Emily Mullins

5-3-09
TE 408 Borsheim
Multicultural Unit Re-Write

A Critical Look at The Kite Runner

Grade Level: This unit was created with a suburban 11th grade classroom in mind;
however, it can be adapted for any high school class.
Concept: The concept of this unit is about using critical lenses to change how one reads
a certain text. According to Appleman, certain lenses may affect or increase understand-
ing, as well as changing our reading of the world through a literary text. Changing the
way a text is read will change not only the understanding of the text but also what read-
ers get out of it. Most readers interpret texts through a variety of texts each time they
read, and there is nothing to say that one is better than another, they are just different
lenses of comprehension.
Essential Questions:
•Why should we use critical lenses to look at a text?

•What is the importance of these lenses?

•How do they aid in a student’s understanding and interest in a text, literary or otherwise?

•How does looking at a text through a different lens affect our understanding?

•What is the importance of reading The Kite Runner through these lenses?

•How does the cultural significance of the novel affect the reading of The Kite Runner?

•How will the knowledge of these lenses help with future readings?

•How can you analyze this text in terms of your own life?

•How can you analyze a text “not only from the inside out, but from the outside in?” (Ap-
pleman)
 Rationale: As a multicultural unit using critical lenses as the main focus, The Kite Run-
ner is an excellent novel because of its multitude of themes, characters, events, relation-
ships, as well as historical and cultural relevance. Using these critical lenses will be a
good introduction to the students’ future readings and textual analyses. It will also allow
them to be able to critically assess texts surrounding them, other than literary ones. This
can include “cultural texts such as music videos, television ads or programs, print ads,
billboards, or films” (Appleman). When looking at this multicultural text, students will
be able to also take into consideration other viewpoints and perspectives. By encour-
aging students to look at texts through varied ‘perspectives’, some they would normally
not engage with, students will be able to understand how many different angles texts can
be assessed and read. Exposing them to these lenses will foster more critically informed,
open-minded, and culturally aware students. For me, this means challenging students
and starting conversations about cultural and world issues, utilizing multicultural liter-
ature. It is important to expose students to texts like The Kite Runner and multiple per-
spectives so they can learn and grow to become more critically aware. This will allow
students to not be passive members of society, but active thinkers and questioning
members of society who promote and are capable of change.
Each assessment will vary based on the lesson or lens through which they are
looking, but each will aid in helping students to look at the novel, as well as the world in
a different context and understanding there is more to reading, than just a surface read
through their own eyes with blinders on. This unit will help students to remove the
blinders which give them tunnel vision. It will force them to dig a little deeper and go
beyond a superficial understanding.
Objectives: Students will...
•Be able to understand the novel in a variety of ways

•Gain new insight into the novel

•Be able to be critically aware and be able to assess texts that surround them, other than
just those of the literary nature
•Express their opinions of how they saw the novel or certain aspects of the novel though
the lens they are using
•Be able to see how their viewpoints or opinions might have changed

•How certain aspects of the novel fall in and out of focus depending on the lens they are
using

•Implement their understanding of lenses in a final summative paper

•Understand that even if they are using a lens, it does not necessarily mean they have to
agree with that reading
•Understand the importance of historical context

•Acknowledge and participate in the use of other lenses/readings

•Be able to analyze a text

MI State Standards Addressed: 1.1, 1.3, 2.1, 2.3, 3.4
Texts Used:
­The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

­Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide by Lois Tyson

­Critical Encounters in High School English: Teaching Literary Theory to Adolescents by

Deborah Appleman
Formative Assessments:
­Literature Circles

­Journals

­Discussion/Participation

­Group Work

­Written Responses

­Reading

­Critical thinking
Summative Assessments: At the end of the unit, students will take their knowledge of
the different lenses and readings of texts, especially The Kite Runner and complete an
in-depth analytical essay from one of the lenses discussed in class and apply it to the
text.
 Introducing Critical Lenses (2-3 days)
Grade: 11th
Unit: A Critical Look at The Kite Runner
Objectives: Students will...

•Be introduced to the concept of critical lenses

•Begin to apply these critical lenses to cultural texts they are more familiar with

•See how certain perspectives that may differ from theirs will change the meaning of a
critical text

•See how they might have a completely different perspective than they thought in general,
or on a certain issue (media or otherwise)
Rationale: As this unit is all about critical lenses and applying them to texts, I thought it
would be best for students to have some practice applying any of the lenses, as many of
them have not hear of literary and critical theory before. I thought using texts they were
familiar with and had probably subconsciously been critical of would help to scaffold
them before we took on each lens more in-depth.
I might begin by framing this lesson as being about perspective, it will allow me
to introduce the critical lenses fairy tale activity from Appleman. Appleman’s Chapter 2,
called, appropriately, “Through the Looking Glass: Introducing Multiple Perspectives,”
will show how taking on a different perspective as a reader can change the meaning. I
thought the fairy tale genre was excellent because of its audience of children. Most stu-
dents would never have thought to look at these from a different perspective. This would
be a great engaging and scaffolding activity for students. This activity, although it mostly
focuses on showing that there is more than one side to any issue, will help lead into stu-
dents being able to see “how events, in literature and in life, are multifacented and have
different sides, cast different light, depending on the viewer” and they will be able to see
things “from other viewpoints heartily argue positions that they don’t believe in, inhabit
other ways of being or habits of mind” (Appleman 17).
MI State Standards Addressed: 1.5.1, 1.2.3
 Day 1:
Materials: “Little Miss Muffet” by Russel Baker, The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs, by A.
Wolf
Agenda:
1.Read “Little Miss Muffet” and introduce the story through a variety or perspectives via
Baker’s essay. Ask students why they think we are doing this? What is the point? How is
this going to help our future readings? 10 minutes
2.Divide into groups, then pass out a nursery rhyme to each group. Ask each group for the
next 25 minutes or so to recast the story from a perspective other than that of the one
telling the story, or from the most obvious point of view (maybe someone who’s only
barely mentioned in the story or not even at all). 20-25 minutes
3. Before students present their ideas, read to them The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs for
fun and for one more example of a changing perspective. 10 minutes
4. Have a few group member present one of their ideas from a different perspective. Ask
why they chose that perspective to look at the nursery rhyme from? What kind of experi-
ence was it looking at it from a different point of view? What does this mean for us when
reading other literary texts?
Then ask:
But what if you don’t want to change the meaning, merely look at the text in terms of
only one aspect of the text?
Leave them with this open-ended question, and ask them to bring in a cultural text for
tomorrow, examples being an image, a magazine cover or advertisement, an appropriate
YouTube video, or a short written piece.
Day 2:
Materials: Cultural texts each student will bring in
Agenda:
1.Begin by explaining that most students, when in the classroom, are never taught there
are multiple ways of reading a novel, or any text for that matter. The activities in this les-
son and the lessons that follow, will show that certain perspectives may take more of a
reach, as they will not always stem from personal experience, as in Reader-Response, or
prior knowledge. Each lens offers a different colored tint to the ‘glasses’ you are using to
read. It will make certain aspects of The Kite Runner come into focus, while others fall by
the wayside.
2. Then explain the difference between being critical and criticism. Explain that if you are
being critical it means you are carefully reading and analyzing and not taking the novel
merely at its words, but what the words mean. It doesn’t mean saying, “This book is awful”
or “I hate this book.” I think this might be an important distinction to make, seeing as
some kids might have only heard the word critical with negative connotations.
3.Pass out a handout with the psychoanalysis lens, the Marxist lens, and the feminist lens
definitions and examples. Have students get into groups of 3 or 4 and to apply whichever
lens they choose to their cultural text. For example, if they brought in a n ad with a
scantily clad model, they could use the feminist lens to depict how this is derogatory to
women, or they could push a little further, and use the psychoanalytical lens to see what
this may be doing to the young impressionable minds of the women who are looking at
these ads daily and wishing they could look like them.
4.I would use several examples, either from kids in the class who brought in really good
cultural texts or ones I found on my own, and discuss the application of the different
lenses. Make sure each one is thoroughly touched on.
- What is the significance of the text?
- What lens might you use to help you better understand this cultural text?
­How might that lens affect or increase your understanding?

­Why is important to read it critically?

- Using the critical analysis and visual or written connotations of the cultural text,
what conclusions can you draw?
5.Ask them to think about if they have ever analyzed a cultural or literary text through one
of these lenses without thinking about it.
Assessment: Participation/discussion and interaction with group members, along with
helping out group members will be the biggest aspect of this assessment. Did they help
their group members see a nursery rhyme from a different perspective? Were they able
to understand the use of applying certain lenses to texts? Were they able to do this with
their own cultural text? Were they able to look at different perspectives or through
lenses they may be completely unfamiliar with?
 These lenses provide us with a way of recognizing and naming other visions while pro-
moting our own ways of thinking/seeing, while understanding other ways of
thinking/seeing. “Critical lenses helps us to recognize the essential quality of other vis-
ions: how they shape and inform the way we think and read texts, how we respond to
others, and how we live our lives. Critical lenses make the invisible visible, the unsaid
said” (Appleman 75).

Discovering the Marxist Lens (2-3

days)
Grade: 11th
Unit: A Critical Look at The Kite Runner
Objectives: Students will...
•Critically think about societies, cultures and politics through the Marxist lens

•Engage in discussion relating to The Kite Runner and the relevant Marxist lens

•Convey their understanding of the Marxist lens and its context in the novel through writ-
ing
•Understand how reading and interpreting the text through this lens will help them to bet-
ter understand the political, socioeconomic, and societal context of the novel
•See the ways in which politics and class plays out in the novel
Rationale: Using the Marxist lens when reading a text can make for a more rich and
palpable understanding of the text. Introducing this kind of cultural and class criticism
will encourage them to view literature through a more political mind frame. The Marxist
lens considers power and oppressions topics in text often just taken as the historical or
contemporary system. They help is “to consider the kinds of prevailing ideologies that
help construct the social realities in which we participate (or sometimes become unwill-
ing participants” (Appleman 58). This lens will help touch on background knowledge,
including cultural and historic aspects, especially when dealing with multicultural liter-
ature. Using this lens will also help students to consider the political content of the text,
 as well as the historical and sociocultural context of the work. In terms of this multicul-
tural text, how do the student’s own lives and their own positions socially, culturally and
politically relate to that of the novel’s characters? How are they distinctly different? The
Marxist lens provides a great conceptual background knowledge and insight to begin
both the study of lenses and The Kite Runner. This lens also places the study of literat-
ure in the context of important social questions; it also allows students to see past their
individual response, and contextualize their new knowledge in terms larger than them-
selves. They will be able to place their own particular situations and the texts they read
into a larger system or set of beliefs. Using this perspective “students can consider the
issues presented in the text through the lens of the prevailing ideologies of the author’s
political and historical context” (Appleman 61).
MI State Standards Addressed: 2.1.2, 1.1.1, 3.1.5, 3.4.1
Materials: PowerPoint with historical context of Afghanistan, Google Earth
Day 1: Begin with brief historical context as students have begun reading The Kite Run-
ner and will have some questions if they are not familiar with the political and class re-
gime of the Middle East, Afghanistan specifically.
1.Find Afghanistan using Google Earth
2. Ask students what they know about the Middle East (i.e. politics, society, class, gender
roles, patriarchy, Taliban, etc.)
3. Brief history PowerPoint of class issues, economy, political powers, war, political
policies, changing powers, etc. of Afghanistan, concentrating mostly on the time frame
surrounding when Amir is young, the 1970s. (This will include the fall of the monarchy in
Afghanistan through the Soviet invasion, the mass exodus of refugees to Pakistan and the
United States, and the Taliban regime.
Sidenote: Students must then understand that, to use the Marxist lens and to under-
stand the historical situation and economic conditions (material circumstances
(Tyson)), they must understand that all human events and productions have specific
material/historical circumstances. Marxist analysis of human events and productions
focuses on relationships among socioeconomic classes, both within a society and among
societies, and it explains all human activities in terms of the distribution and dynamics
of economic power.
 This question can be asked later on in the novel when the Taliban comes to
power: What drives politics? Desire for power? Is it money, ideologies, or hatred and
contempt for people unlike them?
4.Focusing mostly on Amir’s and Hassan’s relationship and how their differences in so-
cioeconomic class divides them, how do we see other divisions in the novel and in our own
contemporary society? i.e. religion, race, class, ethnicity, or gender. Do we think these divi-
sion play such an obvious role in our society? Are some differences acknowledged more
than others? In our world, as we see in The Kite Runner, there is a big difference between
the “Haves” and the “Have-nots,” and Amir points out this is even acknowledged by phys-
ical distinctions such as Hassan’s cleft-lip. What physical distinctions are there in our soci-
ety between the “Haves” and the “Have-nots?” Clothing? Schools? Do you think it’s right to
have a class that controls the politics and the way a society, culture, or even a country is
run/governed? We have class distinctions, but how are they less apparent than those
between Pashtun and Hazara in the novel? Is it right that the members of the highest class
should permit differences in religion, race, ethnicity, or gender to separate them into war-
ring factions that accomplish little or no social change?
5.Define the bourgeoisie class and the proletariat class for the students. Identify these
people in the novel. Determine how the novel depicts each person as belonging to a certain
class using textual evidence. How does the author observe the striking differences in so-
cioeconomic lifestyle among the groups in the novel. How are the members of the lower
class economically oppressed? How are the members of the upper class economically priv-
ileged? Then ask, why doesn’t the economically oppressed fight back? What keeps the
lower classes ‘in their place’ and at the mercy of the wealthy? Why do those in power often
perceive the lower class as a threat to the power structure? Students will journal on these
questions that have been written out on the board.
Assessment: This class period will be about engaging with the Marxist lens more thor-
oughly while looking how it plays out historically and socioeconomically in the novel’s
setting. I will assess the ability to apply the Marxist lens to the novel in discussion and in
their journal entries they will turn in.
Day 2:
Agenda:
1.Begin with a journal answering the following three questions: What are the characterist-
ics of society? What defines class? What is an ideology? 10-15 minutes
2.After discussing the three answers, focus on ideology, as a belief system that is a product
of social conditioning. Provide examples, such as capitalism, communism, and patriotism
(all that have been discussed in prior units or history classes). What ideologies exist in the
book? Classism, that one group of people are better than another? That men are biologic-
ally superior to women? Tell the class that Marxism works to make us constantly aware of
all the ways in which we are products of material/historical circumstances and of the re-
pressive ideologies that serve to blind us to this fact in order to keep us subservient to the
ruling system. Discuss. What ideologies exist in the mind of Amir? Hassan? Amir’s father?
Assef? Are their ideologies consistent with their socioeconomic status? Their age? 20
minutes
3.Watch clip of The Kite Runner when Amir and Hassan come across Assef. Also, look at
one depicting the relationship between Amir and Hassan. In both scenes, who knows they
have the power? Who does not? What happens as a result? 10 minutes
4. For homework have students read the handout on the Psychoanalysis lens, and ask
when they are reading for homework, to try to apply the lens to the reading having a spe-
cific character in mind. I could go over the handout in class as well. 5-10 minutes.
Assessment: Discussion mainly.

Psychoanalyzing a Novel (3 days)

Grade: 11th
Unit: A Critical Look at The Kite Runner
Objectives: Students will...
•Be able to identity certain core issues characters have in the novel by way of Tyson’s list
of issues and fears
•Be able to find certain passages that will show how this core issue plays out in the novel

•Consciously read through this lens and see how characters may be unconscious of their
issues
•Assess a character’s issues even if the story is not told through their point of view?

•Investigate the inter-workings of a character’s mind

•Identify the reasons different characters behave, act out, or relate to others

•Identify the emotional symptoms certain characters have resulting form certain experi-
ences, relationships, and whether or not they have risen above their socioeconomic condi-
tion (whether it is good or bad)
•See the role psychoanalysis plays in the novel, as well as in character analysis

•See how reading through a psychoanalytic lens may help us to internalize an analysis of
our self in relation to our own society and culture

•Understand the human condition

Rationale: This lens is particularly interesting because often it can touch on personal ex-
periences of readers they may not have understood before. Psychoanalytic concepts have
become a part of our everyday lives, so it should take on a more familiar approach than
that of the Marxist lens. Psychoanalytic concepts such as sibling rivalry, inferiority com-
plexes, teenage rebellion, and defense mechanisms are in such common use that it may
be helpful to define these to those who may feel they already know their meaning. It is
also going to be a more difficult task if students assess themselves because it invades our
most private thoughts, feelings, and beings. But when assessing the characters in the
novel, and understanding some key concepts about human experience offered by psy-
choanalysis, we can begin to see the ways in which these concepts operate in our daily
lives in profound rather than superficial ways, and students will begin to be able to un-
derstand human behavior, especially in terms of this literary text, one that is very much
about human behavior. This lens helps us look at each individual character, each with
their own psychological history that may begin long before the novel did.
MI State Standards Addressed: 2.2.2, 2.1.2, 1.1.1, 3.1.5, 3.4.1
Day 1:
Agenda:
1.Introduce the psychoanalytic lens. Ask the questions: When you say someone is ‘kinda
crazy,’ or that person ‘has issues,’ what do you mean? What kinds of issues? What kind of
crazy? 5-10 minutes
2. Use excerpts from Tyson that are important in defining the lens--put together on a
handout. Discuss each one including fear of intimacy, abandonment, betrayal, self-esteem,
insecure or unstable sense of self, oedipal fixation, etc. Ask if students can provide ex-
amples from other texts (movies, TV, novels, etc.) that helps to understand this kind of is-
sue. Talk about each one in depth. Also, discuss the notion that human beings are motiv-
ated, even driven, by desires, fears, needs, and conflicts of which that are unaware, or un-
conscious. 25 minutes
3.Use family as the basis for the psychoanalytic argument. Do we think familial relation-
ships and situations are a main reason people have these core issues? Are we a product of
the role we are given in the family-complex? How do we define ourselves in terms of our
family and the beginning and ongoing stages of our lives? Journal about their own posi-
tions in their family. This can be turned in anonymously, but they also do not have to get
into the nitty-gritty of their self-definition.
Assessment: Discussion and the ability to relate the new lens to the novel in the most
basic ways.
Day 2:
Agenda:
1. Put a list of characters on the board. Next, write their certain traits, relationships,
flaws, and core issues.
a.How is each character having this issue addressed throughout the novel?
b.Do their issues intertwine?
c.As core issues stay with us throughout our entire lives, and unless effectively ad-
dressed, they determine our behavior in destructive ways, ways in which we are usu-
ally unaware.
Have student look for textual evidence to back up these thoughts including page num-
bers. 20-25 minutes
2. Show short clip of Amir later on in life saving Hassan’s child from the Taliban/Assef,
to clear his guilt for what he had done to Hassan when they were children. Students can
speculate other reasons to why Amir felt he had to do this. Also, talk about the kinds of
issues Hassan’s son might have in his life after this disturbing beginning of his child-
hood. 10-15 minutes
 3. Using one of the core issues and one of the characters, have students begin to take
notes how this core issue relates to the character. 10-15 minutes
4. Assign a short essay (2-3 pages) to depict the core issue as the students sees it represen-
ted in the book through a character in a certain situation or conflict. This will be due in two
days.
a.Things to consider before writing:
a.What character will you focus on?
b.Does their issue get resolved, or does it merely manifest itself in another way,
or in response to another issue?
c.Does their issue worsen with time or are they finally able to come to terms?
d.Remember sometimes, because many of you may not be using amir’s first per-
son account, you may have to speculate. This doesn’t mean make things up, but
reasonably and logically assess what might have happened or what could happen.
e.Also, a given core issue can result from another core issue or can cause the
emergence of another issue, has this happened for the character you are analyz-
ing?
f.Are the conscious or unconscious of their issues?
g.How has their identity been formed around this issue?
h.You can also do research on other psychological issues that may apply that we
might have not covered in class.
Assessment: Discussion, reading, and ability to find and apply textual evidence
Day 3:
Agenda:
1.Looking at psychoanalysis and self: Are some character traits/issues more easily identi-
fied? Is it easier to examine our own character traits or that of someone else’s? Would it be
easier to write a list of your issues or that of your friends? Was it easy for Amir to acknow-
ledge his guilt or would it have been easier for him to assuage it?
Journal about this topic. 5-10 minutes
2.For the end of the class period, students will get in pairs and will have to create a mock
therapy session. One of the students will be a character in the book, and the other the ther-
apist. Using everything we’ve learned about the psychoanalytic lens, ask questions that
probe the ‘character’ to honestly think about their lives and their experiences and their re-
lationships. Students can write out a script or the therapist can just have a list of questions.
This will be performed at the end of class.
3.Remind students of their character-core issue essay due tomorrow, as well as the final
unit essay due in less than two weeks. If any time left they can work on the short psycho-
analytic character essay for tomorrow.
Assessment: Participation, group activity, discussion, journals, and applicable short es-
say.

Fishbowls for The Kite Runner (1 day)

Grade: 11th
Unit: A Critical Look at The Kite Runner
Objectives: Students will...

•Be able to more fully engage with the lens of their choice for the final essay

•Be able to participate in an activity that will create a multi-perspective and large-group
discussion venue
•Gain fellow classmates’ assessment of the application of a particular critical lens
Rationale: This lesson will create a safe and comfortable environment for students to
participate in and engage with fellow classmates, making for a more dialogic class than a
monologic one. It will also cut out the teacher mostly from the equation. This will be
most efficient if students have had practice with this before or have seen a model fish-
bowl. This way they will know how to conduct themselves and that everyone must at one
point be in the inner circle. It will help them to establish rules and guidelines for re-
spectfully listening, but also arguing with their peers. They will be able to appreciate
other perspectives and opinions while also soundly advocating for their own. When
done right, fishbowls can be very educational, informative, and good practice for similar
classroom activities.
Agenda:
1.Students create a large circle with their desks with three desks in the middle facing each
other, labeled Marxist, Feminist, and Psychoanalytic for the three lenses we’ve covered.
2.Question/prompts will be given to the three students in the middle and they will begin a
discussion, each student defending it from their chair-assigned literary lens. When a stu-
dent feels they have sad enough or made the point they wanted to make, they can return to
the outer circle, and someone else will take their place. (Only those in the middle can talk,
but everyone is listening).
3.Those in the outside circle should take preparatory notes, keeping track of important
points so they can make direct comments once they are inside the inner circle.

Assessment: Participation in circle, participation as a note-taking and respectful audi-

ence member, and a written response to the activity.

Final Assessment for the Critical Lens Unit:

Students will write a final essay on The Kite Runner applying the lens of their choice. If
they choose to go outside the three lenses discussed, I can provide them reading materi-
al on other lenses. Students may have to do research as well, especially if doing the
Marxist or Feminist lenses. Students should also be sure to use textual evidence from
The Kite Runner.
The paper should answer the following questions:

•What lens are you using?

•How does it apply to the novel: history, politics, gender roles, economic situation, cul-
ture/traditions, relationships, character, etc.
•What claim are you making about the lens in relation to the text? What do you want to
argue? (Students will have had thesis statement lessons prior to this unit)
•What textual evidence can you find to support your claim?

•Can you find any outside sources to support your claim as well?

•Did you cite your sources according to the MLA format?

~I decided not to re-do the calendar. I would’ve kept it mostly the same, with only a few
changes.