John's+Splendid+Summative+Unit+Rationale

A highly original, but somewhat disjointed unit. Like your proposal it lacks overall unity: a genre, a theme, or a product that reflects the process of study. Counter-culture is really a catch-all for an enormous variety of writing. Even when you compare //Fight Club// to //Fahrenheit 451// you see deep contrasts. And I doubt you would be allowed to use //Fight Club// as a core text in a public school. If you want to argue for "counter-culture" as genre, try to find works of similar genre: e.g. spoken word poetry, protest poetry, and blogs. I haven't read Hunter Thompson, but he might qualify. What you need is writers with identifiable voices, persuasive strategies, and figures of speech (e.g. hyperbole, dominant metaphor, irony). Then you can study style, along with message. I also think the goal should be for students to find their own "counter-culture" voices, rather than trying to imitate others'. This would appeal to 11th-12th graders and they could find their comfortable genres as well, such a slam poetry or blogging. I'm glad to discuss a framework for this unit, and I'd be interested to see samples of the writing you want to study, since I am not that familiar with counter-culture literature.

10/10

John Lanphear ENGL 409 Fall 2011 Summative Unit Rationale

Counter Culture in American Society

When selecting the topic for this particular genre studies unit, special consideration was paid to several key aspects. The first was student interest. This unit is geared for 11th and 12th graders in a more advanced English class. The focus novel for the unit will be Chuck Palahniuk's //Fight Club//, a novel known for being one of the flagship books for the counter culture society in America today.

Special consideration will be paid throughout the novel to specific areas in the book that are considered to be racy and offensive. Permission slips will be given to students and will be required for class participation. In the even that not everybody can get a permission slip signed by their parents, or in the even that //Fight Club// is banned by the administration, //Farenheit 451// will be used instead. Both books would work well for the unit and would allow for some interesting, interactive, and very dynamic lessons.

Some of the supplemental readings will be selected works from Nathanial Hawthorne and  Lawrence Ferlinghetti. There will be other, shorter readings, however, these two authors in particular lend themselves very well to the counter culture movement and will help get students interested in more than just novels, considering both of them are poets. There will also be a day or two spent studying the works of Taylor Mali. Mali is a poet who speaks primarily about the education system in America, and about teachers. He is a very confrontational poet, and in many cases, very blunt. He speaks about the educational system, and about how students are not just numbers, but people too. He is being included because, simply, students need to know that they are not just numbers, that they are people and that tey matter.

Along with the poetry and the novel, students will be assigned to read several short writing selections by Hunter S. Thompson. Hunter Thompson, has been at the for-front of the American Counter Culture Revolution since he first came to fame in the 1960s. He was a writer for Rolling Stone, and author of numerous books dealing with everything from political scandals and corruption to popular music and social commentary.

Throughout the unit, students will be asked to write in the styles they are experiencing. After experiencing Taylor Mali's poetry, the students will be asked to write their own poetry. It will be about something they feel strongly about, and afterwards, the student swill be asked to participate in a poetry day. On poetry day, the students will be asked to dress as they think poets dress, and present their poem to an auditorium of their classmates.

After the readings by Hunter Thompson, the students will be asked to follow his example and write about something they are witnessing, a sports game, a movie, a speaker, or whatever they would like. The trick is, however, they need to write in the style of Hunter Thompson, which is reffered to as Gonzo journalism. They will be asked to write as they witness an event, and report on how it is affecting them.

Finally, after students have finished reading the required text, they will be asked to try their hand at writing a short story that they feel would be a pivotal piece of literature in the American Counter Culture Revolution.