Students begin with narrative writing to quickly boost their writing production, to learn the foundational skill of Focus and to become comfortable with the key classroom habits and routines they will use all year. After exploring the details of how they describe their own experiences and emotions, students pay the same kind of close attention to analyzing the details presented in the unit’s core text: Ji-li Jiang’s Red Scarf Girl, her memoir of growing up during China’s Cultural Revolution.

Texts

• Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution by Ji-li Jiang

• EXTRA: Excerpt from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

• EXTRA: "A Boy's Summer Song" by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Skills and Content

Character and Narrator: Examine the differences between a character’s thoughts and actions

Writing: Use revision to strengthen elaboration

Text Structure: Conventions of memoirs, propaganda

Content: Mid-20th century communist China