Current Course Description

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

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?

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