Vignette 7.1. Examining Diverse Perspectives in World Literature
Integrated ELA/Literacy, ELD, and World History in Grade Ten (cont.)Lesson Context
Ms. Cruz’s tenth-grade world history class is beginning a unit on the era of New Imperialism
that took place roughly from the 1830s until the beginning of World War I in 1914. During this
period, European powers, the United States, and later Japan sought to build large overseas
empires through colonial expansion. She uses the assigned history textbook as the main source
for informational and background text for the unit; however, she also has chosen a number
of primary sources to include, such as images and cartoons, poems, first-hand accounts, and
speeches.
Ms. Cruz begins the world history unit with passages from the primary source The Dual
Mandate in British Tropical Africa written by Lord Frederick Lugard, the first British governor-
general of Nigeria. The book exemplifies the major justifications for European powers building
their colonial empires throughout the world and explains the nature of the dual mandate, which
asserted that both the colonizer and the colonized would benefit from colonial expansion. She
provides students with various types of justifications (economic, religious, social Darwinism,
etc.) and students work together to pull quotes from the document that exemplify each
particular category. Students read information in their textbooks and other sources that
discuss the European powers’ motivations for colonizing other nations, including case studies
of particular areas in Africa (and other countries later in the unit). The students will use the
information they gather from primary sources, their textbook, and other readings to write a
historical argument on imperialism. The primary investigative question for the world history part
of the unit and the learning goals Ms. Cruz has set for her students are as follows:Big Question: What is colonization’s lasting impact in Africa and Europe?Learning Goals:
Students will analyze the motives and justifications for imperialism and
their validity.
Students will consider the positive and negative impacts of imperialism
upon indigenous people and their nations.
Students will explain imperialism from the perspective of the colonizers
and the colonized.Meanwhile, in world literature, Ms. Alemi’s students begin a unit on African literature by
reading Things Fall Apart. Written in 1958 by Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe, the novel takes
place in eastern Nigeria at the end of the 19th century and deals with interwoven narratives:
that of Okonkwo, a respected tribal leader and strong man who falls from grace in his Igbo
village, and the clash of cultures and changes in values brought on by British colonialism. The
story depicts the life of Okonkwo and his family while also showing the tragic consequences
of his actions and portraying events that are beyond his control. In interviews, Chinua Achebe
said that hebecame a writer in order to tell the story from his and his people’s (the Igbo)
perspective. Written in English (the language of the British colonizers), the novel was, in
large part, a counter-narrative and response to colonial texts, (e.g., Joseph Conrad’s Heart of
Darkness) which often represent Africans as savages or animals.Grades 9 and 10 Chapter 7 | 745