Grade 12 Unit 1
A groundbreaking speculative fiction novel that tells the story of young Lauren Olamina as she journeys to Northern California to escape ecological and societal collapse in Southern California. After Lauren’s town is destroyed by an outlaw group of drug addicts, she must learn to survive in a world reeling from the devastating effects of climate change. Along the way, Lauren starts a religion called Earthseed, forms a band of followers, and makes plans to found her own sustainable community in Northern California.
Big Ideas:
Rather than being static or stable, the roles of parent and child can be fluid as individuals adapt and grow; family can be created through community as well as birth and roles within a family can also change.
Choosing a new name (for oneself or for another person) can be a revolutionary act, a way to claim or celebrate a new self and identity.
For an individual forced to grow up too quickly, coming of age may require reclaiming childhood and embracing youth; young people coming of age in a turbulent era may have to reconcile conflicting influences to develop more mature perspectives.
Poetry can be a way to empower formerly oppressed people or groups; by closely reading a lot of different poetry, readers are able to access multiple levels of meaning and perspective.
Differing abilities can be viewed as a strength or a weakness depending on the situation.
Education is an important tool to improve ourselves and our communities.
Respecting environments also ensures that communities have adequate resources to meet their needs and many of their wants.
Building up a community helps foster communication among people.
For the Narrative Assessment, students will have three options to demonstrate their mastery and creative writing skills:
- Novel Continuation → Students will write a short story that details what they think happens to America in the years following Lauren starting the settlement in Acorn.
- Alternate Character Narrative → Students will imagine they are an original member of Lauren's group at Acorn and that they decided to move on and begin a similar community. They will consider the following questions in designing their narrative: What do you call your new community? What aspects of Acorn do you keep the same and what do you change? Where do you set up this community? How do you find new members?
- Original Narrative → This assessment will be more of a “big push” for students. For the original narrative assessment, students will choose an event or issue reflective of a current anxiety or value impacting our society to develop a 2-3 page narrative. The narrative piece must demonstrate a mixture of elements and key concepts representative of the unit's goals. The narrative’s conclusion must explicitly exhibit solutionary thinking representative of the key concepts needed to to design a better future. See element and concepts below.
