Unit 4: Resilience and Resistance
Unit 4: Resilience and Resistance
How do individuals and communities demonstrate resilience in the face of oppression, trauma, or displacement?
In what ways can survival itself be an act of resistance?
How do stories of endurance, identity, and heritage help us understand different forms of resistance?
What role does literature play in preserving cultural memory and resisting erasure?
This unit explores resilience and resistance through storytelling, focusing on how words can promote survival and healing. This unit emphasizes personal and cultural perseverance, showing how remembering language and heritage can be acts of resistance. Students will analyze narratives of displacement, systemic oppression, and survival, examining how language preserves histories, challenges dominant narratives, and gives voice to the silenced. The unit will also explore language as a mediator of reality, studying topics like the death and suppression of language, particularly in contexts such as Native boarding schools.
Approximately 6-8 weeks.
Indian Horse Vocab Bank
We Are Not From Here Vocab Bank
Night Vocab Bank
Maus Vocab Bank
(3) Furthering self-understanding – Exploring how personal and cultural resilience shape identity.
(4) Developing a better understanding of others – Examining how literature preserves histories and gives voice to marginalized groups.
(6) Promoting self-empowerment for civic engagement – Understanding how survival and storytelling act as forms of resistance.
(7) Supporting a community focus – Encouraging shared discussion and analysis of long-form narratives.
RL.9-10.1 – Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly and implicitly.
RL.9-10.2 – Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text.
W.9-10.2 – Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly.
L.9-10.4 – Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings.
SL.9-10.1 – Initiate and participate in collaborative discussions, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.
We Are Not From Here (Jenny Torres Sanchez)
Indian Horse (Richard Wagamese)
Night (Elie Wiesel)
Maus (Art Spiegelman)
"A Litany for Survival" (Audre Lorde)
Excerpts from Braiding Sweetgrass (Robin Wall Kimmerer)
"We Wear the Mask" (Paul Laurence Dunbar)
TED Talk: The Power of Storytelling to Heal Trauma
Articles on Native Boarding Schools & Language Suppression
Personal accounts from refugee and Indigenous survivors
Informative/Explanatory Essay – Exploring how resilience and resistance are portrayed in the novel(s) and how storytelling preserves cultural identity.
Literary Analysis – Analyzing theme development, character growth, and symbolism in the chosen novel(s).
Book Reflection Portfolio – Ongoing journal responses, annotation checks, and personal reflections on reading progress.
Socratic Seminar – Deep discussions on resilience and resistance in the text(s).
Creative Writing Response – Students write their own narrative of resilience inspired by the novel(s).
Final Project (Individual or Group Choice) – Could include a visual project, multimedia presentation, or synthesis essay.