Multi-Ethnic Literature:
The Oral Tradition in the American Family Immigration Saga
__________________________
Spring Elective, Honors
1 credit
Prerequisite: Dual or successful completion of English 11 (Survey American
Literature)
Course Description
Multi-Ethnic Literature: The Oral Tradition in the American Family Immigration
Saga is a half-year Honors elective in which students will come to understand
immigration not as merely the story of isolated individuals but as a complex
family story unfolding over time. Over the course of five and half months
students will read and analyze Frank McCourt’s Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir,
Angela’s Ashes, Mario Puzo’s The Fortunate Pilgrim, Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck
Club, and Art Spiegelman’s Maus: A Complete Survivor’s Tale – works reflecting
above all the prominence of the oral storytelling tradition in the literature of
American family immigration. Through spoken and written assignments,
students will become effective communicators, discussing, analyzing, and
evaluating, each author’s use of specific literary techniques and how these
characterize/situate each narrative within the tradition of oral storytelling. Daily
class meetings will incorporate significant small and whole group discussion of
the works studied, role-playing, free-writing, journal and letter writing each as
methods of reader-response. Each unit will also incorporate practice controlled
writing prompts in preparation for writing-based portions of the CAPT, SAT,
and/or AP tests. In addition to journal entries, required student writing will
include personal narratives, a historical research paper, and 1-2 formal literary
analyses, each of which will be revised throughout the term and included at the
end in a portfolio for a final grade. Students will be given frequent in-class
opportunities for peer and teacher conferencing towards the ongoing revision of
their writing.
Course Enduring Understandings and Essential Questions
1. The oral tradition plays a defining role in the literature of the American
family immigration experience.
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What distinguishes the oral from the written literary tradition?
How is the oral tradition transmitted within families across generations?
How is the oral tradition transmitted across different genres?

How is the oral tradition bound inextricably to immigrant families’ (and
authors’) ethnic origins, language, and culture?
2. American immigration is not merely the story of isolated individuals but a
complex family story unfolding over time.
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
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How do American family immigration narratives reflect essential
tensions between generations, as well as between tradition and
modernity?
How does each generation tend to absorb and mediate the impact of
immigration? [Students will learn and test Hansen’s thesis]
How and when do the experiences of all the generations converge?
3. Narratives of the American family immigration experience reflect a deeplyembedded importance of ethnicity and culture, as well as universal family
themes transcending both culture and immigration.
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
How do the American family immigration narratives reflect universal
qualities/characteristics of relationships between children and their
parents, as well as parent-child relationship dynamics between and
across genders? [i.e. mother-son, father-son, mother-daughter, etc.]
How is coming-of-age a part of the multigenerational tale/unfolding of
immigration?
INSTRUCTIONAL UNITS
Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir and excerpts from ‘Tis: A Memoir, Frank McCourt
The Fortunate Pilgrim, Mario Puzo
The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
The Complete Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, Art Spiegelman
INSTRUCTIONAL UNIT:
Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir and excerpts from ‘Tis: A Memoir, by Frank McCourt
[The oral tradition through prose-poetic memoir and narrative of childhood]
Desired Outcomes
Enduring Understandings and Essential Questions:
The oral tradition plays a defining role in the literature of the American family
immigration experience.
 What distinguishes the oral from the written literary tradition?
 How is the oral tradition transmitted within families across generations?
 How is the oral tradition transmitted across different genres?

How is the American oral tradition bound inextricably to immigrant
families’ (and authors’) ethnic origins, language, and culture?
American immigration is not merely the story of isolated individuals but a
complex family story unfolding over time.
 What are the hopes and fears first-generation immigrants have for their
children, and how or how not are they realized?
Narratives of the American family immigration experience reflect a deeplyembedded importance of ethnicity and culture, as well as universal family themes
transcending both culture and immigration
 How do writers interact with the realities of ethnic/cultural stereotypes
in their parents? [i.e., “the Irish drunk,” etc.]
 How do the American family immigration narratives reflect universal
qualities/characteristics of relationships between children and their
parents, as well as parent-child relationship dynamics between and
across genders? [i.e. mother-son, father-son, mother-daughter, etc.]
 How is coming-of-age a part of the multigenerational tale/unfolding of
immigration?
Knowledge and Skills:
Students will acquire basic knowledge of:
 Historical context of Irish immigration in America
 Immigrants who returned to their native lands
Students will be able to:
1. Identify and analyze the author’s use of a child narrator and the 1st
person point of view
2. Do a close reading of the text
3. Identify and understand types and elements of poetry (rhythm, rhyme,
stanza, free verse, blank verse, lyric, ballad, limerick), and consider poetic
elements in McCourt’s prose
4. Understand/explain how poetry and prose elements work together in
narratives of the oral tradition
5. Consider the impact of culture/ethnicity on narrative voice [see Irish
poetry exercise]
6. Recognize and observe, in the context of family and immigration,
elements of a coming-of-age story
Assessment Evidence
 Journal writing – both in and out of class; reader-response
 Student memoirs/personal narratives of their own childhood experiences,
incorporating (as McCourt does) significant memories of at least one of
their parents, and utilizing point of view and narrative voice (begun in inclass writing exercises) of their own early childhoods
Learning Activities
 Class discussion: Close reading of the text
 In-class journaling and letter-writing: students will practice writing from the
point of view and narrative voice of their own childhoods
 Small group sharing/peer conferencing of personal narratives
 Class discussion: Comparison and contrast of McCourt’s prose with
selected poems/ballads of the Irish folkloric tradition
 Comparison and Contrast: View selected scenes from the film – students
will journal and discuss, how is the film different from the novel? How
does it represent the oral storytelling tradition or not? What poetic and/or
literary elements are gained and/or lost in the film?
Books/Materials
Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir, Frank McCourt
‘Tis: A Memoir, Frank McCourt
Angela’s Ashes, 2000 film based on the novel
Poems from the Irish; a selection of early and medieval Irish poetry translated
into literal English and then reconstructed into verse in English (Cork: Mercier
Press, 1967)
INSTRUCTIONAL UNIT:
The Fortunate Pilgrim, by Mario Puzo
[The oral tradition as transmitted through narrative and drama]
Desired Outcomes
Enduring Understandings and Essential Questions:
The oral tradition plays a defining role in the literature of the American family
immigration experience.
 What distinguishes the oral from the written literary tradition?
 How is the oral tradition transmitted across different genres?
 How is the oral tradition bound inextricably to immigrant families’ (and
authors’) ethnic origins, language, and culture?
American immigration is not merely the story of isolated individuals but a
complex family story unfolding over time.
 What are the hopes and fears first-generation immigrants have for their
children?
 How do American family immigration narratives reflect an essential
tension between tradition and modernity?
Narratives of the American family immigration experience reflect a deeplyembedded importance of ethnicity and culture, as well as universal family themes
transcending both culture and immigration.

How do the American family immigration narratives reflect universal
qualities/characteristics of relationships between children and their
parents, as well as parent-child relationship dynamics between and
across genders? [i.e. mother-son, father-son, mother-daughter, etc.]
Knowledge and Skills:
Students will acquire:
 Historical background of Italian immigration and Ellis Island, at the turn of
the twentieth century in America
Students will be able to:
 Do a close reading of narrative prose
~ Consider the mood, tone of Puzo’s writing
~ Consider and analyze the importance/impact of setting
~ Evaluate the author’s use of descriptive detail
~ Examine authorial techniques of characterization: how are the
characters embedded within descriptions of the story’s setting and plot?
 Analyze form as a revelation of content: how does the 3rd person point
of view transmit specific qualities of the immigrant experience in a new
land? [i.e., perhaps the strangeness/distance of a new culture, or its
novelty]
 Engage in film analysis:
~ What is the impact of filming direction, camera angle, music, etc.?
~ Compare/contrast w/their opinions of Angela’s Ashes memoir vs. film:
 In the McCourt unit, which did they find more effective transmitter of
the oral tradition? Why?
 In the Puzo unit, which did they find more effective and why?
 Consider: Are some authors more effective in certain genres than
in others? Are certain genres more effective than others in
transmitting oral history, perhaps in the context of different writers
and different cultures?
 Compare/contrast author’s use of dramatic elements across the narrative,
screenplay, and film
 Analyze: How is the oral tradition reshaped or transmitted across
narrative and dramatic genres?
 Explain: How do dramatic elements help to characterize/represent the
oral tradition in Puzo?
 Consider the relation between (Italian) culture/ethnicity, family, and the
oral tradition as depicted through drama
Assessment Evidence
 Setting the dramatic stage for immigration: A 5-7 page preliminary
historical research paper on the experiences of a specific ethnic group in
twentieth century American immigration. Must include causes of
emigration from a particular country, specific details on the conditions
of/passage through either Ellis or Angel Island.
 Oral presentations of research to the class

Optional/for development into portfolio: 10-15 page screenplay or prose
narrative on the immigration experience, utilizing the 3 rd person point of
view, data collected in the historical research paper, and taking carefully
into account the impact of detail and setting
Learning Activities
 Viewing of Journey to America film (for a general historical context of
twentieth-century immigration)
 In-class and at-home internet research: www.ellisisland.org,
www.angelisland.org, and www.cyndislist.com – for research on
immigration and issues relevant both in the narratives we study and in the
students’ own family history immigration stories. Activity intended to set
the dramatic stage/setting of immigration, both in America (arrivals at Ellis
and Angel Islands) and in departures and conditions/causes of emigration
from abroad (cyndislist.com).
 Oral presentations of historical research papers
 Class discussions: Comparison/contrast of excerpts from The Fortunate
Pilgrim, scenes from The Godfather: Part II film, and The Godfather, Part
II: a screen play
 Writing prompts – literary analysis
 In-class free-writing exercises: detailed descriptions of setting, 3rd person
point of view
 Peer conferencing of students’ written work, with in-class grammar
worksheet/exercise (teacher-devised from common mechanical errors in
student writing)
Books/Materials
Journey To America, 1989 PBS video
The Fortunate Pilgrim, by Mario Puzo
Excerpts from The Godfather: Part II (1974 film)
Excerpts from The Godfather: Part II (1973 screenplay written by Mario Puzo and
Francis Ford Coppola)
INSTRUCTIONAL UNIT:
The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan
[The oral tradition in a multigenerational family saga of mothers and daughters]
Desired Outcomes
Enduring Understandings and Essential Questions:
The oral tradition plays a defining role in the literature of the American family
immigration experience.
 How is the oral tradition transmitted within families across generations?
 How is the oral tradition bound inextricably to immigrant families’ (and
authors’) ethnic origins, language, and culture?
American immigration is not merely the story of isolated individuals but a
complex family story unfolding over time.
 How do American family immigration narratives reflect essential
tensions between generations, as well as between tradition and
modernity?
 How does each generation tend to absorb and mediate the impact of
immigration?
 How and when do the experiences of all the generations converge?
Narratives of the American family immigration experience reflect a deeplyembedded importance of ethnicity and culture, as well as universal family themes
transcending both culture and immigration.
 How do the American family immigration narratives reflect universal
qualities/characteristics of relationships between parents and
children, particularly mothers and daughters?
Knowledge and Skills:
Students will acquire:
 Historical knowledge/background of Chinese immigration in America,
including Angel Island
Students will be able to:
 Consider and analyze the author’s use of a variety of literary techniques –
particularly flashback, imagery, symbolism in the description of
relationships between generations
~ How does Tan’s writing make specific use of symbols (the swan
feather, the game of mah-jong, etc.) and imagery brought by the mothers
from the old world in order to reveal the ways in which the daughters
remolds them into their lives in the new?
~ In Tan’s narrative, how is the oral tradition transmitted from generation
to generation through the use of imagery and symbolism in storytelling?
 Consider the symbolic function of settings in which stories are told:
the example of the kitchen table as a centuries-old, particularly female
domain1 and its relation to the idea of food/nourishment in the passing of
stories from mothers to daughters; consider examples from other
world/immigrant cultures, as well
 Consider the impact of gender – of the storyteller and audience – in the
transmission of the oral tradition in American family immigration narratives
1
I want to convey also to any guys in the group who may be turned off by the mother-daughter emphasis of
this unit that the kitchen table and storytelling also furnish a large part of the tradition in Italian and ItalianAmerican culture, and that it also includes males – often one person in one generation will be a gifted
storyteller (may be male or female) and then pass that on somehow to one in the next generation (who may
be of the opposite gender); however, mother-daughter/female storytelling tends to focus particularly on
relationships. The central question might be how the oral storytelling tradition changes depending on the
gender of the narrator and targeted audience?
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Consider form as a revelation of content in a multi-generational
narrative; identify/consider the impact of multiple narrative voices – and
dialogue – on the text as a whole
Recognize the impact of dialogue and impersonation on character:
~ What is/are idiomatic and broken English?
~ How does the author interact with the realities of cultural stereotypes in
her mother, particularly in the use of her mother’s idiomatic language?
Assessment Evidence
 Nightly journal writing/reader-response
 In-class writing prompts (CAPT/SAT prep) based on text excerpts
 Students will write a 3-5 page literary analysis examining in-depth the
author’s use of one symbol/image throughout the novel and how it
conveys the complex relationships between and through the generations
of mothers and daughters.
 Students will have the opportunity to write a multigenerational personal
narrative centering on their relationship with a parent or grandparent –
particularly mothers/daughters or fathers/sons; portraying positive and/or
negative tensions, highlighting similarities and/or differences between the
generations. Students should seek to incorporate a symbol or metaphor,
as Tan did – an object/idea passed down or carried/reshaped through
more than one generation.
 Comparison/contrast essay: Viewing of the film – did students find it as
effective as the novel in the oral storytelling? Which did they like better?
What dramatic and/or literary devices were employed by each? Did the
film help bring the setting (national historical, China to America; as well as
the family homes and kitchens) or the Chinese immigrant voices more to
life? Did it shift from the book at all in those considerations?
Learning Activities
 Shift desks/seats into a “classroom kitchen table” for student and teacher
readings from the novel aloud; also bring in food that can be shared, some
kind of a soup2
 Classroom “kitchen table” discussions
 Classroom “kitchen table” sharing and conferencing of literary analyses
and their own personal narratives
 Free-writing exercises in which students will consider the impact of their
gender on their own personal and/or formal writing
I did this once for a college presentation on my family’s religious-immigration heritage, bringing in a loaf
of whole-grain bread (pane nero) and an old fashioned flask of wine. It really had an emotional impact –
people coming up and thanking me after, I think, really having felt what I wanted them to feel: obviously
no wine at the high school level, but the idea was/is to bring in something communal to create this
atmosphere of stories and storytelling as a family experience from which everyone is nourished and shares.
Tan cites her mother’s soups – interestingly, in my family’s ancestral village, it was tradition that everyone
ate together from a large vat of lentil soup after a person’s funeral/death. Today the tradition continues to
be maintained but the soup is prepared and served in individual families’ homes.
2
Books/Materials
The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
The Joy Luck Club, 1993 film based on the novel
Food that can be shared – teacher will bring some kind of a soup
INSTRUCTIONAL UNIT:
Maus: A Complete Survivor’s Tale, by Art Spiegelman
[The oral tradition in a comic book genre, focusing on the relationship between
father and son]
Desired Outcomes
Enduring Understandings and Essential Questions:
The oral tradition plays a defining role in the literature of the American family
immigration experience.
 What distinguishes the oral from the written literary tradition?
 How is the oral tradition transmitted within families across generations?
 How is the oral tradition transmitted across different genres?
 How is the oral tradition bound inextricably to immigrant families’ (and
authors’) ethnic origins, language, and culture?
American immigration is not merely the story of isolated individuals but a
complex family story unfolding over time.
 How do American family immigration narratives reflect essential
tensions between generations, as well as between tradition and
modernity?
 How do the children of Holocaust survivors absorb and mediate the
impact of their parents’ immigration, and suffering?
 In what ways do the experiences of the generations converge?
Narratives of the American family immigration experience reflect a deeplyembedded importance of ethnicity and culture, as well as universal family themes
transcending both culture and immigration.
 How do the American family immigration narratives reflect both timespecific and universal qualities/characteristics of relationships between
children and their parents, particularly fathers and sons?
Knowledge and Skills:
Students will acquire a knowledge of the:
 Historical context of Eastern European, Holocaust-related immigration
Students will be able to:
 Analyze author’s use of visual and literary techniques (such as
flashback, visual and narrative imagery) in the comic book genre to
convey relationship between father and son
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Analyze the impact of the author’s use of mice rather than humans in a
visual storytelling of the Holocaust – also, how do the comics make the
story richer, in a way it wouldn’t be if you were just reading it as an
interview/dialogue or listening to it on audiotape?
Evaluate the unique impact of the Holocaust on the residual emotions
(guilt, etc.) between father and son; may perhaps also extend to
comparison with those of the refugee experience in The Joy Luck Club
Compare and contrast: themes, settings, and modes of telling in the oral
transmission of stories between mothers and daughters in The Joy Luck
Club; and between father and son, Art and Vladek, in Maus
Paraphrase events in plot from large sections of the comic
Consider the following: How does the oral tradition play out narratively in
the comic book – a visual genre? Do we see elements in Maus of drama
or film? How different? How does the comic book/visual help the author
speak not only to his reader but to his own father?
Assessment Evidence
 Nightly journal writing/ drawing – reader response
 Oral history interview with an older person [parent or grandparent], if
possible re. his/her own family’s immigration history and in particular
sufferings and/or hardships incurred while coming to the United States
 Students will utilize information obtained in the oral history interview in the
writing of a final, comprehensive piece on some aspect of their family’s
immigration story – modeling it upon the format of one of the authors we
have studied: they may write it in the first person, third person, as a
personal narrative, or a multigenerational series of voices; they may even
write it as a formal historical research paper but the idea is that they will
utilize the interview info in some practical way in the significant revision of
one of their previous written works in the course. The revision of a
personal narrative, for example, in the spirit of Tan’s oral storytelling
through symbolism, might require a young woman to conduct an interview
with her mother or grandmother to fill in some aspect/missing piece of
family history; or a student’s historical research paper on the causes of
emigration and passage of a family ethnic group through Ellis or Angel
Island might be informed by more personal stories obtained in the
interview. In any case, students will utilize the interview information in the
revision of writing they have done throughout the course.
 Students will have the opportunity to revise and expand on any of their
previous writing assignments, all of which will be submitted in the final
portfolio.
Learning Activities
 Class internet visit to the online exhibition on Maus at the National
Museum of Jewish History: http://www.nmajh.org/exhibitions/maus/
 Free-writing in journals: the tensions between generations – something
teens can certainly identify with at their age, particularly between they and
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their parents. How do they relate? Through journal writing students will
have the opportunity to vent but also maybe to consider Art’s growing
understanding of the sufferings of his father which makes him ultimately
able to forgive him.
Small group sharing/venting on the relationships/misunderstandings
between they and their parents: How similar to and/or different from the
dynamics in Maus? How are the tensions/dynamics between generations
universal, and how shaped by particular historical circumstances in
immigration?
Role playing in small groups: Art and his father, Vladek
Whole-class discussion (reconvening) utilizing computer projection
technology to explore images from the comic book together on the board
From small-group interactions, students will also have the opportunity to
lead class discussions exploring comic book images on the board
Peer and student-teacher conferencing in significant revision for the final
Books/Materials
Maus: A Complete Survivor’s Tale, Art Spiegelman
(Also, useful for teacher: “Graphic Autobiography: Using Maus in the
Composition Classroom.” Gordon B. Thomas, 1996, University of Idaho:
http://www.class.uidaho.edu/thomas/Holocaust/thomas/maus.html).