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Invisible Man
Students trace an unnamed African American narrator's "Hero's Journey" from innocence to self-discovery in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, examining the novel's harsh critique of American society.
ELA
Unit 6
12th Grade
This unit has been archived. To view our updated curriculum, visit our 12th Grade English course.
Unit Summary
Please Note: This unit currently only contains free Fishtank features. In January 2025, we will begin releasing a new set of 12th Grade units, with the full scope of Fishtank Plus resources and features.
In this unit, students will analyze and experience Ralph Ellison’s acclaimed 1952 novel, Invisible Man. This National Book Award winning work follows an unnamed African American narrator from the Deep South to Harlem, New York as he searches for meaning and truth. Exploring themes of racism, identity, and truth, Ellison brings readers on a journey of invisibility and self-discovery that poses a harsh critique of American society. While reading the novel, students will trace the narrator’s “Hero’s Journey” journey from innocence to self-discovery. They will simultaneously analyze Ellison’s use of the narrator’s journey to deliver his own messages on race and racism in American society, including harsh critiques of some of the most prominent figures in African American history.
The primary literary analysis skills focus of the unit will be on analyzing the narrator and how the author uses the narrator’s development to communicate his themes. Students will trace the major motifs and symbols of the novel, also with an eye to theme development. In addition to the reading of the novel, students will read several non-fiction pieces, analyzing how each author develops his or her point of view.
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Texts and Materials
Some of the links in the sections below are Bookshop affiliate links. This means that if you click and make a purchase, we receive a small portion of the proceeds, which supports our non-profit mission.
Core Materials
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Book: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (Vintage Books, 1980.)
Supporting Materials
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Video: “An Introduction to Ralph Ellison” (PBS Learning Media)
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Video: “Luke Cage” (Netflix)
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Video: “Invisible Man: The Hero's Journey” (PBS Learning Media)
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Article: “The Hero’s Journey” by Joseph Campbell
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Article: “Booker T. Washington” (Thirteen)
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Video: “Jazz: A Metaphor for America” (PBS Learning Media)
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Poem: “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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Book: 12 Million Black Voices by Richard Wright (Basic Books 2002)
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Article: “Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr.”
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Video: “Backwater Blues” by Bessie Smith
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Lyrics: Backwater Blues
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Article: “The Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA)” by britannica.com
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Primary Source: Declaration of Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World
Assessment
These assessments accompany Unit 6 and should be given on the days suggested in the Lesson Map. Additionally, there are formative and creative assessments integrated into the unit to prepare students for the Performance Task.
Content Assessment
The Content Assessment tests students' ability to read a "cold" or unfamiliar passage and answer multiple choice and short answer questions. Additionally, a longer writing prompt pushes students to synthesize unit content knowledge or unit essential questions in writing. The Content Assessment should be used as the primary assessment because it shows mastery of unit content knowledge and standards.
Unit Prep
Intellectual Prep
Intellectual Prep for English Lessons
- Read and annotate the novel with the key thematic questions in mind.
- Consider the key thematic questions in light of the novel. How would you answer them? Also consider possible sub-questions that students should investigate/debate to deepen their answers.
- Take the exam, including writing an essay in answer to the prompt.
- Read and annotate the paired texts.
- Consider possible connections between the paired nonfiction texts and the novel.
- Watch Invisible Man: The Hero's Journey by PBS Learning Media
- Read Exploring the Controversy: The "N" Word by PBS on using the "N" word in class
- (Optional) Create visuals for the classroom: list of motifs/symbols, character lists/trackers, themes and thematic questions, elements of the Hero’s Journey.
Intellectual Prep for AP Projects
- Read and annotate the Supplementary AP Projects.
- Decide the pacing appropriate for your students. These projects can be integrated into the reading of Invisible Man or completed at the conclusion of the reading of the novel.
- Select a print or online style guide that students will use to develop their own writing skills and style. See the following articles for ideas:
- AP English Language and Composition: Grammar Web Guide by CollegeBoard
- AP English Language and Composition: The Concept of Style by CollegeBoard
- Review the basics of rhetorical analysis by reading What Do Students Need to Know About Rhetoric? by Hepzibah Roskelly.
- Read the CollegeBoard 2017 AP English Language and Composition Sample Student Responses and Scoring Commentary for FRQ 2 and FRQ 3.
- Read the Chief Reader Report on Student Responses: 2017 AP English Language and Composition Free-Response Questions.
- Depending upon your level of familiarity with the CollegeBoard AP English Language and Composition exam, you may wish to spend more time exploring other resources on the College Board AP English Language and Composition Course website.
Essential Questions
Theme-Based Questions:
- Racism and stereotypes: What is the impact of stereotypes on individuals? On society? How does racism impact individual identity?
- Identity: How do others’ expectations and actions impact our own identities? How do loneliness and isolation impact identity development? Specifically, how does racism impact individual identity? How do treachery and betrayal impact the identity of the betrayer? The victim?
- Lies and Deception: What is the truth? Are lies and deception ever justified? Can they ever achieve a good end?
Author’s Craft Questions:
- Author’s Craft: How does an author use symbols and motifs to create theme? (fiction) How does an author develop and defend an argument? (non-fiction and fiction)
- Motifs and symbols: blindness, invisibility, masks, dolls, briefcase, sleeping/waking, darkness/light, colors
Writing Focus Areas
Note: This essay structure is adapted from the SAT
Write an essay in which you explain how the author builds an argument/develops a theme. In your essay, analyze how the author uses one or more of the features listed in the box below (or features of your own choice). Be sure that your analysis focuses on the most relevant features of the passage.
- Features for fiction: characterization of the narrator; motifs and symbols; allusions to historical figures, events and/or documents; characterization of secondary characters; the stages of the Hero’s Journey
- Features for non-fiction: evidence, such as facts or examples to support claims; reasoning to develop ideas and connect claims to evidence; stylistic or persuasive elements such as word choice or appeals to emotion to add power to the ideas expressed.
Related Teacher Tools:
Vocabulary
Literary Terms
irony, motif, symbol, theme, mood, narrator, tone, characterization, metaphor, extended metaphor
Roots and Affixes
fall- (fallacious), gest- (gesticulate), ir-(irrevocably), inter-/intra-(intercede), mal- (malicious), dis-(dissimulation, disillusionment, dispossessed)
Text-based
Prologue: disposition (3), insolently (4), overt (5), fallacious (5), ambivalence (10), shirk (14)
Chapter 1: naïve (15), exulted (16), treachery (17, 40), humility (25), extol (29)
Chapter 2: stagnant (35) prestige (45)
Chapter 3: gesticulating (72), inhibitions (76), discourse (77), submissive (81, 82), nostalgia (92), degradation (93), amorphous (95)
Chapter 4: predicament (99, 105), tersely (100)
Chapter 5: irrevocably (109), intercede (115), humble/humility (119, 120)
Chapter 6: relics (137), conciliatory (141), revelation (143)
Chapter 7: recede (p. 155), indisputably (p. 157), furtive (p. 158), affirmation (160)
Chapter 8: antagonism (166, 168, 181, 211)
Chapter 9: malicious (179)
Chapter 10: insinuation (197), optic (201), dissimulation (211), maliciously (218) impudent (226), irrevocably (230)
Chapter 11: detachment (233)
Chapter 12: disillusioned (256), contempt (256, 257),
Chapter 13: recant (265), dispossessed (278), sentimental (291), smug (292), indignant (293, 331)
Chapter 14: indecision (306), dispossession (307), chauvinism (312)
Chapter 15: self-mocking (319), serene (327), impertinence (328)
Chapter 16: indoctrination (351), inevitable (352)
Chapter 17: fanatic (357), ideological/ideology (357, 359), precarious (362), sectarianism (365)
Chapter 18: unperturbed (384), inscrutably (389), nebulous (390)
Chapter 19: avert (411), sensuously (412, 431), superfluous (421)
Chapter 20: agitation (428, 429, 430)
Chapter 21: spiel (445)
Chapter 22: tactician (463, 464, 465)
Chapter 24: inextricably (515)
Chapter 25: evade (537), partition (568)
Epilogue: vindication (574), transcendence (574)
Idioms and Cultural References
Prologue: Edgar Allen Poe, epidermis, boomerang, Edison, Ford, Franklin, Dante, klieg light, “third degree”
Chapter 1: boomerang, smoker (17), rococo (18), “coon” (22), Sambo (26), Booker T. Washington (18 & 29)
Chapter 2: “Founder’s Day” (37), White Man’s Burden (37), Emerson (41), “Lawd” (65), banknote (69)
Chapter 3: chain gang (71), “stool-pigeon” (82)
Chapter 5: puritanical (110), Horatio Alger (111), Homer (117), Emancipation (118), “humble carpenter of Nazareth” (119), Aristotle (120)
Chapter 6: N-(p. 139), leg shackle (p. 141), reference to lynching (143)
Chapter 7: “chew the rag” (p. 155), Red Cap (p. 157)“the Jim Crow” (p. 155), “Up North” (p. 158)
Chapter 10: “scabs” (197), “racket” (197), “fink” (219)
Chapter 11: lobotomy (236), Buckeye the Rabbit (212), Brer Rabbit (242)
Chapter 12: spat (256), Wall Street Journal (257), dissonance (259)
Chapter 13: “Field N –“ (265), “scobos” (269), Marcus Garvey (272), “paddie” (274), “double talk” (291)
Chapter 14: “dunning” (296), Chthonian (299), “divan” (301)
Chapter 15: pince-nez (328), “pigeon drop” (330), “rabble rouser” (331)
Chapter 16: Nijinsky (349)
Chapter 17: El Toro (357), nationalists (364), “across a barrel” (365), “sudsbuster” (366), “zoot suiter” (366), “Uncle Tom” (369)
Chapter 18: “hostess gown” (411)
Chapter 20: Sambo (431)
Chapter 21: “zoot-suiters and “hep cats” (451)
Chapter 22: “sideshow” (466), “Cyclopean” (474)
Chapter 23: charlatan (504), touche (512)
Chapter 24: Joe Louis (516), Paul Robeson (516)
Chapter 25: ex post facto (550), Uncle Tom (557)
Epilogue: avant-garde (572), mea culpa (574)
Content Knowledge and Connections
The Great Migration, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, Communism and the Labor Movement, Existentialism, Marcus Garvey and Black Nationalism
Previous Fishtank ELA Connections
- The American Dream as explored in 11th Grade ELA - The Glass Menagerie
- The narration should harken back to the narrators "invisibility" to the doctors and nurses in 11th Grade ELA - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Students should draw the connection between the invisibility of marginalized populations.
Lesson Map
AP Projects
These projects are optional and serve as a great way to enrich students' experience and deepen their content knowledge in this unit. If teachers have flex days in their schedules, we strongly recommend any of the below options.
3 days
(PROCESS)
Read "Niagara Movement Speech" by W.E.B. Dubois. W.E.B made this speech in 1905 at a meeting of the Niagara Movement, a civil rights group organized by Dubois and William Monroe Trotter. In the speech, Dubois introduces a call to action and a list of demands for social, political and economic equality for African Americans. Read the passage carefully. Then, in a well-developed essay, analyze how Dubois uses the first paragraph to prepare his audience for his message. Support your analysis of his rhetoric with specific references to the text.
2 days
(ON DEMAND)
For this project, we ask students to debate and write a response to a question from the released 2017 AP English Language and Composition Exam. We are unable to reproduce the content here; however, teachers can find the question at the link below.
2017 AP English Language and Composition Free-Response Questions (page 11)
3 days
(PROCESS)
For this project, we ask students to debate and write a response to a question from the released 2017 AP English Language and Composition Exam. We are unable to reproduce the content here; however, teachers can find the question at the link below.
2017 AP English Language and Composition Free-Response Questions (page 12)
Common Core Standards
Core Standards
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