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On Death and Dying > "Even death has a heart" > - Markus Zusak, The Book Thief > > Overview: In our culture, death is seen as a morbid ending of life: a means to an end, the ultimate symbol of loss and despair. However, many cultures all over the world celebrate death as celebrating a life and what comes next. In this unit, 12th grade students will take an anthropological look at death through different cultures and interview different people to go further into this life-defining event that spans the world.

> Stage One: Desired Results > || > =Understandings: = > ||< > ==Students will know... ==
 * < =Established Goals: =
 * Students will explore how death is viewed in different cultures
 * Students will interview someone to gain a deeper understanding of their culture's views and traditions on death
 * Students will view death through different literary lenses ||
 * Death is not always seen as a negative experience
 * Different cultures handle death in different ways
 * Literature uses death as narrators, events, positive, and negative characters
 * < =<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Essential Questions: =
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">How does a culture define death?
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">What defines a life?
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">How is death portrayed in literature? ||
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">How to interview people through an anthropological lens
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">How to take a subjective approach to death
 * < ==<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Students will be able to... ==
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Distinguish the different ways that death is described through a literary lens
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Express their own views on death after learning about the different cultural norms

|| <span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 26px; text-align: center;">Stage Two: Assessment Evidence **<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 17px;">Performance Task: ** =<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Other Evidence: = > > <span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 23px; text-align: center;">Stage Three: Learning Plan
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Students will be conducting interviews of a person/group of people in their neighborhood who is of a different race/religion than themselves and create an anthology of authentic interviews about death throughout different cultures. Through the interview process, students will be able to both go through the interview process to learn more about a diverse group of people, as well as go through the editing process necessary to turn a raw interview into a polished and readable published work.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Students will then be comparing the dominant discourse of how Americans traditionally view death as compared to the culture they interviewed and writing an essay on their findings.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Students will be blogging about their reactions to the articles, texts, and videos they are watching related to the material.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">The assignments that the students hand in, such as their culminating projects, will show their understanding of the material and what was assigned to them.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">What is expected in this unit is for students to gain a new perspective on the societal norms compared to those of a different culture.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">What is expected in this unit is for students to gain a new perspective on the societal norms that we have grown up with. The process of death is normally seen as a sad and morbid thing in this culture, however it is viewed in starkly different lights in other cultures and religions
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Through the interview process, students will gain better people skills as they deal with a sensitive subject and present it in a profound way.
 * ======<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Students will be revising their work both separately and in peer groups in order to gain feedback from students who are completing the same assignment. ======

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 140%;">Text set:
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">[|The Book Thief] - Markus Zusak: This text will serve as the fulcrum text of the unit. This novel personifies Death as a narrator rather than an event and his commentary on life and how people live is a very touching and new perspective throughout the novel.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">[|"Because I Could Not Stop for Death"] - Emily Dickinson: The overall theme of the poem seems to be that death is not to be feared since it is a natural part of the endless cycle of nature. Her view of death may also reflect her personality and religious beliefs. On the one hand, as a spinster, she was somewhat reclusive and introspective, tending to dwell on loneliness and death. On the other hand, as a Christian and a Bible reader, she was optimistic about her ultimate fate and appeared to see death as a friend.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">[|"How Death is Handled in Various Cultures"] - Charlotte Kuchinsky: This article gives a brief overview on how different cultures view death, including Jewish, Buddhist, Native Americans, and Irish.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">[|"Understanding Cultural Issues"] - This article goes over several different cultures and how they view death, along with the traditions, practices, etc.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">[|"Terri Schiavo - A Tragedy Compounded"]- This article from the New England Journal of Medicine gives an overview and facts about the controversial Terri Schiavo case that brought life support into the forefront of medical discussion.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">[|Global Abortion Laws] -This list of what is considered legal and illegal when it comes to abortion is interesting compared to the United States/religious views of abortions.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">[|Chinese Burial Customs] - This article goes into detail about the Chinese burial and and beyond process.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">[|The Fault In Our Stars]- John Green: This text explores death of a different kind in the form of cancer in teenagers rather than suicide or car accidents. The teens in the text experience death more frequently and explore the classic science versus religion aspect of death.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">[|"Do not stand at my grave and weep"] - Mary Elizabeth Frye: The poem addresses the reader/audience with the voice of a deceased person, invoking spiritual — but not specifically religious — imagery. The text soothes the addressee, reassuring of the deceased's presence everywhere in nature in both its message and its voice, and as such has become a very popular poem and a common reading for funerals.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">[|"The Wasteland"]- T.S Elliot: This highly popular poem goes through several stages of a post-WWI world that is nothing but destruction. This website helps break down the text by a side-by-side analysis which shows all of the references that Elliot uses in his poem.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">[|The Divine Comedy] <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;"> - Dante Alighieri: This epic journey takes Dante through the seven circles of Hell, in three different rings: the //<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Inferno, Purgatorio //<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">, and //<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Paradiso //<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">. As you descend deeper into the circles, your crimes are worse. However, the journey is also interpreted as getting closer to God.

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