Linked Text Set

Introduction and Rationale for Linked Text Sets

​

      In the original literature unit I am building, I am teaching the award winning work of fiction The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. The Hate U Give is an intensely written young adult novel which centers around challenging themes, such as institutional racism, double-consciousness, community, and social justice. To delve into this complex literary work and grapple with its complex and current themes, I have constructed a linked text set to complement the novel. In connection with Domain 3 of the Arkansas Teacher Excellence and Support System (also known as TESS), a linked text set is an engaging approach to support student learning (Elish-Piper et al.). According to Laurie Elish-Piper et al. in their work, “Scaffolding High School Students' Reading of Complex Texts Using Linked Text Sets,” linked text sets include a variety of print and media, including music lyrics, movie clips, poetry, picture books, informational texts, and videos.

​

      Linked text sets are designed to build on students' cultures and interests while also “providing scaffolded opportunities to examine various forms of text” (Elish-Piper et al.). This work aligns with Domain 3c of TESS, which specifies engaging students in learning through activities and assignments, instructional materials and resources, and structure and pacing. Linked text sets are designed to include a variety of texts and materials that connect closely to students’ lived experiences, and in this way engage students while scaffolding up to more complex texts. By engaging students with art, film, and music, which students are not only comfortable with but excited to examine, we can work toward understanding the complexity of The Hate U Give by weaving these materials and their commonalities together.

 

ELA Standards and Understandings

​

      In teaching The Hate U Give and my accompanying linked text set, I plan on addressing various Arkansas English Language Arts Standards to reach the major understandings I expect students to acquire as a result of experiencing my unit.

​

      I will address standard RL.9-10.2 to examine a grade-appropriate literary text, determine a theme, and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details. In connection to the aforementioned standard, one of the major understandings I plan to examine is the idea of systemic racism, specifically, that if we think of racism as an individual problem and ignore the way it’s embedded in our institutions, our ability to address it is diminished. Standard RL.9-10.2 will be achieved in identifying and analyzing this understanding of systemic racism as one of the major themes of The Hate U Give.

​

      In addition, I plan to address standard RT.3.CRI.9 which works to examine a text for social and cultural implications in a global society. To address this standard, I will ask students to attend to microaggressions as they are depicted in The Hate U Give. In doing so, my goal is for them to understand that microaggressions are brief and commonplace verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative prejudicial slights and insults toward any group, particularly culturally marginalized groups. This understanding is a prevalent theme in The Hate U Give and connects to the social and cultural implications of how masked or unconscious racism affects people (of color) in our society. Many of the characters of color in The Hate U Give experience microaggressions, and it is transformative for them to understand the social and cultural implications of their being oppressed in different settings, such as at school and in the community. As racism has taken on many forms in our society, with microaggressions being one of them, it is important that students recognize the implications that people of color are forced to face, both in the novel as a theme and in our daily lives.

​

      As well, I will address standard RL.9-10.3 to analyze how complex characters develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme. This standard will inform our examination of double-consciousness, which describes the individual sensation of feeling as though your identity is divided into several parts, making it difficult to have one unified identity. Although double-consciousness exists for many adolescents in America who are children of immigrants or a minority, bicultural identities can coexist to make us our whole-selves. This understanding is one that the main character in The Hate U Give struggles with, though she eventually learns to flourish. This understanding will also allow my students and me to address standard RI.9-10.9, which requires that students analyze documents of historical and literary significance, including U.S. documents when appropriate, noting how they address related themes and concepts. To accomplish this, we will be looking at historical figures and their work, such as W. E. B. Du Bois.

​

      To explore the aforementioned major understandings in my classroom while reading The Hate U Give, I have created three essential questions I will invite students to grapple with. The questions are:

1. What is systemic racism and how do we know it's real?

2. What are microaggressions and how can we feel them/identify them?

3. What is double-consciousness?

At the start of the novel, as we move though it, and at its conclusion, I plan on using these questions to trigger student curiosity and drive engagement with my linked text set.

​

My Linked Text Set

​

            In order to build an engaging linked text set, I have chosen a variety of print and non-print media. Ideally, an effectively constructed linked text set should provide students with multiple perspectives, and the texts themselves should be accessible to students because many sources, such as films and articles, are sources students are comfortable navigating because they consume them for enjoyment on a regular basis. The print texts that I have included in my linked text set to further support students’ studying The Hate U Give include several informational texts and selections from W.E.B Du Bois’ historical document, “The Souls of Black Folk.” The informational texts I have chosen work to contextualize the major understandings I am working toward in this unit.  The informational texts, including “7 Ways We Know Systemic Racism is Real,” “What Exactly is a Microaggression?” and “Sorry to Bother You: Black Americans and the Power and Peril of Code-Switching” are from reputable news and editorial outlets that offer a real world view on the issues students will be discussing in class. I plan to use these informational texts to segue students into a discussion of all three of our major understandings so that students can contextualize what each of these terms mean and how they work in the novel and out in society. As well, I am utilizing the historical document, “The Souls of Black Folk” as an introduction to our work on double-consciousness, as W.E.B Du Bois is the first writer to explore the phenomena. The latter text will give students a historical background and understanding into the current issues over divided identities, or double-consciousness.

​

            In regard to non-print texts in my linked text set, I plan to use several videos and works of art to engage students. One major film I intend to utilize is the film adaptation of The Hate U Give. Using clips from the film, I will offer students a visual perspective of the major themes that are developed in the story. Using the film to examine some of the most powerful moments in The Hate U Give will serve as an additional avenue for students to make meaning of the themes examined in an engaging, familiar way as we read with the novel. Examining the film in this way serves as a strategic scaffold to aid students in comprehension and support their visualizing the emotional responses of the characters and settings in key scenes as they relate to important themes. As well as this, I am using art from an exhibit at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art entitled All Things Being Equal… by artist Hank Willis Thomas. The art installation includes powerful pieces of art which illustrate the struggle for social justice and civil rights. I plan to use this art exhibition to support students’ making connections between images and story and examining how their messages work to reveal underlying themes of systemic racism in our society. If we are not able to physically attend this art installation, the Crystal Bridges website includes high-definition photos of the artwork that students can pull up on their devices. Incorporating these non-print texts in my linked text sets provides students with not only close reading and critical thinking skills, but also “personal enjoyment, cognitive engagement, and increased ability to empathize or relate to others” (Elish-Piper et al.).

​