Topic: Discovering the Self
Essential Question: How do we define ourselves?
Performance Mode: Narrative
Reading Literature
11-12.RL.6 When reading texts, including those from diverse cultures, determine two or more themes and analyze their development, including how they interact and build on one another to produce a complex account, and provide an objective summary that includes textual evidence.
11-12.R.8 Determine the meaning and impact of words and phrases on tone and mood, including words with multiple meanings. Analyze figurative language, connotative meanings, and figures of speech. Examine how the author uses and refines the meaning of domain-specific vocabulary and how language differs across historical time periods, cultures, regions, and genres.
11-12.R.10 Analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of structures across multiple texts about similar topics/themes, including whether the structures make points or events clear, effective, convincing, or engaging.
11-12.RL.14 Analyze two or more texts of literary significance across and within time periods with similar topics and themes, drawing on their purposes, stylistic choices, and rhetorical features.
Writing
11-12.W.3 Write narrative texts to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-structured event sequences, well-chosen details, and provide a resolution with closure.
a. Engage and orient the reader by describing a complex problem, situation, or observation.
b. Establish one or multiple point(s) of view, and develop a setting, narrator and/or characters.
c. Apply narrative techniques, such as dialogue, pacing, description, reflection, flashback, and multiple plot lines to develop characters and well-structured event sequences.
d. Utilize varied syntax techniques and descriptive language to create a mood and tone appropriate to purpose, task, and audience.
e. Use appropriate conventions and style for the audience, purpose, and task.
inanimate
infuse
anachronism
repercussion
revelation
💡 It is essential to have students use these words throughout the unit, particularly in their performance tasks/assessments.
Unit Supplementary Resources
Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith | Deborah Heiligman | 1020L
The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein | Kiersten White | 720L
Frankenstein | Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley | 810L
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks | Rebecca Skloot | 1140L
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier | Ishmael Beah | 920L
Mary's Monster | Lita Judge | 1070L
Nervous Conditions | Tsitsi Dangarembga | 1030L
The Picture of Dorian Gray | Oscar Wilde | 880L
The Secret Life of Bees | Sue Monk Kidd | 840L
CommonLit Alternative Unit: Novel Study
Frankenstein
Essential Question: Is ambition a positive or negative force? What responsibilities do scientists have for the technologies they create?