In this launch unit, you’ll slow down and take yourself seriously. You’ll reflect on who you are and imagine who you might become. You’ll learn about the IB Learner Profiles—ten ways to describe the kind of learner and person you want to be.

You’ll gather feedback, test your self-perception, and ask what traits matter most to you. Finally, you’ll create a vision board: a visual map of identity, shaped by your values, goals, and creative voice.

Final Project: Vision Board

You’ll read The Life and Crimes of Hoodie Rosen, the story of a boy caught between the values of his Orthodox Jewish community and the pull of a very different world. Through Hoodie’s journey, we’ll explore what happens when identity meets pressure—and how every decision changes us.

You’ll also turn inward. Using compare and contrast, you’ll reflect on your own experiences with family, friendship, pressure, and change. You’ll learn how authors use literary elements—like exposition, conflict, climax, and theme—to shape meaning. You’ll learn how to revise sentences with intention, crafting language that expresses exactly what you think and feel.

Final Project: Identity Mosaic

This unit is about the idea that everyone has many parts. You’ll explore how the stories you read connect to the different versions of yourself that you’ve been, and the ones you’re becoming. Some genres might help you feel safe. Others might challenge you.

You’ll examine different genres, identify their traits, explore their connection. You’ll track genre traits and emotional impact.

Final Project: Genre Recipe

This unit is about voice—when to use it, how to use it, and what it might cost you. Speaking up isn’t always safe. Sometimes it takes courage. Sometimes it takes strategy. Sometimes it takes knowing exactly what you believe and choosing how to say it clearly and with purpose.

You’ll read Ghost Boys and examine how authors create point-of-view and shape meaning through sentence design. You’ll use strategies like Step Inside and CER to think deeply, write reflectively, and practice communicating in ways that matter. Along the way, you’ll connect fictional and real stories of injustice and ask yourself what kind of communicator you want to be when it really counts.

Final Project: Bearing Witness Poster

You’ll explore how people respond to a crisis—by remembering, rebuilding, or trying to do both. You’ll read The Night Diary, the story of a young girl caught in one of the most violent moments in modern history. But she writes anyway—choosing to tell her story, even when no one asks her to.

Through her diary, and through the voices of real survivors, you’ll ask what it means to speak after trauma, and how storytelling can become an act of hope. To help you do this, you’ll practice tools that writers use to make meaning out of crisis: choosing precise words, zooming in on vivid details, reimagining key moments, and shaping emotion through voice. 

Final Project: Write Historical Fiction

In this unit, you’ll read stories about people who misjudge each other—or who try, and fail, to truly connect. You’ll explore how social roles, fear, and pride shape what we see in others, and what it takes to move beyond those limits.

As you analyze character and point of view, you’ll use strategies like Step Inside, Compare & Contrast, Structured What-If, and Visual Metaphor to trace moments of misunderstanding—and connection. 

Final Project: Street Art