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English · Grade 11

Compare Perspectives and Traditions

Learners compare American voices that answered the same questions differently. They weigh Booker T. Washington's 1895 Atlanta address against W. E. B. Du Bois's response in The Souls of Black Folk, trace how the 1848 Declaration of Sentiments reworks the Declaration of Independence, consider Zitkala-Ša's account of a boarding school, and synthesize these perspectives in writing. An optional Going further lesson weighs two readings of Phillis Wheatley's “On Being Brought from Africa to America.”

  • 5 lessons
  • About 145 minutes
  • Perspectives and traditions check: 9 questions
  • Ways to answer: choose an answer, highlight a text, match pairs, put in order, sort into groups and arrange tiles
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What learners will discover

  • Compare how writers in different positions and traditions address the same issue, identifying their claims, strategies and values.
  • Analyze allusion and adaptation, explaining how a writer reworks an earlier text and why.
  • Evaluate each perspective's assumptions, intended audience and the constraints the writer faced.
  • Synthesize multiple perspectives in writing without flattening their differences.

Lessons

  1. Two answers to one question 6 steps3 practiceabout 34 min
  2. Allusion and adaptation 6 steps3 practiceabout 34 min
  3. Assumptions, audiences and constraints 6 steps3 practiceabout 34 min
  4. Synthesize perspectives in writing 4 steps2 practiceabout 34 min
  5. Going further: two readings of Phillis Wheatley 4 steps2 practiceabout 26 min
  6. Perspectives and traditions check 9 questions at the end

Keep exploring

More 11th grade reading

Guide for grown-ups