Curriculum Project-- First thoughts

I plan to design a unit that primarily centers on African-American literature. The question I would like to my students to focus on is the role that race and gender has played in influencing African-American writers and their pieces. In order to address this question, I want my students to analyze work written by authors who my students have first learned about. I think it is crucial that the students have some background information about the author they are reading as well as their reason for writing. Because I plan to work in Harlem, a neighborhood composed of mainly minorities, I hope to expose my students to literature that is inspiring, motivation and promotes writing in a positive light.
I plan to incorporate a variety authors, some well-known, some controversial, and some unrecognized. In my first thoughts on the curriculum project, I thought I would completely ignore certain author's and their books because of their content and lack of authenticity. But I realize now that some of these books might be the ticket to attracting some of my students to the unit of study. Although these books will not be our primary reading source, we will discuss what makes these books so popular. We will talk about how African-American men and women are depicted in them and how these depictions eventually become stereotypes. I plan to use Sister Souljah’s The Coldest Winter Ever.
Langston Hughes’ poetry has played a significant role in my life and I hope that introducing his work in my class, will encourage the students to continue reading his work outside of my classroom. Langston Hughes’ poetry will also work well with our reading of Fences by Lorraine Hansberry. The students will be able to make comparisons between two pieces. Using Langston Hughes’ A Dream Deferred, my first prompt will ask the students to think about their own dreams and hopes for the futures that did not come through. When did they come to the realization that their dreams would not come true? How did they feel? I think this introductory prompt will work well for senior high school/freshman college students who have begun thinking about the future of their lives.