Empire: India Unit for British Empire

In the British Literature class I taught during my student teaching experience at Urbana High School, I was asked to teach a class which had no curricula or syllabus. I was asked to basically create the course from almost nothing–YIKES for a student teaching scenario (during which I also had to take the ridiculous edTPA and also experienced and lost my first pregnancy…)

Thoughts on Course Design: I took the course in a different direction that initially planned by my awesome, amazing cooperating teacher, Sara Jones, which would have gone through different historical/political/literary movements into modern British Literature today. I looked at my diverse students who probably could give zero eff’s about Virginia Woolfe and also thought that I couldn’t just teach a British Literature class without confronting the elephant in the room of my existence–the fact that my ancestors suffered at the hands of the British. Those thoughts, in addition to the fact that I read close to no British Literature past whatever I read in high school, lead me to push my course into a more Comparative Literature approach (rather than English) and I created an “Empire” unit. We’d travel off that little island and look at the empire that it claimed and controlled for so long. After that, we did a unit called “Decolonization, Post-Colonialism &  Arts of “Low Culture” and then finally looked at modern-day colonialism in a unit called “Current Colonialism in Palestine: Art of Resistance.”

Resources:

This unit was meant to provide a sampler of the scope of the British Empire to aid them in their research projects of a territory of their choice.

• Unit’s major text: Lagaan (2001)we simply kicked back and watched this movie for two periods since it was near the end of the year and why not? Btw, my students were furious that they had to finish the movie on their own :’)
  • we looked at the incorporation of Hindu mythology storytelling and religious dance in the song “Radha Kaise Na Jale”
• Types of Territories in the British Empire
  • Powerpoint
  • Student Worksheet
• Major Religions in India
  • Powerpoint
  • Student Worksheet
• Timeline Project on a territory of their choice (Instructions & Rubric)
• Summative ASsessment: Research Project
• During this unit, I also used to start class with playing mash-ups of South Asian and American songs
  • covered by Vidya Vox
    • “Let Me Love You” (Justin Beiber) x “Tum Hi Ho”
    • “Closer” (Chainsmokers) x “Kabira”
    • “Lean On” (Major Lazer) x “Jind Mahi” (collab with Sikh artists)
  • male acapella groups at American universities
    • “Ilahi” x “Castle on the Hill” by Penn Masala
    • “Havana” x “Bom Diggy” x “Main Tera Boyfriend” by Penn Masala 
    • “Cake by the Ocean” x “Ghungroo” x “Stronger” by Penn Masala
    • “Mann Mera” by Chai Town