High School designated eld Level 1-2

Welcome!

These units are an offering of support. Curriculum is never one-size-fits-all. Therefore, all of the lessons, activities, slides and handouts can and should be adapted for your students, your classroom context, and your style of teaching.

Unit 1: Identity & Poetry

Created by Amanda Hilger, Megan Walson & Tobias Ruger

Who am I? What makes me who I am? Answering these essential questions is among the goals of this 2-week unit. Through community building activities, an introduction to language associated with personal identity, and an exploration of poetry as a medium for personal expression, students will learn about their classmates while engaging in routines and norms that will be utilized throughout the school year. For teachers who would like to expand this unit beyond two weeks, many rich additional materials are provided.

Unit 2: Immigration Journey Narrative

Created by Jessica Oppenhiem, amended by Conor Hallinan

How and why do people immigrate? What does your personal immigration experience teach you about the challenges and benefits of your life? These are a few of the questions students will grapple with as they read example narratives, and write their own full-process personal immigration narrative. This unit includes collaborative reading and discussion routines. Also included are detailed lessons and activities that teach vocabulary, the narrative arc and elements of narrative writing.

Unit 3: Community & Seedfolks

Originally Created by SFIHS Teachers; adapted by Vicki Traverso and Conor Hallinan

Through collaborative reading and discussion routines and scaffolds that support comprehension and analysis of a novel, students will gather evidence to use in argumentative writing & a final visual project about how a character’s actions impact a community of neighbors and their communal garden project.

Additional Units for Designated ELD Level 1-2

Frida Kahlo: Home Analysis and Self Portrait

Jessica Oppenhiem, Jill Smith & Conor Hallinan

In this unit, students will create a self portrait similar to Frida Kahlo’s “Self-Portrait Along the Borderline Between Mexico and the United States.” Along the way, students will analyze home, and what home means to them, through comparing and contrasting the US and home country through the lens of Frida Kahlo’s life and paintings.