Unit 1 Overview

Unit 1: American Voices 

Essential Questions: 

• What does it mean to be "American?"

• How is an American identity created?

• How do the realities of immigrants' experiences reflect or fail to reflect American ideals?

• How does your generation define what it means to be American?

Texts: 

• "Music for my Mother" -- Nonfiction Narrative

  • This will serve as an example of what students will be expected to do in their performance-based assessment

• "A Quilt of a Country" (Anna Quindlen)

• "The Immigrant Contribution" from A Nation of Immigrants (JFK)

• "American History" (Judith Ortiz-Cofer)

• "The Writing on the Wall" (Camille Dungy)

  • Group assignment

• "With a Little Help from my Friends" from Funny in Farsi (Firoozeh Dumas)

Writing Focus:

•  Narrative

  • Rubric linked here