Self-Discovery through Character Connections: Opening up to Gayness in Angels in America

A teacher looking to incorporate issues of sexuality and gender variance into his

or her curriculum may initially struggle to find an appropriate focus for the unit. Because gayness is not visibly obvious in the classroom, teachers may wonder how to address the issue in an overt way. Academic work connected to gayness in the past two decades also has IWC Replica Watches grappled with this question and is split between two important yet divergent goals curricula are aimed either at making LGBTQ students feel more comfortable in their own skins and at school or at changing the mindsets of their homophobic peers (Athanases; Harbeck; Hoffman).

For my intents and purposes, a curriculum on sexuality and gayness began without a clear emphasis on either gay or straight students. At my high school in New York City's Washington Heights, students are mostly Roman Catholic immigrants or children of immigrants from the Dominican Republic and are not widely knowledgeable about gayness. They may use derogatory language like mar icon (the Spanish equivalent of "faggot") without necessarily understanding the meaning and repercussion.1 Building a unit around sexuality, I wanted to teach a text in which the author affirms gayness but also encourages inquiry, one that follows an open model of identity formation and allows students to establish personal viewpoints.

Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National ThemesTony Kushner's epic plays about the AIDS epidemic and its impact on the gay community in the 1980swas a natural choice of texts for my classroom and curricular goals. The play is set in New York City, as is my school. It is time sensitive, as is my syllabus: From Classical to Modern Theatre. The play is well respected in its field of American literature, having won a Pulitzer Prize and multiple Tony Awards, among other accolades, which justifies its role in a Omega Replica language arts classroom to critics who may voice concern about the subject matter. The play's subtitle speaks not only to its gay sensibility but also to its national political interest and the fact that HIV/AIDS is still a health issue affecting all communities. Above all, my reasoning for picking Angels in America was a strategic one: Within the fabric of the play is a drive toward connectedness between people and characters who might not otherwise meet, sharing what they do have in common. My intent in teaching a gay-themed text to this class of primarily Dominican students was to connect students to people and themes outside most students' immediate knowledge base.

Self-Discovery through Character Connections: Opening up to Gayness in Angels in America

By: endeavor19

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