Grade 11 Unit 2 Module 3
How can challenging ethical norms be good?
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, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain. (CCSS: RL.11-12.1)
Determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to produce a complex account; provide an objective summary of the text. (CCSS: RL.11-12.2)
Use Craft and Structure to:
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including words with multiple meanings or language that is particularly fresh, engaging, or beautiful. (Include Shakespeare as well as other authors.) (CCSS: RL.11-12.4)
Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure specific parts of a text (for example: the choice of where to begin or end a story, the choice to provide a comedic or tragic resolution) contribute to its overall structure and meaning as well as its aesthetic impact. (CCSS: RL.11-12.5)
Analyze a case in which grasping a point of view requires distinguishing what is directly stated in a text from what is really meant (for example: satire, sarcasm, irony, or understatement). (CCSS: RL.11-12.6)
Key Writing Standards
Present information, findings, and supporting evidence, conveying a clear and distinct perspective, such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning, alternative or opposing perspectives are addressed, and the organization, development, substance, and style are appropriate to purpose, audience, and a range of formal and informal tasks. (CCSS: SL.11-12.4)
Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences. (CCSS W.11-12.3)
Engage and orient the reader by setting out a problem, situation, or observation and its significance, establishing one or multiple point(s) of view, and introducing a narrator and/or characters; create a smooth progression of experiences or events. (CCSS W.11-12.3a)
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.11-12.3d)
Select and use stylistic devices to craft engaging and effective text.
Unit Texts & Tasks
Routine Writing
Extended Texts
at least 1
Concussion by Jeanne Marie Laskas
Fighting for Space: Two Pilots & Their Historic Battle for Female Spaceflight by Amy Shira Teitel
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare (Overdrive)
Short Literary Texts
at least 2-3
“Everyday Life as a Learning Experience” by Sarah A. Chrisman (CommonLit) (Pair w/"Excerpt from Walden...")
“Excerpt from Walden: ‘Where I Lived and What I Lived For’” by Henry David Thoreau (CommonLit) (Pair w/ “Everyday Life as…”)
“Fear of Change” by Henry Ford (CommonLit) (Pair w/ “Opposing Innovation”)
“Last Diary Entry of John Wilkes Booth” by John Wilkes Booth (CommonLit) (Pair w/"President Lincoln's...")
“President Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address” by Abraham Lincoln (CommonLit) (Pair w/ “The Last Diary Entry of John Wilkes Booth")
Short Informational Texts
at least 1-2
“Excerpt from Civil Disobedience” by Henry David Thoreau (CommonLit)
“How to Start a Movement” by Derek Sivers (TED-Ed)
“Morality as Anti-Nature” by Friedrich Nietzsche (CommonLit) (Pair w/ “On the Dignity…”)
“On the Dignity or Meanness of Human Nature” by David Hume (CommonLit) (Pair w/"Morality as Anti-Nature")
“Opposing Innovation” by Mike Kubic (CommonLit)
“Teaching Shakespeare in a Maximum Security Prison” by Michel Martin (CommonLit)
Analytical Writing Tasks
at least 4-6
SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT - Analysis: How can challenging ethic norms be good? Your task is to develop a realistic scenario in which your ethical norms have been, or could be, challenged in order to create a deck of scenarios for the high school guidance counselors. (doc) (Writable)
Analysis: Who is Banksy? Explore and analyze how philosophy, religion, and art challenges ethical norms. (Could pair with Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi)(doc) (Writable)
Analysis: Technology Ethics. Explore and analyze how technology challenges ethical norms. (doc) (Writable)
Analysis/Synthesis: Civil Disobedience in Practice. Read the excerpt from “Civil Disobedience” by Henry David Thoreau (CommonLit). Then, read one of the following text options. Next, write a synthesis essay analyzing how Thoreau’s original ideas served as inspiration for others fighting oppression through nonviolent resistance. (doc) (Writable)
Narrative Writing Tasks
at least 1-2
Research Task
at least 1
Research: Is civil disobedience an effective form of protest? Research a modern protest and analyze the impact of social media on the outcome of the conflict. (doc) (Writable)
Research: Conduct research about a psychological phenomenon of your choice that examines moral and ethical choices made by participants and discuss how institutions like the environmental, social, political, spiritual, cultural (etc.) factors help to explain this phenomenon. (doc) (Writable)
Planning
Each unit’s 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.
Reflection & Feedback
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