Final Project

So, Brittany and I created a two week unit on Urban Renewal when looking at Radio Golf by August Wilson and selected chapters from House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. Here it is!

We will look at the social implications of certain neighborhoods and how they are constructed, ignored, gentrified, or demolished within the two texts.  I have been trying to fit this unit somewhere along the way but haven't been able to.  So, Brittany and I decided to finally create it!

We are reading fiction, but the students will be expected to create non-fiction texts.  Pick a neighborhood: it could be your own neighborhood, the school's neighborhood, or your grandmother's, etc.  Would you want to live to live there?  Do you like living there? Do you like being there?  What do you like/dislike about it?  Pick ONE or TWO aspects of a neighborhood (or you can compare two neighborhoods) that you want to focus on. 

Do some research on that issue or those issues.  Search the databases listed on the WIKI for information or other credible sources as well as some ideas for final projects.  These are some example issues: sidewalks, registered sex offenders, good bike paths, parks, too much trash, grocery stores, what did it used to be like?  How was it the same?  How was it different?

Take some pictures or shoot a video of your research, retrieve old photos of the neighborhood from city databases and/or other credible resources, interview your grandmother who's lived there for 40 years, etc. 

Present your research findings in a media format.  You can do a VoiceThread, podcast, Comic Life, iMovie, photo collage (with information).  Please talk to your teacher if want to explore an alternative format for your final project.

I would really like to use this unit in my future teaching.  I think high school kids are familiar with typical themes in texts they read.  Urban Renewal and Gentrification are interesting new themes to explore.  Of course, the issue of race in a text like Radio Golf will surely be touched on.  I feel that race ties in very closely with issues of Urban Renewal.