Section 2: Overview

How Authors Write about Community

We will continue our exploration of different communities and the ways in which authors convey essential information and an overarching message. We will continue to examine texts from a critical literary lens, but also one that allows us to view these authors as mentors for our own writing process. While reading the works of J.D. Vance, James Baldwin, Amy Tan, and Gloria Anzaldua, we will consider the following questions:

• How do different people exist in their communities?

• How do these writers convey the value and legitimacy of their communities?

• What makes these authors effective in conveying their messages?

• How can I write about my own community in a similar way?

Each of the writers in this section uses a different style of writing to communicate their ideas, but all of them grapple with how to exist or thrive in their communities. We will learn concepts related to coming of age, socioeconomics, migration, racial constructs, and other critical features that influence how communities and their members respond to change and social upheaval.

• Lesson 1:

  We will use the Attending to Details Tool to examine Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance.

• Lesson 2:

  We will extend our understanding of communities by examining how the community described in J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy has changed over time and how those changes continue to impact members of that community. We will begin by determining the central ideas and themes related to community that we can learn from this in-depth study of a community.

• Lesson 3:

  We will analyze the structure of Chapter 4 of Hillbilly Elegy to determine how Vance builds his case, makes a compelling argument, and establishes credibility.

• Lesson 4:

  We will summarize the lessons we learned about community and the responsibilities of individuals and families depicted in Hillbilly Elegy.

• Lesson 5:

  We will analyze the vocabulary, language, and meanings in this opening letter from The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin. We will use evidence from the text and our knowledge of community from previous lessons to make inferences about the narrator, his community, and the letter’s audience.

• Lesson 6:

  We will examine the structure and rhetoric in The Fire Next Time.

• Lesson 7:

  We will evaluate the ideas in James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time.

• Lesson 8:

  We will use details from the text to make inferences about the setting (physical location, time period, and context) that characterizes the community in The Fire Next Time. We will compare and contrast the setting and central ideas in Hillbilly Elegy and The Fire Next Time.

• Lesson 9:

  We will examine how Baldwin uses language to strengthen his case and support his ideas in The Fire Next Time.

• Lesson 10:

  We will listen to “Pen Pals,” from an episode of the NPR podcast Snap Judgment and discuss issues and opportunities people can encounter when moving to a new community. We will read and determine the central ideas conveyed in Amy Tan’s narrative essay, “Mother Tongue.”

• Lesson 11:

  We will summarize the lessons we have learned from “Mother Tongue” about community and possible responsibilities of individuals and families. We will analyze the structure of the essay to determine how Tan conveys her message, makes a compelling argument, and establishes credibility.

• Lesson 12:

  We will continue exploring different communities, this time reading an essay by Gloria E. Anzaldúa and determining the various ways in which she communicates essential elements of her community using various rhetorical and stylistic strategies.

• Lesson 13:

  We will analyze Gloria Anzaldúa’s essay “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” and determine how her word choice and imagery contribute to her attempts to legitimize her community’s evolution of language.

• Lesson 14:

  We will analyze a text to understand how the author’s inclusion of personal narrative elements affects us.

• Lesson 15:

  We will examine one of the ways authors control the pace of their writing and then practice controlling pace in our own writing.

• Lesson 16:

  We will reflect on the lessons about community in “Mother Tongue,” Hillbilly Elegy, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” and The Fire Next Time, evaluating which author makes the most compelling argument about his or her community by writing well-developed multiparagraph analyses.

• Lesson 17:

  We will review feedback on the Section Diagnostic. We will use the feedback to make revisions to our work.

• Lesson 18:

  We will share the understanding we have gained through our independent reading and continue reading our texts.