Reading

Unit 3: Analyzing Characters & Theme Book Clubs

Unit Focus Book: Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate

The main objective & goal of this unit is for students to be able to read and analyze the characters in the story as well as the overall message from the author. Students will also be analyzing various author's craft moves in stories and the goals authors have for making those decisions.

Things we will focus on in this unit:

• Analyzing characters in literature including how they interact with other characters, what motivates them, how they act/think/say things, how they change through the story, and what problems they face & how they handle those problems.
• Growing a theory about a character based on your analysis about them (see above).
• Identifying & wording high-level themes (hidden/not obvious lessons that are not too specific to the text & are more general and relatable to anyone).
• Identifying author's craft moves & goals.
• Analyzing how author's create a mood/tone of a text.

Book Club Expectations

Students will be required to read a certain amount of pages each week that they determine with their group members. Students will plan out their pages every Friday and have a designated "book club meeting day" each week. Students must read up to the assigned pages prior to their book club meeting (for example, if their meeting day is Thursdays, they must complete the reading up to Wednesday on their log).

Students will be graded on their preparation & participation for book clubs as well as some occasional written reading responses along the way (see rubrics for both of these below). These expectations were explicitly taught in class and reviewed prior to book club meetings (coming prepared, participating, being respectful during book club talks, etc.).