11th Unit 2 Module 4
Key Themes & Topics:
Culture
Identity
Choice
Ethics
Essential Questions
How much choice do we have?
Key Reading Standards
Use Key Ideas and Details to:
Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. (CCSS: RI.9-10.1)
Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text. (CCSS. RI.9-10.2)
Analyze how the author unfolds an analysis or series of ideas or events, including the order in which the points are made, how they are introduced and developed, and the connections that are drawn between them. (CCSS: RI.9-10.3)
Use Integration of Knowledge and Ideas to:
Analyze various accounts of a subject told in different mediums (for example: a person’s life story in both print and multimedia), determining which details are emphasized in each account. (CCSS: RI.9-10.7)
Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is valid and the evidence is relevant and sufficient; identify false statements and fallacious reasoning. (CCSS: RI.9-10-8)
Key Writing Standards:
Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences. (CCSS: W.9-10.3)
Engage and orient the reader by setting out a problem, situation, or observation, establishing multiple points of view, and introducing a narrator and/or characters; create a smooth progression of experiences or events. (CCSS: W.9-10.3a)
Use a variety of techniques to sequence events so that they build on one another to create a coherent whole. (CCSS: W.9-10.3c)
Use precise words and phrases, telling details, and sensory language to convey a vivid picture of the experiences, events, setting, and/or characters. (CCSS: W.9-10.3d)
Provide a conclusion that follows from and reflects on what is experienced, observed, or resolved over the course of the narrative. (CCSS: W.9-10.3e)
Summative Assessment Task
Phase I ends with an outline of the unit’s summative assessment outlining how students will show their progress of mastery of key standards and showcase their answers to the unit’s essential questions. This provides a goal toward which all weekly and daily learning activities can be designed. Transfer tasks explicitly outline other possible applications of student learning as a result of this unit. In short, these tasks offer an answer to the question, “Why do we have to learn this?”
Transfer Tasks
Writing college application essay
Interest inventory with guidance counselor
Recommended Texts & Tasks for Unit
Choose the selection of texts and writing tasks below that will work for the unit. If you would like to provide feedback on this list or recommend a different task or text, please click here.
Extended Texts
Breaking Through by Fransisco Jiminez (DMS & Overdrive)
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (DMS)
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller (Overdrive)
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (Overdrive)
King Lear by William Shakespeare (Overdrive)
Simon vs the Homo Sapien Agenda by Becky Albertalli (Overdrive)
Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand (Overdrive & DMS)
Short Literary Texts
“David’s Old Soul” by Nikki Grimes (CommonLit) *Must login to CommonLit to view text.
“Harlem” by Langston Hughes (Poetry Foundation)
“Invictus” by William Ernest Henley (CommonLit) (Pair w/ “The Destinies of Two Men…”)
“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost (CommonLit)
“'To Be or Not To Be' Soliloquy" by William Shakespeare (CommonLit)
Short Informational Texts
“Avoid High Student Debt and Dropping Out by Asking These 4 Questions About Any College” by Jake Murray (CommonLit)
“The Destinies of Two Men Who Share One Name” by Michelle Block and Michel Norris (CommonLit) (Pair w/"Invictus")
“The Elements of Success” by Mike Kubic (CommonLit) (Pair w/"Exceprt from 'Self-Reliance'")
“Excerpt from 'Self-Reliance'” by Ralph Waldo Emerson (Pair w/ “The Elements of Success”)
“The Myth of the College Dropout” by Jonathan Wai and Heiner Rindermann (CommonLit)
“What Fear Can Teach Us” by Karen Thompson Walker (CommonLit)
Analytical Writing Tasks
Analysis: Privacy vs. Protection. Examine how having security means giving up certain rights (doc) (Writable)
Analysis: A Conversation Between Two Authors. You will analyze the opinions of two authors by making a script, or an imagined conversation, where these two authors can “debate” about their differing philosophies using evidence from his/her respective texts. (doc) (Writable)
Analysis: "The Road Not Taken." Read “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost and complete a TPCASTT analysis of the poem. Then, plan and write a short constructed response discussing the significance of choices using multiple examples from the text. (doc) (Writable)
Analysis: Fear or Seek “The Unknown.” Read/view “What Fear Can Teach Us” and complete the viewing guide. Then, in a well-written essay, address the following prompt with “What Fear Can Teach Us” and at least one other text from this unit. (doc) (Writable)
Narrative Writing Tasks
SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT - Personal Narrative: How much choice do we have? Your task is to write a personal essay where you tell us who you really want to be. (doc) (Writable)
Narrative: Choices and Consequences (1). Write a story where one of your characters has to make a difficult choice to resolve a problem. Discuss the subsequent consequences of this choice. (doc) (Writable)
Narrative: Choices and Consequences (2). Write a story where one of your characters chooses the opposite choice in your first narrative. Discuss the subsequent consequences of this choice. (doc) (Writable)
Personal Narrative: Current Choices. Discuss a recent situation (in the last year) where you have needed to make a choice(s) to accomplish a goal, complete a task, resolve a conflict, or solve a problem. Describe your internal/external influences of those choices, and whether or not you had complete control over the choices you made. (doc) (Writable)
Research Task
Research: Historically Significant Choices. Choose a significant figure to research whose choices altered the course of human history (negatively or positively). (doc) (Writable)
Research: Research potential careers and/or majors of study based on your intentions, skills, interests and hopes for your future. Prepare a presentation that shares your ideas to your community of support. (11th Grade iCAP task)
Phase III: Planning
Each unit’s Phase III tasks will be a general week-by-week outline of the flow of learning tasks for students. Realizing the cultures and schedules at each site will vary and place unique demands on class time, these outlines are to be seen as generally flexible. Also in recognition of school and classroom cultures, expectations, and practices, unit plans will offer templates for tasks, but will not list daily lessons. This is to allow enough certainty of district alignment while allowing for features such as co-teaching, integrated ELA and social studies, and other unique programmatic designs.
Unit 2 Module 4 Reflection & Feedback
Please leave your feedback, reflections and assignment requests below.
The curriculum design team will meet quarterly to review and respond to your feedback. Please direct immediate questions or concerns to seiler_jenny@svvsd.org.