Systematic Struggles in Single Parent Households
Aubrey Dufrene
Dr. Harris
ENGL2017-64187
26 April 2025
Systematic Struggles in Single Parent Households
When growing up, parents tend to try to hide their struggles away from their children. Juniors in high school are starting to learn and realize the struggles of the real world. From their childhood to now, their parents tried to keep all the struggles away from them, but with college soon approaching their parents are starting to become more transparent with them about certain household situations. This unit, Systematic Struggles in Single Parent Households, teaches Juniors the systematic troubles single parents face while raising their children. This unit is a four week unit that will teach these students to be able to understand family structures and the tole poverty has with it, identify how economic troubles and instability housing can effect a child growing up, the differences single parents face due to their gender or economic status, and understand how they can take action to help find solutions to help single parents households. The students will be studying and analyzing the texts The Glass Castle by Janette Walls, the film The Pursuit of Happiness, and the television show Gilmore Girls episode one. The students will have various assignments including class discussions, presentations, and writing assignments. To end the unit, the students will be completing a textual analysis on the text of their choice describing using text evidence how the government failed and helped the single parent household and what they could do better. During the last week, I will also bring in a guest speaker who is an advocate for single parents discussing numerous ways the class produced and other ideas for them to help and get involved with the community to help support single parents.
Week 1:
Objective: The students will be able to understand family structure and the tole poverty has with it.
Main Activity: The students will read The Glass Castle by Jannette Walls
Justification: This novel is a memoir reflecting the author’s childhood remembering her neglectful and unstable parents. Although Janette’s parents were not divorced, her mother had to step forward and become a single parent because her father was absent from the family to do an addiction. Not only in the book Salvation but Toni Morrison also brings this to the reader’s attention in the novel Sula. In the novel, Nel’s parents are married, but her father is always absent. Nel’s mother, Helene, had to step up and act like a single mother to Nel because her husband was always gone.
Activities to go along with the Main Activity:
Before reading, the class will discuss and brainstorm assumptions they already know about single parent households.
Split the class into two groups and discuss what they learned from the book pulling text evidence to support and better understand their answers.
Main question: How does instability and poverty shape a child’s childhood?
Write a journal (two hundred words) explaining one barrier (with text evidence) the family faced throughout the book.
Week 2:
Objective: Students will be able to identify how economic and housing troubles affect children growing up.
Main Activity: Watch the film The Pursuit of Happiness
Justification: This film focuses on a true story following Chris Gardener, a single father trying to get a better life for his son. This film shows the struggles Chris faced, including becoming homeless without a job. Chris had to go out and find an internship with no pay and earn his way to a full- time job to get back on his feet to save money for a house for his son. Salvation introduced the idea that single parents have multiple jobs at once to get enough money to allow their kids to live the life they want. Parents hate having to tell their kids they cannot afford something, so they make sure they make enough money for their children to be able to do things with their friends outside of school.
Activities to go along with the main activity:
Break into small groups and discuss policies the government can change or produce new policies to support housing for single parents and their families.
Share ideas with class from previous class and discuss the students’ thoughts on The Glass Castle compared to The Pursuit of Happiness
Write a three- paragraph essay explaining if the American Dream is attainable for single parents.
Week 3:
Objective: Students will be able to identify the differences single parents face depending on their gender or social class.
Main Activity: Watch episode one of season one of Gilmore Girls
Justification: This episode begins with showing a single- mother, Lorelai, who is raising her teenage daughter, Rory. Rory was accepted into Chilton, a prestigious private school. Lorelai reaches out to her parents for help because she cannot afford this school for her daughter. bell hooks, in Salvation, bring the reader’s attention to single parents having financial struggles and having to reach out in hopes someone will help them. In this example, Lorelai is able to reach out to her parents because they can afford to send Rory to the private, but in other examples, as we have read through Salvation, single parents do not have people to reach out to causing them to have multiple jobs at one time or have to tell the child they cannot go to that school.
Activities to go along with the Main Activity:
Students will split into partners or groups of three to create a poster explaining how the media portray single parents in different decades (each group will have a different time period)
Splitting students into four or five groups to discuss what supports systems helped Lorelai. Compare these systems to the other texts; did those same systems help them or not? Come together to discuss as a class at the end.
Write a journal explaining the difference, if there was a difference, using text evidence in Lorelai’s support from the government compared to others.
Week 4:
Objective: Students will be able to understand how to connect with their community and find solutions to help single parents.
Main Activity: Group project creating ideas that their community and school do not have that can help single parent households succeed.
Justification: The novel Salvation brings up ways that the government steps in to help single parent households. For example, food stamps help parents with groceries and food for their children to make sure their children are fed. The government does not do enough for single parents, in fact the media targets single parents shaming them for not raising their children in a two- parent household. Instead of focusing on the negative, more people should step in and find an active plan to help single parents raise their children.
Activities to go along with the main activity:
Write textual analyses on any of the three sources we watched or read.
Splitting students into groups to create posters in several ways the government or their school can help single parent household.
Present these posters to the class.
Lesson Plan Day by Day:
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