993.
Lieder, Michael and Page, Jake. Wild
Justice. New York: Random House, 1997.
(The abuse of the Native Americans
and the search for justice by the Natives of America.)
Locke, John. Two
Treatises of Government. London: Everyman’s
Library, 1986.
Lowance, Mason. Against
Slavery; An Abolitionist Reader. New
York: Penguin, 2000.
*Malcolm X. “Necessary to Protect
Ourselves.” The Language of Literature.
Manis, Andrew M. A Fire
You Can’t Put Out. Tuscaloost: U of Alabama Press, 1999.
(History of the Civil Rights
movement.)
*Mourning Dove. “Coyote and the
Buffalo.” The Language of Literature.
*Paine, Thomas. Common
Sense. Indianapolis: Bobs-Merrill, 1953.
Perazzo, John. The Myths
that Divide Us. New York: World Studies
Books, 1999.
(A history of the causes and effects
of racial tension.)
*Randall, Dudley. “Ballad of Birmingham.” The Language
of Literature.
*Red Jacket. “Letter to a
Missionary.” The Language of Literature.
*Thoreau, Henry David. “Civil Disobedience.” The Language of Literature.
*Trout, David Dante. The Monkey
Suit and other Short Fiction on African Americans And Justice. New York: W.W. Norton, 1998.
West, Thomas G. Vindicating
the Founders. Lanham: Roman and
Littlefield, 1997.
(A perspective defending the founding
fathers and their mistakes.)
Willis, Garry. A Necessary
Evil; a History of American Distrust of Government. New
York: Simon and Schuster, 2002.
(An exploration of the justice system
and the government.)
Zinn, Howard. A People’s
History of the United States 1492-Present. New
York:
(One of the best resources for
reading about the history of America.)
*Student resources