Takaki - Chapter 13

While reading Takaki Chapter 13, I reflected back on all of the great literature that I read in my high school English classes, especially To Kill a Mockingbird and A Raisin in the Sun. Ok, just had to reminisce a little there....

This chapter for some reason made me feel as though I should be looking through one of those Life or Time collection books that are full of such vivid photographs that tell more about a story than words themselves can describe. They immerse the viewer in thoughts and feelings that literature can only hope to achieve. For this lesson, my goal is to integrate those two together.

I want to focus students in on one piece of literature, specifically Carl Sandburg's poem "Chicago." I think that this poem will serve as a way to bridge students of all levels together, as a way to keep the entire class together before breaking off into smaller groups to work on more tailored activities. Although not all students will need a computer in order to complete

For the advanced students, I will set them off to use online resources, such as the Library of Congress, to find pictures that demonstrate their understanding of the poem. They will need to create a mini scrapbook of at least ten photographs, with captions, that explains how the photograph makes them feel and how it depicts Sandburg's poem.

For the other two levels we will have a brief discussion interpreting the poem. After the discussion, the "regular" level students will be turned loose to find two photographs that depict their understanding of the poem. They will need to write captions that explain the connection to the poem.

For the base level students, we will look at a couple of photographs together, maybe South Water Street Market and Chicago Skyline with Railroad Tracks. As a group, we will discuss how these photographs visually depict Sandburg's message.