I am a general education middle school English Language Arts teacher and have taught this novel using traditional English Language Arts strategies. I have primarily used this novel to meet reading objectives during my poetry unit to teach students about the novel’s literary devices such as imagery, personification, and metaphor for example. Lessons often examined how literary devices gave insight into the character’s motivations and would then scaffold learning into character analysis. The novel also explores themes of culture and identity, so initiating activities would build discussion on how House on Mango Street connects to other novels my students may have read. Discussions would center on popular young adult literature (and in some cases, the movie adaptation) about immigrant- minority culture and experiences such as The Sun is Also a Star (Yoon, 2016), The Arrival (Tan, 2006), The Hate You Give (Thomas, 2017), and Americanized (Saedi, 2018). Connections made between these novels would serve as an entry point building students’ background knowledge and used as reference points during lessons. Learning objective outcomes concluded with a writing project where students would write personal narratives and vignettes in the author's poetic style. This unit presents an instructional shift that incorporates culturally relevant pedagogical frameworks into novel study to foreground issues of race, racism, and power that underpin the novel.

The purpose of this unit is to make EM waves of different wavelengths apparent in students’ everyday lives. This will be accomplished by using devices that students are already familiar with and most likely take for granted ­­–microwave and conventional ovens. Students come into the classroom with the understanding that the microwave oven makes their food hot but without knowing why or how this happens at a molecular level. This unit will give the students real-world context for applications of microwaves and infrared waves.

Understanding wave properties and EM waves is relevant to students because EM waves are used for many purposes and surround us every day. These EM waves are used for technology. There are valid health and safety concerns with exposure to some higher frequency waves, such as ultraviolet radiation, x-rays, and gamma rays. This unit will explore why the microwaves in the microwave oven and infrared radiation from the conventional oven do not have the same safety concerns as the higher energy EM waves.

Young students seem fascinated by how their bodies work. This unit serves as an introduction for young students to begin their fundamental understanding of human biology.

The focus in this six-week curriculum unit is for primary-grade scientists to build some conceptual knowledge of the human skeletal system. The use of inquiry allows students at all levels to learn in an inherently differentiated environment, learning new concepts and experiencing laboratory experiments and classroom demonstrations throughout this unit on how our skeleton helps us.

The learning begins with the primary mentor texts, the picture book, The Skeleton Inside You by Philip Balestrino and Bones by Stephen Krensky. Classroom activities include creating models of bones, viewing x-rays, brainstorming design solutions for damaged or missing bones, measuring bones and determining structure features and taking a field trip to the local museum to view and draw skeletons. Students will maintain a science journal throughout the unit.

We want to develop citizens who are knowledgeable problem-solvers as they tackle the challenges of improving the quality of life for themselves and the world around them. One approach that has been heavily utilized in universities and businesses in recent times is known as Design Thinking. It is a model adopted by famous companies such as Google, Apple and Airbnb and they have wielded it to notable effect. The design thinking model is an incredibly powerful and useful process for students to use whenever they are faced with designing solutions to help others. Like any process or skill, it will take practice to become good at it.

While the heart of this unit is the Design Thinking process, I have also connected it to life science concepts related to the human body as outlined in both NGSS and Connecticut State Standards. The unit should take nine or ten 45 minute lessons to complete, depending on the complexity of the projects to be prototyped and tested.

This unit is geared for high school biology students. The unit will take place after the students have learned about ecology and population growth. The students will use their prior knowledge on subjects like food webs and balance within ecosystems to understand how small factors can cause great changes.

The unit will start off by considering invasive species and how the introduction of a single new organism into an ecosystem that is already in balance can disrupt the flow of energy. With this in mind, the students will think about how humans have done something similar. We introduced ourselves into new areas and have caused environmental harm. From there, we will study climate-based damage caused by humans and consider the environmental and biological impacts.

Finally, we will design strategies to adapt to a changing planet. This will have the students looking into how the world has changed, and what we can do to cope with the diverse climate-based impacts.

Identity is complicated, and changes depending on who you are and where you are. In our country, identity is directly tied to power and some are afforded privileges and others have disadvantages. This course will study identity as a social construct, and will go into further depth on race. Students will study the complications and nuances that go into the formation of identity and race, historical injustices and responses tied to it. We will study redlining, and a specific chapter of history, the South Bronx in the 1960’s. Rap music is currently the most successful music genre, even having small ripples in the country music world. Its origins, often overlooked due to the multi-faceted nature of the music, is a culture with a rich history rooted in social justice, giving a voice to the voices that were silenced. Its origins in the South Bronx, and its usage as a platform in response to social inequity, is often overlooked. Rap is a platform used worldwide to express a specific message. However, its role in academia, and in music in general, is often polarizing. We will do a specific study in rap as a form of response to systemic racism. By interacting with this curriculum, students engage in ethical reflection, in a safe space, finding a platform for their voice, learning content that’s relevant to current day. They will engage in informed conversations about race and equity, producing creative and analytical writing, while significantly improving their analytical reading and writing skills.

This unit looks at the interplay between losses in privacy and gains in convenience that accompany the ever-expanding use of and reliance on digital media and technology in our lives. The aim is not to convince students of a specific stance; rather, it is to provide an opportunity for students to look critically at the ways in which privacy has changed and to think about taking intentional action regarding their own use of digital media.

Each week of the unit, students will grapple with an essential question that focuses their attention on one aspect of privacy. As the core text, George Orwell’s 1984 elucidates two major definitions of privacy: first, the internal thoughts that we develop and contemplate without outside influence; and second, the freedom from being observed, accessed, and controlled by outsiders.

Throughout this unit, students will produce short argumentative pieces drawing evidence from the texts read for and discussed in class. The short pieces of writing students produce throughout the class will culminate in a final argumentative essay weighing the interplay and value of privacy and convenience in our digital lives.

The main content objectives covered in this unit are the phenomena of global warming, carbon cycle, ocean acidification, and its impact on plants, animals, and the marine ecosystem. The main purpose of this is to provide the reader with the basic knowledge base about these processes and understand the main players that are responsible for them. Fossil fuel pollution by human activities is contributing to the increase in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Some of the CO2 is being absorbed by the oceans. This process increases the number of free hydrogen ions in the oceans, making the ocean water more acidic. This phenomenon is called ocean acidification. When oceans become acidic, they can negatively affect the plants, living organisms such as shell-forming organisms, and other marine life. The results of this process are devastating and this unit hopes to bring students’ attention to these dangers.

This intention of this unit plan is to introduce high school students to linear regression in the context of a real-world issue – income inequality. By examining various types of graphs, students will alerted to the fact that income is unevenly distributed on both a domestic and global scale. They will come up with quantitative variables that might contribute to income inequality and research the variables that interest them in depth. They will use graphing calculator technology to obtain a linear regression equation that describes the relationship between their variable of interest and the level of income inequality in a location, as measured by the Gini coefficient. Specifically, they will assess the linearity of the relationship between their variable of interest and the Gini coefficient by interpreting the correlation coefficient for the scatterplot of their data and examining a plot of residuals. Their ultimate goal will be to come up with a proposal for alleviating income inequality based on their findings.

This curriculum unit examines the Sioux and Coeur d’Alene in film as secondary sources of Native American cultures, two modern writers (Joy Harjo and Sherman Alexie) to divulge Native American voices and a primary source by the American Indian Movement (The Trail of Broken Treaties: A 20-point Position Paper) to rewrite the colonial settler narrative. How does Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and Smoke Signals challenge colorblindness in the AP curriculum? How do Harjo and Alexie compose a new account that punctures legitimized racism in modern America? How does the American Indian Movement provide a counter narrative to the settler colonial ideas embedded in the current curriculum? At the end of the unit, students will clearly be able to counter the colonial settler narrative and legitimized racism in the AP U.S. History curriculum.

In today’s world, the most debated environmental issues are climate change, pollution, deforestation, acid rain, ozone layer depletion, waste management and genetically modified organisms (GMO’s). However, there is an issue that most people don’t even think about and yet has important effects on human health: the quality of indoor air. A poor indoor air quality (IAQ) has been found responsible for the death of 4.3 million people in 2012, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The purpose of this unit is to provide the middle and high school Science teachers with an overview of the main sources of indoor air pollution (breathing and carbon dioxide emissions in highly occupied classrooms, tobacco smoking, use of electronic cigarettes and emissions of organic compounds resulted from the use of cleaning agents, building materials). Students will explore and study the indoor air compounds that are harmful for human health, identify the sources of indoor air pollution and learn what they can do to reduce that pollution inside classrooms and homes. Teachers will use the concepts of indoor air pollution to expose students to organic and inorganic chemistry and introduce students to the basic nomenclature of organic compounds.

Students will also study and model the concentration of indoor pollutants and find out how much a classroom must be ventilated in order to keep the concentrations of some pollutants (for example carbon dioxide) at a low level.

The unit is intended to be taught in high school Chemistry, Physical and Environmental Science classes, but it can be used also by middle school 7th and 8th grade Science teachers to introduce students to concepts related to indoor air pollution.

The unit will last approximately two weeks.

While the unifying focus of my unit will be the outcomes of globalization and trade in women’s lives, I have found it helpful to divide the content into two distinct sections—women in “developed” and “developing” nations around the world. The distinction between countries that fall under these labels was not based on my singular judgement, but rather a dichotomy that academics have discussed at length as emerging from the international trade system of the past several decades.1 Some common features that define nations considered “developed” in this system (to name just a few) include a service-based economy, an importation of goods produced from manufacturing/more labor-intensive industries, and a powerful voice in setting global trade regulations. In contrast, a few features that can be used to identify “developing” nations include an export-oriented economy, rapid urbanization, and the implementation of “shock therapy” structural adjustments promoted by global economic organizations. These distinct categories will provide a useful framework for students to gain a fundamental understanding of how different countries around the world interact with the same system. It would, of course, be more accurate to consider these categories as ends of a spectrum—with several nations existing somewhere in between “developing” and “developed.” I plan on addressing this nuance while not only introducing the unit, but also at various points throughout. By contrasting case studies from countries like the U.S. with Bangladesh, I plan to highlight the opposite ends of the same global system while working to avoid the promotion of a dichotomous, uncritical perspective of the world.

This unit exposes 10th or 11th grade Chemistry, Physical and Environmental Science students to basic concepts of Biotechnology. Students will learn that, through the use of Biotechnology, scientists and engineers are able to modify genetic structure in animals and plants to improve them for the development of beneficial products. In this unit, students will be introduced to specific biotechnology aspects of genetic engineering, artificial tissue development, tissue regeneration and tissue culture in which fragments of living tissue from an animal or plant are transferred to an artificial environment in which they can continue to survive and function.

In order to understand these larger concepts, the unit contains a short presentation of “Molecules of life”, exposing students to the fundamentals of proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, nucleic acids and their components. Concepts in biotechnology development will be accompanied by a two week lesson plan that provides real-world examples and hands-on laboratory protocols.

Students will explore what is Biotechnology as a branch of Science and explain its role in everyday life. They will also study and conduct experiments in testing proteins, carbohydrates, lipids and learn about fermentation process. Teachers will use the concepts of Biotechnology to expose students to organic chemistry concepts such as carboxylic acids, amines, and introduce students to the basic nomenclature of these organic compounds.

This unit is an attempt to inform high school students about some of the fundamental concepts that constitute this important area of science - the food chemistry. Students will review the concepts of chemical compounds, mixtures (solutions, suspensions, colloids and emulsions), physical and chemical changes and learn about food chemistry. They will also learn about some of the most important organic chemistry compounds, the hydrocarbon derivatives or functional groups.

This unit will be tied into students’ chemistry courses, strengthening their knowledge of organic chemistry and preparing them for future college biochemistry, general and organic chemistry classes. The lesson plans require about 12 class periods and cover the concepts of covalent bonds (single, double and triple bonds), functional groups (alcohols, aldehydes and ketones, carboxylic acids, esters, amines, amides) and mixtures (suspensions, colloids, and emulsions). The last lesson is going to cover the basic concepts of hydrophilicity, hydrophobicity, and amphiphilicity of different molecules mixed with water.

Students will engage in viewing and researching videos and artifacts about thriving black communities that developed in the early 20th century amidst the violence of Jim Crow. The dominant narrative about US History from the end of Reconstruction to the mid-20th century has often portrayed Black people as hopeless and destitute. In reality, many Black people left the south, moved north or Midwest to establish flourishing communities. Black communities in Tulsa, Knoxville and Chicago were making great progress in the first two decades of the 20th century. But during the Red Summer of 1919, the aforementioned communities and others were burned down by white mobs and never rebuilt. One community was burned down and filled in with water, later becoming a lake. These mobs murdered blacks, decimated their townships, and then attempted to conceal this history, often erasing it entirely from history books.

Students’ culminating project is research, documentation, and presentation of their findings through a student-led Community Action Event.

Clean and purified drinking water is a basic human need and over ¾ of the Earth’s human population has the luxury of having it piped directly into their homes. Unfortunately, that leaves almost 2 billion people worldwide where access to clean water is questionable. This unit will help students understand the risks involved with drinking untreated water and engage them in an engineering project to produce a means of filtering water to make it less risky. The beginning of this unit is designed to first help students understand the risks of drinking dirty water by introducing them to the world of microbial pathogens. Students will learn about some of the most common bacteria, viruses, and protozoa that can be lurking in a potential drinking water source. Then students will learn the basics of water treatment and how water treatment has evolved over the past thousand years. Students will use this knowledge to finally construct and test a water filter of their own design.

The unit was written in partnership with Dr. Jordan Peccia, a professor of Environmental Engineering at Yale University. It is designed for elementary students as young as third grade, but the concept and strategies involved can easily be adapted to learners of any age.

Teenagers often feel the need to hide their true identity deep inside, but the mask that gains them acceptance can also crush their spirit. This unit examines façade, personal repression, and societal oppression via the aptly titled book, Bottled Up by Jaye Murray. Bottled U p is the story of Pip, a teenage screw up, who represses everything he feels until a book assigned in English class tears away his mask. Reading Stevenson’s novel, Pip realizes he’s living out his own Jekyll and Hyde story. Eventually, he manages to shirk society’s restrictions, balance his impulses, and release the truth of his soul. Murray’s book provides an opportunity to delve into some of the many powerful adaptations of a classic story, while also serving as the foundation for a socially progressive unit. During this unit students will track the consequences of repression in various Jekyll and Hyde adaptations. They will explore socio-cultural influences on each version while building analytical skills to deal with written and filmed texts. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, students will question the repressions our current society demands, evaluate the consequences, and ask themselves what they can do as citizens to right some of the world’s injustices.

The students will explore the literary and art materials to analyze their transformative and/or healing elements. Through this exploration, students will sharpen their own voices and find within themselves a cause worth expressing for, fighting for and/or healing from. They will work on creating playlists as we travel through the texts and artwork. They will also create a piece of artwork with an artist’s statement that we can publish in a magazine representing the whole class’s effort and aspirations.

This unit focuses on the surveillance culture and lost liberties in post 9/11 America and in the wake of hurricane Katrina. An increasing number of my students display interests in social justice and activism, two areas that should be at the heart of “Citizenship, Identity, and Democracy.” Initial research questions revolve around surveillance culture (SC): is today’s SC a byproduct of the post-9/11 era or a carryover from the Cold War? How much further back in time do its roots go?

What rights and privileges are guaranteed to citizens under the constitution? If times of ‘emergency’ require a suspension, a limitation, or alteration of these rights and privileges, how do we know what an “emergency” is during a period in which we wage wars on drugs as well as terror, and in which the “War on Terror” has lasted for more than a decade? Does the requirement need amending in times of seemingly endless conflict/war, or is a state of emergency temporary by definition?

This Latinx History curriculum outlines a yearlong course, one which can be taught on its own, but which is being conceived as part of a course that will integrate both African American and Latinx history. The curriculum begins by naming the problematic dominant narratives that one may internalize or reproduce when learning about or teaching Latinx history, along with the counter narratives that tell a more accurate, complete, and political history. The five units covered in this curriculum begin with an analysis of the various terms used for Latinx people, and a history of them, concluding with a debate that asks: Are these terms more helpful or harmful to the community they claim to serve? Following this unit, the course takes on a chronological format, beginning with the history of the indigenous people of Latin America and their resistance to Spanish colonization. Next, the unit follows the independence and revolutionary movements across Latin America in the 1800s and early 1900s, followed by U.S. imperialism and changing borders throughout the second half of the 19th century and into the 20th century. The curriculum concludes with a unit on the intersectional Latinx movements of the 20th century, with an emphasis on culture as a tool of resistance and survival.