Personal Narrative/Arc of the Story (Realistic Fiction)

During this unit, students will:

• use a variety of strategies to generate narrative ideas.

• make sure their writing is focused on the heart of the story.

Boxes and Bullets: Personal and Persuasive Essay

During this unit, students will:

• learn essay structure.

• plan out an essay with a strong claim and support and use evidence (quotes, stories, etc) to back each support.

• write personal essays that will transition to persuasive essays.

Literary Essay

During this unit, students will:

• write essays about character based ideas about texts.

• write essays about theme based ideas about texts.

• write essays comparing/contrasting  ideas about texts.

Historical Fiction Writing

During this unit, students will:

• draw upon what they know about strong narrative writing to develop possible historical fiction seed ideas.

• pay particular attention to historical accuracy and meaning.

• go through the writing process to draft and revise a historical fiction story (diary entry or letter)

Poetry

During this unit, students will:

• write a variety of poems (poetry anthology), using a variety of poetic devices.

Bringing History to Life

During this unit, students will:

• begin research by studying the events that led up to the American Revolution – the causes of the Revolution.

• transfer the research skills they learned in the first nonfiction unit, Reading theWeather, Reading the World, to help them navigate a research project.