Text Complexity Activity

Design of Curriculum for Inquiry

Heidi Nowicki
April 20, 2013

Grade Level: English 11
Unit: Genocide
Part I
Currently, our 11
th
grade English classes study Genocide. They read Night as a group, then hit excerpts from
other texts. I decided to find two additional texts that would address the reading levels of our students, would
challenge them a bit more with the writing style, and would address more complex issues with genocide. These
are the two texts I chose:

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families:
Stories From Rwanda
Phillip Gourevitch




Henry Morganthau Sr., U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, left Turkey in 1916. He could no
longer stand his impotence. "My failure to stop the destruction of the Armenians had made Turkey for
me a place of horror - I had reached the end of my resources." More than 1 million Armenians had been
killed on his watch. Morganthau, who had earned a reputation as a loose cannon, did not receive another
appointment in the Wilson administration. President Wilson, reflecting the overwhelming view of the
American people, stayed on the sidelines of World War I as long as he could. And when the United
States finally entered the conflict against Germany in April 1917, he refused to declare war on or even
break off relations with the Ottoman Empire. "We shall go wherever the necessities of this war carry
us," Wilson told Congress, "but it seems to me that we should go only where immediate and practical
considerations lead us and not heed any others." In the end it was Turkey that broke off ties with the
United States.
America's nonresponse to the Turkish horrors [Armenian slaughter] established patterns that would be
repeated. Time and again, the U.S. government would be reluctant to cast aside its neutrality and
Category Notes and comments on text, support for placement in
this band

Where to place within the band?



Beginning
of 11
End
of 11
Beginning
of CCR
End
of
CCR
NOT
suited to
band
Structure (both story
structure or form of
piece)
Structure is moderately complex. Offset
with subordinate clauses, the text offers
students a chance to follow more complex
thought processes.
beginning of 11

End of CCR
Language Clarity
and Conventions
(including
vocabulary load)
Language clarity demands a anticipates a
developed reading level. Though not
insurmountable, this texts writing style
asks readers to follow differentiated
sentence structure. Vocabulary level is not
excessively demanding.

beginning of 11

beginning of CCR
Knowledge
Demands (life,
content,
cultural/literary)
Students need some maturity and
knowledge here. Students need to
understand global politics and the U.S.s
role in world peacekeeping.
End of 11

End of CCR
Levels of Meaning/
Purpose
The purpose of this text is to provide
personal narratives of the Rwandan
Genocide. This is not clear from this
passage. This passage helps to outline the
U.S.s claims of responsibility in the
genocide.
End of 11
Eng of CCR
Overall placement: Justification:
This piece asks students to use their maturing
understanding of world politics and developed reading
skills to apply a complex issue in a contextual framework
that will encourage greater understanding.



Mid 11
Mid CCR

formally denounce a fellow state for its atrocities. Time and again, though U.S. officials would learn that
huge numbers of civilians were being slaughtered, the impact of this knowledge would be blunted by
their uncertainty about the facts and their rationalization that a firmer U. S. stand would make little
difference. Time and again, American assumptions and policies would be contested by Americans in the
field closest to the slaughter, who would try to stir the imaginations of their political superiors. And time
and again, these advocates would fail to sway Washington. The United States would offer humanitarian
aid to the survivors of "race murder" but would leave those committing it alone.

A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power






Category Notes and comments on text, support for placement in
this band

Where to place within the band?



Beginning
of 11
End
of 11
Beginning
of CCR
End
of
CCR
NOT
suited to
band
Structure (both story
structure or form of
piece)
This text offers a more complex structure
that pushes students into an adult realm of
text. Longer, more complex sentences,
literary conventions and complex
paragraphs challenge students
end of 11
end of CCR
Language Clarity
and Conventions
(including
vocabulary load)
Vocabulary is well developed and complex
words are used in longer sentences.
End of 11
End of CCR

Knowledge
Demands (life,
content,
cultural/literary)
Students would need to understand US
politics and foreign policy to help
understand the complexity of this book.
End of 11
End of CCR

Levels of Meaning/
Purpose
The students have to tease out the meaning
of this text; it challenges them to look
deeper and find more complex meanings in
the text.
end of 11
end of CCR
Overall placement: Justification:
This text would challenge students in its subject matter as
well as writing style. While not insurmountable, students
would have to work at this text to derive meaning.



End of 11
End of CCR

Part II
Class Level: 11
th
Grade English
Poem: Whats Genocide? by Carlos Andrs Gmez

WHATS GENOCIDE?
Carlos Andrs Gmez
their high school principal
told me I couldnt teach
poetry with profanity
so I asked my students,
Raise your hand if youve heard of the Holocaust.
in unison, their arms rose up like poisonous gas
then straightened out like an SS infantry
Okay. Please put your hands down.
Now raise your hand if youve heard of the Rwandan genocide.
blank stares mixed with curious ignorance
a quivering hand out of the crowd
half-way raised, like a lone survivor
struggling to stand up in Kigali
Luz, are you sure about that?
No.
Thats what I thought.
Carloswhats genocide?
they wont let you hear the truth at school
if that person says fuck
cant even talk about fuck
even though a third of your senior class
is pregnant.
I cant teach an 18-year-old girl in a public school
how to use a condom that will save her life
and that of the orphan she will be forced
to give to the foster care system
Carlos, how many 13-year-olds do you know that are HIV-positive?
Honestly, none. But I do visit a shelter every Monday and talk with
six 12-year-old girls with diagnosed AIDS.
while 4th graders three blocks away give little boys blowjobs during recess
I met an 11-year-old gang member in the Bronx who carries
a semi-automatic weapon to study hall so he can make it home
and you want me to censor my language
Carlos, whats genocide?
your books leave out Emmett Till and Medgar Evers
call themselves World History and dont mention
King Leopold or diamond mines
call themselves Politics in the Modern World
and dont mention Apartheid
Carlos, whats genocide?
you wonder why children hide in adult bodies
lie under light-color-eyed contact lenses
learn to fetishize the size of their asses
and simultaneously hate their lips
my students thought Che Guevara was a rapper
from East Harlem
still think my Mumia t-shirt is of Bob Marley
how can literacy not include Phyllis Wheatley?
schools were built in the shadows of ghosts
filtered through incest and grinding teeth
molded under veils of extravagant ritual
Carlos, whats genocide?
Roselyn, how old was she? Cuntos aos tuvo tu madre cuando se muri?
My mother had 32 years when she died. Ella era bellsima.
whats genocide?
theyve moved from sterilizing Boriqua women
injecting indigenous sisters with Hepatitis B,
now they just kill mothers with silent poison
stain their loyalty and love into veins and suffocate them
whats genocide?
Ridwans father hung himself
in the box because he thought his son
was ashamed of him
whats genocide?
Maureens mother gave her
skin lightening cream
the day before she started the 6th grade
whats genocide?
she carves straight lines into her
beautiful brown thighs so she can remember
what it feels like to heal
whats genocide?
whats genocide?
Carlos, whats genocide?
Luz, this
this right here
is genocide.
from Rattle #27, Summer 2007
Tribute to Slam Poetry

Questions for Close Reading:
1. Who is the narrator? To whom is he speaking?
2. What jumps out at you as you read? Why?
3. Describe the details that build up the authors exploration of the poems main theme.
4. What ideas do you see as you read? Do they interconnect?
5. Does the author make direct or indirect comparisons in this poem? How do those comparisons affect the
poetic outcome?
6. How do line breaks and word placement affect the tone and structure of the poems meaning?
7. The author employs a strategy of asking Carlos, whats genocide? through the poem? Why does he do
that?
8. How does the author use language to affect meaning?
9. The author uses strong words and images to build the framework of this piece. Why does he do that? Is
it effective?

Performance tasks
Because I believe that poetry is subjective and good poetry can be a jarring experiencethis is a poem that I
would hope would be so to the studentsI believe in allowing for Gardners Multiple Intelligences in a
performance task.
1. Using the Whats Genocide? poem, create a visual representation using some of the key phrases and
ideas that stand out to you. Animoto, Glogster, or similar presentation tools can be used to convey
meaning, or original artwork can be created. CCSSW6
2. Using the themes of the poem, create a 10-song playlist that reflects your feelings about the poem,
themes within the poem, or some other unified idea of your own selection. Provide a brief (no fewer
than two sentences each) summary about why included this song/selection. Create a title for this playlist
and provide cover art (does not need to be original art).CCSSW6 CCSSW8
3. Write a letter to your principal about why relevant ideas should be allowed in the classroom to allow
students to study contemporary issues that will help them to make concrete, well-informed decisions.
CCSS W1 CCSSW7
4. Using one image in the poem, research a topic of your choice and write a brief essay about why Carlos
Andrs Gmez got it right (or wrong) in this poem. Should he have included this idea in this poem?
Why or why not? CCSSW2 CCSSW7
5. Create a poem using one of the phrases:
Whats Hypocrisy?
Whats Death?
Whats Relevant?
Whats Education?
Using the level of detail of Carlos Andrs Gmez poem, explore your own ideas of some of societys
double-speak. CCSSL3 CCSSW3
Summarizing my choice
I chose a piece of text that is cutting-edge. Understanding the mature content of the poem, I realize that I would
have to create a parental permission form to use this text. Most 11
th
graders are attending R-rated movies,
listening to music with profanity, and working within a mature contextual frame of reference. I dont feel that
this poem addresses anything foreign to them. I do feel that it addresses ideas that are often foreign to classroom
discussion. While the reading level is easy to understand, the mature content of the poem pushes it to a much
higher level.
This poem raises relevant questions: What is truth? Who do we allow to define our truth? Is truth universal to
communities? Does this author represent my truth? In the context of this poem, what is genocide? Do we, as a
society and as Americans, allow certain parts to ethnic cleanse? Races? Religious groups? Economic
demographics? How does the purifying of one part of the society affect the rest of the group? I believe that
the questions that I pose for the students will address CC standards, RI1, RI2, RI3, RI4 and RI 6. Because, the
text is contemporary, deals with issues that students face every day, and is of a voice that would be relevant to
students, it is a strong contender for discussion voice, reliability and methods employed by a narrator, word
meanings and phrases and idea analysis.
In teaching my 11
th
grade students to be critical thinkers, to evaluate the source of their information, to be
sensitive to voice, I think we have to allow them to be experts of their own domain. By this, I mean that for
them to hear contemporary words from a contemporary poet about the contemporary problems in an historical
context, they suddenly have power over their opinion, their voice, their critique of said ideas. If we thrust a
piece of Wordsworth in front of a student, they are automatically at a disadvantage; this is text that is above
them and not familiar. They are forced to puzzle out ideas before they can decide how they feel about them;
there is no immediacy that compels them to come to terms with the ideas presented.
So I choose the contemporary slam poetry to convey meaning to a contemporary teen audience. I force upon
them in this poetry a word they hear every day, fuck, to ask students why they cant hear the truth at school.
Very blatant use of the f-word and graphic images forces us all to question what we teach students and why. It
asks our students to formally question some of the double standards of education and historyand add their
voices to the discussion.
This is a mature poem, but it addresses the fact that these mature issues are considered every day by high-school
aged students; these students and the adults teaching them are trained to pretend that these issues dont exist,
cant be discussed. I think it is a model example of a text that will work for CCSS RI6, determine and authors
point of view or purpose in a text in which the rhetoric is particularly effective, analyzing how style and content
contribute to the power, persuasiveness, or beauty of the text.