Unit 1: Reading/Listening for Style: Novel (Compassion)

Unit Enduring Understandings:

 Knowledge and use of vocabulary expands understanding and therefore leads to using language
carefully.

 Textual analysis can be used to gain meaning and draw inferences from a text.

 Themes are an important part of textual analysis that not only help us to understand a text more
deeply, but also our world and ourselves.

 The development of characters over the course of a narrative helps to advance the plot, and vice
versa.

 Authors use and transform source material for a variety of reasons.

 A text’s structure can be used by an author to advance plot and/or create suspense, tension or
mystery.

 A subject can be represented through multiple mediums to create different meanings and experiences
for an audience.

 An author’s choice of medium on a subject impacts an audiences’ understanding of that subject.

 Readers are enriched by exposure to a wide range of literature, including literature from outside of
the United States.

Unit Essential Questions:

 How can the structure of a text impact our understanding of the theme, plot and characters?

 How does characterization advance the plot and deepen meaning of a text?

 How does exposure to a wide range of literature from outside the United States deepen our
understanding of the human experience?

 How do we determine the theme or main idea of a text?

 How do authors’ use source material to transform a text and how does the use of source materials
impact our understanding of later texts?

 How does the use of different mediums impact our understanding of that subject?

Unit Student Abilities:

 Students will use context, word patterns, and reference materials to advance vocabulary and
connotative meaning.
 Students will utilize in text citations to support what a text says explicitly and to infer deeper meaning.

 Students will analyze characterization, structure, theme, and how these elements impact a 9-10th
grade band level text’s overall meaning.

 Students will write, revise, and edit narrative and expository texts using Standard English writing
conventions and organization; focus on use of phrases and colons.

 Students will compare/contrast the representation of a subject in two different artistic mediums.

 Students will analyze the connections between a text and its source material to deepen overall
meaning.

Suggested Unit Performance Tasks:

 Students will analyze in detail a theme from a grade appropriate novel and how that theme develops
over the course of the novel.

 Students search the text for specific details that show how the theme emerges and how it is shaped
and refined over the course of the novel.

 Sample Performance Task: Essay on Theme

Planning

Unit Assessment: Explain how To Kill a Mockingbird was influenced by the societal landscape of the
1930’s. Discuss the evolution of the theme and how it changes throughout the book. Analyze themes of
identity, morality, bias, and justice by making connections between the book and current conditions.

Student will have a choice of medium:

 Write an expository paper

 Create a research poster

 Design Power Point Presentation

Instructional Implications:

Book: To Kill a Mockingbird (student’s choice) Student will complete a prior knowledge assessment such
as a K-W-L to understand gaps or misunderstandings that exist in terms of history and terminology.
Essential questions will lay the groundwork for book discussions and the student will track responses in
their notebook. They’ll be encouraged to respond visually, metaphorically, symbolically, and written.

 What is identity? To what extent do we determine our own identities? What influence does society
have?
 What are stereotypes, and how do they affect how we see ourselves and how others see us?

 How does our identity influence the choices we make? How does analyzing character help us
understand the choices characters in literature make?

 How does the “moral universe” in which we live affect the choices we make? How does analyzing
setting help us understand the choices characters in literature make?

 What dilemmas do individuals confront when their consciences conflict with the rules and
expectations of their communities? What conflicts arise in literature out of the tension between
characters and their setting?

 How does bias limit our understanding of the world? What kind of experiences can widen our
perspective?

 What is justice? What roles do laws and individuals play in creating a just society? How do encounters
with injustice shape our beliefs about justice and morality?

Woven throughout the sessions will be other sources that contextualize the historical implications
during the 1930’s. For example, FDR’s Inaugural Speech, Race in US History video, and Two Names, Two
Worlds poem. The student will also create a visual timeline, both national and international, to
continually connect events from the book to events in history that shaped the story. Student will also
complete the Elements of a Story worksheet to analyze plot, character, theme, and structure. Student
will choose the medium for their unit assessment towards the beginning of the unit and they will receive
a rubric. Progress on the culminating assignment will be scaffolded by providing opportunities to
brainstorm, outline, and structure the work, in addition to be given feedback throughout the process,
which will be broken up into parts. All expectations of the unit assessment and instruction provided will
be aligned with the rubric.