Americanah Lesson Plan

Classroom description: A 45 minute long, 20 person class of grade nine honors students. Class
composition consists of 11 White students, four Latinx students, three Black students, and one
Asian student. Four students are ELLs and three have IEPs.

Phase within the Expanded Teaching and Learning Cycle: modeling reading/text
deconstruction

Lesson: Students and teacher will read a passage from Americanah with the purpose of making
connections between the main character, Ifemelu’s, sense of identity and use of her American
and Nigerian accents. We will do this by highlighting appraisal (attitudinal) words which are
used when Ifemelu speaks in one of her accents.

Content objective:
- Students will begin to develop an understanding of linguistic identity
- Students will begin to understand the link between Ifemelu’s sense of authenticity and her
language use

Language objective:
- Students will begin to develop an understanding of the ways in which word choice
influences characterization and creates themes throughout a text
- Students will leave with new skills for textual analysis

Equity goal:
- All students are welcome and encouraged to communicate and write in their home
language(s), as well as to use their cultural knowledge when reading the text
- All students are expected to engage with the class and text (ex: listening, reading,
highlighting, speaking) and will have fair and equal access to these opportunities

Materials:
- Americanah passage with key sentences already underlined (passage printed and read out
loud)
- Slides with key definitions and a chart into which words will be organized during the
activity portion of the lesson
- Printed agenda for students to follow along with and use as a worksheet
- Timer to keep students on task
 Americanah Agenda

Class Goal: Today we will be looking at a passage from the book Americanah.
- So far we have discussed themes of race, nationality, and othering in the text.
- -Today we will read through an excerpt from the book together and highlight words that
relate to the main character Ifemelu’s Nigerian and American accents.
- Our goal is to analyze how these words demonstrate the link between Ifemelu’s language
use and her sense of self.

9:00-9:05 Do Now:
- Today we will focus on something called appraisal words, or as we will refer to them,
attitudinal words.
- Question for the class: What does attitude mean and when do you hear people use the
word attitude?
- Definition of attitudinal words: words which express emotions, judgements, or
evaluations of people or things

9:05-9:10 Identifying attitudinal words:

- Activator: Now that we know what attitudinal words are let’s figure out how to identify
them in writing.
- Can you find any attitudinal words in this sentence?
- Example sentence:

- I watched Jason anxiously as he carelessly threw his dishes into the sink.

In this sentence do we see any attitudinal words which express emotion, judge, or evaluate? - If
you do, write them on the line below.
Attitudinal Words:_____________________________________________________________

Let’s discuss!

9:10-9:15 Introduce Activity:

- I will read today’s passage out loud. While I am reading please use your highlighters to
highlight the attitudinal words written in the text.
- We will pay special attention to the attitudinal words used when Ifemelu speaks with,
thinks about, or discusses one or both of her accents (American and Nigerian).
- Sentences where she speaks with, thinks about, or discusses her accents are underlined on
your copies of the passage.
- Reminder: Can someone please read the definition of attitudinal words off of the board
and remind class what we are looking for before we start reading?
9:15-9:25 Read and highlight with examples
- I have already highlighted some attitudinal words in the first two sentences of the passage
for you to look at as an example.
- Now it’s your turn. Don’t worry too much about whether the words you are highlighting
are correct, just use the definition to help you to the best of your ability.

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie page 213-217:

Ifemelu decided to stop faking an American accent on a sunlit day in July, the same day she met

Blaine. It was convincing, the accent. She had perfected, from careful watching of friends and

newscasters, the blurring of the t, the creamy rolling of the r, the sentences starting with “so”,

and the sliding response of “oh really”, but the accent creaked with consciousness, it was an act

of will. It took an effort, the twisting of the lip, the curling of the tongue. If she were in a panic

or terrified, or jerked awake during a fire, she would not remember how to produce those

American sounds. And so she reserved to stop, on that summer day, the weekend of Dike’s

birthday. Her decision was prompted by a telemarketer’s call.

She was in her apartment on Spring Garden Street, the first thing that was truly hers in America,

her’s alone, a studio with a leaky faucet and a noisy heater. On that July morning, her weekend

bag already packed for Massachusetts, she was making scrambled eggs when the phone rang.

The caller ID showed “unknown” and she thought it might be a call from her parents in Nigeria.

But it was a telemarketer, a young, male American who was offering better long-distance and

international phone rates. She always hung up on telemarketers, but there was something about

his voice that made her turn down the stove and hold on to the receiver, something poignantly

young, untried, untested, the slightest of tremors, an aggressive customer service friendliness that

was not aggressive at all; it was as though he was saying what he had been trained to say but was

mortally worried about offending her.

“May I ask who I’m talking to?”

“My name is Ifemelu.”

He repeated her name with exaggerated care. “Is it a French name?”

“No. Nigerian.”

“That where your family came from?”

“Yes.” She scooped the eggs onto a plate.

“I grew up there.”

“Oh, really?” How long have you been in the U.S.?”

“Three years.”

“Wow. Cool. You sound totally American.”

“Thank you.”

Only after she hung up did she begin to feel the stain of a burgeoning shame spreading all over

her, thanking him, for crafting his words “You sound American” into a garland that she hung

around her neck. Why was it a compliment, an accomplishment, to sound American? She had

won; Christina Thomas, pallid-faced Christina Thomas under whose gaze she had shrunk like a

small, defeated animal, would speak to her normally now. She had won, indeed, but her triumph

was full of air. Her fleeting victory had left in its wake a vast, echoing space, because she had

taken on, for too long, a pitch of voice and a way of being that was not hers. And so she finished

eating her eggs and resolved to stop faking the American accent. She first spoke without the

American accent that afternoon at Thirtieth Street Station, leaning towards the woman behind the

Amtrak counter.

“Could I have a round-trip to Haverhill, please? Returning Sunday afternoon.

“I have a Student Advantage card,” she said, and felt a rush of pleasure from giving the t its full

due in “advantage,” from her not rolling her r in “Haverhill.”

This was truly her; this was the voice with which she would speak if she were woken up from a

deep sleep during an earthquake.

9:25-9:40 Discussion

- Let’s report back what words we highlighted while we read. As you look at your own
highlighted words and listen to the words your classmates found, place those words in the
chart below under the accent they belong with. I have already filled in a couple of
examples for you.
- Let’s get at least three volunteers to share words.

American Accent Nigerian Accent

Faking
Convincing

-Now that we have our lists of attitudinal words for Ifemelu’s American and Nigerian accents,
what conclusions can we make about Ifemelu and her language use?
Ask yourself:
- Do you see any patterns?
- Are the words positive or negative?
- Who is using these words?

9:40-9:45 Exit Ticket:

Great job everyone, we were able to identify attitudinal words in the text and come to the
conclusion that Ifemelu does not feel like herself when she uses her American accent.

- Exit ticket: On the post it notes on your desk, write down one attitudinal word that
describes how you felt about today’s lesson. Ex: excited, bored, confused