Teaching the Big Read

Want to teach our #PurdueEnglishBigRead selections? Feel free to incorporate these resources into your classroom!

Resources for Braiding Sweetgrass:

• College lesson plans: creation stories, intro to gift economy; ways of knowing; embracing gift economy
• Annotated bibliography

Resources for Aunty Lee's Delights:

• College lesson plans: cozy mystery; food culture; dialogue; amatuer detective; characterization
• Annotated bibliography

Resources for Journey to the West:

• College lesson plans: epic; translation; comics; the trickster
• High school activities and assessments
• Annotated bibliography

Resources for Mexican Gothic:

• College lesson plans: intro to the gothic; focalization & perception; female gothic; gothic monsters
• High school activities and assessments
• Annotated bibliography

Resources for the Binti trilogy:

• College lesson plans: africanfuturism; "home"; cultural encounters
• Annotated bibliography

Resources for Spinning Silver:

• College lesson plans: intro to medievalism; fantasy and gender; magic of language; plot structure and narrative closure
• Annotated bibliography

Resources for The Odyssey:

• College lesson plans: intro to epic; translation; xenia; homecoming

Resources for The Underground Railroad:

• College lesson plans: intro to historical fiction; scientific and medical racism; responses to racist systems; power of community

Resources for Station Eleven:

• College lesson plans: the post-apocalyptic genre; Station Eleven after covid; "because survival is insufficient"; coping with catastrophe