"Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.
"Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly."
For our second unit we will be reading and discussing Their Eyes Were Watching God, the most well-known novel from Harlem Renaissance author Zora Neale Hurston. This discussion will focus on the intersection of multiple critical lenses, in particular, how gender and postcolonialism come together to color our reading of a text, and how new historicism changes readers' perceptions of a text.
Essential Questions:
Major Assessments:
Students will read another text from the Harlem Renaissance or another historical literary movement, and compare and contrast the ideas in a secondary text with Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Essential Questions:
- How is an author's personal experience reflected in a fictional text?
- How do fictional texts reveal the realities of daily life?
- How does society define people who do not meet its expectations?
Major Assessments:
Students will read another text from the Harlem Renaissance or another historical literary movement, and compare and contrast the ideas in a secondary text with Their Eyes Were Watching God.