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The Return of the Native: A Lesson on Cultural Assimilation Through the Eyes of Jhumpa Lahiri's the namesake |
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Lesson Overview |
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New |
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From colonial to modern times, people around the world immigrated to America. They come for many reasons: to escape repressive, undemocratic governments, for job opportunities, to escape civil strife, religious persecution or famine. For whatever reason, most if not all, face a painful process of assimilation into a culture which has not always been tolerant toward immigrants. Their children too often find life in their new culture just as difficult in many ways and they respond in a variety of ways. One can be described as cultural ambivalence; on the one hand, they reject their parent's culture and many of their values in their attempt to become American, but when faced with rejection, prejudice and ignorance they retreat to the security of their ethnic roots. Each passing year finds America a more and more culturally diverse society and this has made it vital to dispel the myths, stereotypes and ignorance held by many Americans about immigrants. We must make a concerted effort to reach out to and welcome our new neighbors, co-workers and even possible relatives by learning more about their cultures and becoming more understanding of the difficulties they face. Jhumpa Lahiri's novel The Namesake traces the migration of two generations of Bengali immigrants to America and sensitively exposes the painful process of rebirth and maturation they face in negotiating their new cultural identities. � |
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Instructional Plan |
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This unit will be taught in conjunction with a unit in an American history class. They will be studying from a PBS lesson entitled "A More Perfect Union." It tells the story of the great injustice done to Japanese Americans by the American government during the opening months of the Second World War. This is one of the most egregious examples of how ignorance, prejudice and fear threatened the liberty and freedom of all Americans and serves to demonstrate the importance of multicultural studies.
The Language Arts portion of the plan will include an hour long video and discussion from the same PBS Web site entitled "Talk to Me: Americans in Conversation" that provides some of the questions we will be asking in the unit plan: "What does it mean to be an American? What holds us together? What pulls us apart? What is our common ground?"
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Teacher Objectives |
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A two-three week unit plan, for 9-12 grade, in which students will:
>> read a wide range of print and non-print texts to build an understanding of themselves, and of the culture of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace, and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works.
>> apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate and appreciate texts. They draw on, their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textural features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context graphics)
>> work in an interdisciplinary effort to engage a literary text from the multiple perspectives of history and social science.
>> Work collaboratively to learn and produce authentic work as it would be produced in the "real world."
>> listen intently to oral presentations and write clear and organized interpretations of the speaker's message.
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Resources |
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PBS: "Let's Explore Diversity" |
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Talk to me: Americans in Conversation |
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Toward a More Perfect Union |
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Video clips: Jhumpa Lahiri on the namesake. |
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Ellis Island |
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Learn more about the author and her culture.
Lahiri Bio.
Her themes, subjects and works.
Lahiri, the namesake Book Review
Another Lahiri Book Review
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What's in a Name? Use this link to research your name. |
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Lesson One >>> |
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<<< Home |
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