Embedded Files
This is a year-long course that is divided into semesters. Each semester has two 9-week quarters. The course description below is for First semester and is divided into Quarters 1 & 2.
Based on the work of Gallagher and Kittle, each quarter students begin with low-risk writing in the focus genre, and then loop up to more complex, work-shopped writing.
Quarter 1: Bearing Witness & Taking Action
Quarter 1: Bearing Witness & Taking Action
Anchor Texts:
- Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes
- Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
Supplemental Texts and Materials:
- “The Importance of Bearing Witness” TEDx by Fernando Perez (video)
- “The Body of Emmett Till” 100 Photos by TIME (video)
- “The Children’s Crusade of 1963” - American Freedom Stories on Biography (video)
- “Does reading fiction make you a better person” from The Washington Post
- “The Long, Steady Decline of Literary Reading” from The Washington Post
- The Code of the Streets” from The Atlantic
- “Endless fascination: in praise of novels without neat conclusions” by Lee Rourke from The Guardian
- USA Today article “A chain of violence: Gang retaliation has made Wilmington an especially deadly place for teens”
- Violent Stories: Personal Narratives, Street Socialization, and the Negotiation of Street Culture Among Street-Oriented Youth” by Timothy Lauger (excerpt)
- Media and Visual:
- Daily Show with Trevor Noah interview with Jason Reynolds
- CBS This Morning Gail King Interview with Jason Reynolds
- CBS This Morning: Gail King interview with Jason Reynolds (extended Green Room conversation)
- Code of the Street YouTube documentary
- Podcast 74 Seconds about the death of Philando Castile and the trial of Jeronimo Janez
Reading Workshop:
- Student-selected texts
- Reading Response notebook
- Student-led Book Talks
- Student-created Book Projects
Process-Written Writing Projects: Narrative Genre
- "I am from" poetry
- 6-word memoir
- 100-word memoir (Humans of ____)
- 2-4-page memoir
Language Focus:
- Sadlier Oxford Level C Vocabulary, Units 1-3
- Punctuation for a pause: Commas, Dashes, Ellipses
Quarter 2: How Do We Heal Our Own Dystopias?
Quarter 2: How Do We Heal Our Own Dystopias?
Anchor Text:
- The Giver by Lois Lowry
Supplemental Texts and Materials (all available on NewsELA unless otherwise noted):
- "Students blame government for inaction on climate change"
- "US Government Report: Climate Change is Real"
- "Earth can heal from global warming if countries stop using coal, group says"
- "Earth's biodiversity is disappearing, according to U.N."
- "Kirbati: The Face of Climate Change"
- "U.N. report says climate change is rapidly hurting the Earth's land"
- "Trump and EPA to pull the plug on Obama's clean power plan"
- "Trump signs order that will boost oil, gas, and coal production in the U.S."
- "Politicians divided as they debate Green New Deal"
- "This 18-year old is suing the government over climate change"
- "Hockey league is being proactive to fight the threat of climate change"
- "Fight climate change before it's too late, say youth around the world"
- "Greta Thunberg backs climate general strike to force leaders to act"
- YouTube clips of movie version of The Giver
Reading Workshop:
- Student-selected texts
- Reading Response notebook
- Student-led Book Talks
- Student-created Book Projects
Process-Written Writing Projects: Informational Genre
- Book Review
- Advice on ways to clean up and prevent water pollution
- Infographic on something that makes our world a dystopia
- Article on something that makes our world a dystopia with a call to action
Language Focus:
- Sadlier Oxford Level C Vocabulary, Units 4-6
- Verbals
- Figures of Speech/Puns
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