This unit explores and connects the Hero’s Journey archetype and narrative writing. Students apply their understanding of the Hero’s Journey archetype and narrative writing to create their own hero, draft, and revise an original Hero’s Journey narrative. 

Through their study of argumentation, students realize they have the power to convince others to do what is right, to make a change, or to see things from a new perspective. Students learn how to develop an effective argument through reading, writing, collaboration, and debate.  They learn the importance of understanding one’s audience and using research and logic to support a claim.  Students apply their understanding by writing a research-based argumentative essay about a controversial topic.  In their embedded assessment, students will research a debatable issue and evaluate the claims made by various writers. They will use their knowledge of informational text to determine how the information presented is related to and developed.  Students will determine the credibility of their sources and discard irrelevant information while properly paraphrasing and quoting information deemed relevant.

Through their study of argumentation, students realize they have the power to convince others to do what is right, to make a change, or to see things from a new perspective. Students learn how to develop an effective argument through reading, writing, collaboration, and debate.  They learn the importance of understanding one’s audience and using research and logic to support a claim.  Students apply their understanding by writing a research-based argumentative essay about a controversial topic.  In their embedded assessment, students will research a debatable issue and evaluate the claims made by various writers. They will use their knowledge of informational text to determine how the information presented is related to and developed.  Students will determine the credibility of their sources and discard irrelevant information while properly paraphrasing and quoting information deemed relevant.

This unit invites students to study the past as a way to act on their future.  The unit introduces the theme “finding hope in times of despair” through a visual prompt, poetry, and novel excerpts. As part of their embedded assessment, students will work collaboratively in various formats to expound on their own thoughts and build on the ideas of others. In doing so, they will demonstrate their knowledge of language functionality in various contexts. The group’s thoughts and ideas will be synthesized in a panel discussion presentation during which students will summarize a variety of texts and explain their connection to a central theme.  Students will cite relevant textual evidence that contributes to the development of the theme. 

Students have learned that overcoming challenges is not easy, but they have also experienced that finding humor in life can help along the way.  Students will explore and further develop critical analysis skills, identify and analyze levels of comedy, and synthesize their understanding of humor to collaboratively write and revise a multi-paragraph literary analysis of a humorous text.  As part of their embedded assessment, students will work collaboratively to develop an explanatory essay in the form of an analysis.  Together, they will pull evidence from a variety of texts (literary and informational) to support their analysis.  Students will rely on their knowledge of word-solving strategies to make sense of unknown words throughout the course of the unit.