Just Mercy Unit for Teachers

Overview 

This website is intended to share curriculum for teaching Just Mercy: A Story of Redemption, by Bryan Stevenson, in high school English classes. I have been teaching this book for the past few years, and students consistently say it is the most meaningful work they do all year. I teach this book in an advanced ninth grade English/Ethnic Studies class, but the material could be adapted for any secondary grade level.

Please feel free to take these materials and make them your own; this is what has worked for me and my kids, but you are welcome to adapt them in any way that works for your classroom. If you would like to use any of the materials, please do not request access. Instead, click “file” -> “make a copy” and move onto your own Google Drive. 

Standards (critical concepts) assessed in this unit:

• Analyzing Text Organization and Structure: I will be able to analyze an author’s organization of an analysis of a series of ideas/events.

• Analyzing Style: I will be able to identify and analyze the words, phrases, and language strategies an author uses to advance a particular point of view and purpose.

Skills/content knowledge my kids already have before we start this unit: 

• Analyzing and generating narrative

• Analyzing and generating argument (rhetorical appeals and rhetorical situation)

• Generating writing structure

  • How to write a thesis that answers the prompt

  • How to integrate quotes into a sentence

  • Claim/evidence/reasoning body paragraphs, with transitions

• Foundations of Ethnic Studies. Vocab words like race, ethnicity, norms, code switching, double-consciousness, intersectionality, power, agency.

Essential Questions:

• What does justice look like to redress harm?

• Who deserves mercy?