English
8th grade English will be comprised on multiple units. The lengths of the projects will differ and will include fiction, nonfiction, articles, and other multimedia types like videos, podcasts, pictures etc. I am hoping to get through four novels this year, but that will depend on funding and availability of materials.
Units
Who Am I?
We will start the year with a unit focused on us and who we are as individuals, as family members, friends and community members. Our teen years are when we spend time We will be learning about different ways learning about who we are and who we want to be. We will learn about how we identify and how our identity affects us in the world.
We will also be reading a novel about a character who is struggling to find her identity and place in the world and in her family. The novel is called "Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter" by Erica Sanchez. The novel has tough topics like death, suicide, and drug use. I will be also bringing in our school counselor for any student who may need to talk if triggered by issues in the novel. I feel that this novel is important for our students to read and is culturally responsive and appropriate for Sheppard's 8th grade students. Students will be required to read 4 chapters of the novel a week and complete a hyperdoc.
We will be completing lessons on multiculturalism, gender identity, racial identity and even a lesson on selfies during this multi-week unit. The unit will conclude with an essay called "I Believe" where students will focus on a topic important to their identity and beliefs.
Memorials and Monuments
I have been thinking about this unit for over a year now, and this summer has given a plethora of wonderful resources and information to work with. We have seen statues toppled and destroyed. Why? This unit will discuss the reasons and purpose behind why monuments and memorials are built, and why sometimes they are taken down.
While we will be discussing the current movement to remove Confederate statues, we will also be learning about how memorials came to be in the first place, what they represent, and who or what is missing from the thousands of memorials and monuments in our country. We will do this by learning about Emmett Till, Ida B. Wells and Eli Person and how they are, or are not, currently memorialized.
We will also be learning about September 11, 2001 and how the country has continued to memorialize that tragedy. We will be doing this by learning about what happened that day, and reading a short novel called "Towers Falling" by Jewell Parker Rhodes about a girl who is also learning about 9-11 and the affect it had on her family.
At the end of the unit, the students will create their own monument or memorial in Tinkercad (a 3D printing program) about someone or something that has been overlooked. The goal is to have their design printed out for them.
Representation in Media and Film
I love movies and television and always have. I took film classes in college and loved going to the movie theaters (when that was safe to do.) This year, I have finally decided to bring it into my classroom.
This will be a shorter unit than the rest, but we will learn about the growing call for BIPOC and LQBTQIA representation in films and popular culture. We will learn to critically watch movies and programs to look for lack or successful representation, challenges or perpetuation of stereotypes and -isms. We will end the unit with each student picking a film to watch and writing a short essay analyzing the film's connection to issues discussed.