Unit Summary
“When Juan gets mad, it's as if my dependence on him fuels the transformation in his body from concern, to anger, to fury. The veins in his neck swell, his eyes bulge, and he yells, You want trouble for us? - Angie Cruz in Dominicana
In Unit 3, students examine what it means to come of age and what it means for women, specifically those from immigrant cultures, to be disenfranchised by patriarchy, through their reading of Angie Cruz’s Dominicana and supplemental texts. Throughout this unit, students will examine how authors craft a line of reasoning using logical claims and supporting evidence to develop their arguments in nonfiction, analyze how key moments in a text shape a character’s psychological and moral development in fiction, and identify and analyze shifts in poetry and how they contribute to meaning.
This unit starts with a close reading of “Do Works by Men Implicated by #MeToo Belong in the Classroom?”, and provides students the opportunity to engage in a controversial academic debate while building their knowledge about the #MeToo movement. In the remainder of the first arc of the unit, students read various essays, short stories, and poems to continue building their knowledge around patriarchy, toxic masculinity, and machismo culture. Texts include “Do Works by Men Implicated by #MeToo Belong in the Classroom?”, “#MeToo Has Done What the Law Could Not”, “How to Be a Man”, “The Silence: The Legacy of Childhood Trauma”, and “Blackberry-Picking.” At the end of arc one, students will engage in a Socratic seminar and write an insight piece, putting various authors and texts into conversation with each other and reaching a new conclusion.
The second arc of the unit is a novel study of Angie Cruz’s Dominicana, a bildungsroman novel that tells the story of Ana, a teenage girl from the Dominican Republic, who gets married via an arranged marriage and moves to New York City with her husband Juan to provide a better life for her family. While reading this novel, students will track pivotal moments in the psychological or moral development of the protagonist, Ana from youth to maturity, specifically noting when she recognizes her place in the world.
In the third and final arc of the unit, students will engage in a Summative Unit Seminar on Cruz’s Dominicana and prepare for the Unit Performance Task that asks students to conduct research, craft an argument, and participate in a formal debate in response to the question: Do works by men Implicated by #MeToo belong on TV and in Film?