Course Description:

English 4: Experiencing Cultural Diversity through Language and Literature is a final offering in a sequence of courses emphasizing human communication in many forms and voices. The course highlights important origins, significant authors and movements of the human experience in world literature from European, African, Asian and other diverse cultures. Through a continued emphasis on and review of grammar, mechanics and composition, the course develops and refines skills in expository, personal and researchbased writing, while also helping students further develop their presentation skills.

Weekly Overview - subject to change
Do Now/LGS : Show & Tell (10 minutes to prepare)

1. Select an object in your room or your house that has special meaning to you. Describe what it is, how you got it, why it’s important or what it means to you.

2. Read: Alice Walker’s “My Mother’s Blue Bowl”

Write: If Alice Walker chose her “Blue Bowl” for show and tell, what would she say - describe what it is, how she got it, and why it’s important or meaningful to her

3. Do Now/LGS: If you were to get a tattoo, what would it be and why?

4. Read “In Defense of My Emu Tattoo” - in what ways is this story similar to the others that we read

5. Follow-up Of the four memoirs or memoir excerpts that we read (Teacher Man, “The Crossing,” “My Mother’s Blue Bowl,” “In Defense of My Emu Tattoo,” identify and explain the one that you like the most or that you would like to use as an example for your own mini-memoir.

6. Classwork/HW: “Maybe I Can Write About” - document to be posted later