In this lesson, you will explore identity and race in “The Wife of His Youth.” You'll also conduct a small research project and present information to the class about race relations in America after the Civil War.
The 12th grade learning experience consists of 7 mostly month-long units aligned to the Common Core State Standards, with available course material for teachers and students easily accessible online. Over the course of the year there is a steady progression in text complexity levels, sophistication of writing tasks, speaking and listening activities, and increased opportunities for independent and collaborative work. Rubrics and student models accompany many writing assignments.Throughout the 12th grade year, in addition to the Common Read texts that the whole class reads together, students each select an Independent Reading book and engage with peers in group Book Talks. Language study is embedded in every 12th grade unit as students use annotation to closely review aspects of each text. Teacher resources provide additional materials to support each unit.
Who decides who among us is civilized? What rules should govern immigration into the United States? Whom should we let in? Keep out? What should we do about political refugees or children without papers? What if they would be a drain on our economy?
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Students read William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest and write a short argument about who in the play is truly civilized.
Students participate in a mock trial in which they argue for or against granting asylum to a teenage refugee, and then they write arguments in favor of granting asylum to one refugee and against granting it to another.
Students read an Independent Reading text and write an informational essay about a global issue and how that relates to their book.
GUIDING QUESTIONS
These questions are a guide to stimulate thinking, discussion, and writing on the themes and ideas in the unit. For complete and thoughtful answers and for meaningful discussions, students must use evidence based on careful reading of the texts.
What role do national identity, custom, religion, and other locally held beliefs play in a world increasingly characterized by globalization?
How does Shakespeare’s view of human rights compare with that in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
Who is civilized? Who decides what civilization is or how it’s defined?
How do we behave toward and acknowledge those whose culture is different from our own?
In this lesson, students will write about how their Independent Reading book addresses the unit’s Guiding Questions, and they’ll share their responses with a partner. Students will begin writing a narrative about a time when they were afraid. They’ll also discuss xenophobia.
In this short unit, students will spend three lessons exploring some of Abraham Lincoln's speeches. Students will explore Lincoln's themes and consider how they address the issues of his time, and they'll analyze the literary and rhetorical devices he used to express his ideas.
Today, students will take the writing portion of the culminating assessment.They will reflect on all the material they have read in this unit, and they will use their understanding of all the material presented to them to write an essay. You will evaluate their work in both reading comprehension and writing.
This project unit—a multimedia self-portrait published in digital form—is the capstone of your students' high school careers. It is a chance for them to pause and reflect on where they've been, where they're going, and who they are as a person. Students will reflect on what they want others to know about them: what they want their message to be and what types of media they might use to convey that message. Students will have the opportunity to express themselves in many different formats—through writing, of course, but also through other media of their choosing. Students will be able to convey your message through visual art, photography, a graphic novel, audio, poetry, or video—practically any type of media they want!
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Students will complete a multimedia self-portrait, capturing important aspects of the essence of themselves.
Students will contribute one chapter from their multimedia self-portrait to a class anthology.
Students will present one chapter from their multimedia self-portrait to the class.
GUIDING QUESTIONS
These questions are a guide to stimulate thinking, discussion, and writing on the themes and ideas in the unit. For complete and thoughtful answers and for meaningful discussions, students must use evidence based on careful reading of the texts.
How is late adolescence a moment of internal and external change?
What are the most important qualities of your character—past, present, and future?
How can you portray these key aspects of yourself using multimedia?
BENCHMARK ASSESSMENT: Cold Read
During this unit, on a day of your choosing, we recommend you administer a Cold Read to assess students’ reading comprehension. For this assessment, students read a text they have never seen before and then respond to multiple-choice and constructed-response questions. The assessment is not included in this course materials.
Time to write! Students will get started on the first draft of the written chapter of their self-portrait. They’ll spend time focusing on ways to create a strong and memorable opening to draw their readers in.
In this 5-day unit, students will explore the topic of love. After reading six poems from writers in the 16th and 17th centuries, they will decide which poet had a better idea than the others about how to express love to a young woman.
In this lesson, students will read two fairly short poems with very similar themes. While the message of the poems is of primary importance to the writers and to their intended audience, students will also read to see who is more clever, sincere, and effective.
In this lesson, students will finish discussing the Marvell poem and read “Youth’s the Season Made for Joys.” All four of the poems fit the category of carpe diem poetry. Students will write about which of these poems is best for its purpose and discuss what makes a good love poem.
The laws that govern and the social norms that regulate society are not always fair, legal, moral, or ethical. What is a person to do about all this injustice? What are the hazards of righting injustices or changing social norms? And what are the dangers of doing nothing?
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Students read and annotate Antigone, “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” and Pygmalion.
Students write a literary analysis showing the effect of social class or the law on a character’s life.
GUIDING QUESTIONS
These questions are a guide to stimulate thinking, discussion, and writing on the themes and ideas in the unit. For complete and thoughtful answers and for meaningful discussions, students must use evidence based on careful reading of the texts.
How do social class and legal institutions shape literary characters’ lives (and presumably our lives)?
How does social class affect a person in dealing with the law (protect a person, hurt a person)?
How is social class determined in America and in other places in the world?
BENCHMARK ASSESSMENT: Cold Read
During this unit, on a day of your choosing, we recommend you administer a Cold Read to assess students’ reading comprehension. For this assessment, students read a text they have never seen before and then respond to multiple-choice and constructed-response questions. The assessment is not included in this course materials.
In this lesson, students will discuss in small groups whether Antigone, Thoreau, or Dr. King was the most courageous in his or her stand of civil disobedience. Then they will write a short argument about it.
In this lesson, students will learn about the Greek myth the play Pygmalion is named after. Then they’ll begin reading and annotating the play, stopping periodically to discuss and write about it.
In our lives, we are constantly telling stories to ourselves and to others in an attempt to both understand our experiences and present our best selves to others. But how do we tell a story about ourselves that is both true and positive? How do we hold ourselves up in the best possible light, while still being honest about our struggles and our flaws? Students will explore ways of interpreting and portraying personal experiences. They'll read Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart , analyzing the text through the eyes of one character. They'll get to know that character's flaws and strengths, and they'll tell part of the story from that character's perspective, doing their best to tell an honest tale that presents their character's best side. Then they'll explore their own stories, crafting a personal narrative about an important moment of learning in his or her life.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Students read and analyze Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart , viewing the events and conflicts of the novel through the eyes of one of the central characters.
Students write a two-part narrative project: one narrative told through their character’s perspective and one personal narrative about an incident in their own life.
GUIDING QUESTIONS
These questions are a guide to stimulate thinking, discussion, and writing on the themes and ideas in the unit. For complete and thoughtful answers and for meaningful discussions, students must use evidence based on careful reading of the texts.
How do our conflicts shape and show our character?
How can we tell a story about ourselves that’s both honest and positive?
How do definitions of justice change depending on the culture you live in?
What are ways individuals can react to a changing world? To a community that doesn’t accept us?
BENCHMARK ASSESSMENT: Cold Read
During this unit, on a day of your choosing, we recommend you administer a Cold Read to assess students’ reading comprehension. For this assessment, students read a text they have never seen before and then respond to multiple-choice and constructed-response questions. The assessment is not included in this course materials.
How do we decide what’s “fair”? In this lesson, students will think about what they’ve learned so far about Umuofian justice, and about whether they (and their characters) agree with the systems that exist. They’ll also prepare for the next lesson’s in-class discussion.
Elizabeth Woody is a poet and educator of Navajo, Wasco, and Yakama descent and is an enrolled tribal member of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. Woody’s writing focuses on the histories of her ancestors, the rich Pacific Northwest landscape, and the experience of being a tribal member, an American, and a woman in contemporary society. Woody is the winner of the American Book Award. In 2016, she was named the eighth poet laureate of Oregon—the first person of American Indian heritage to hold that honor. Oregon poets laureate are appointed by the governor and serve a two-year term as cultural ambassadors, traveling around the state to share the power of reading and writing poetry. In this lesson, students will explore and analyze Woody’s poetry. Students will have the opportunity to listen to Woody speak about her work and her relationship with language and the landscape. They will reflect on and discuss her perspective and the process by which she writes. Students will also learn a structured strategy for analyzing poetic text and recognizing key themes. Finally, students will demonstrate what they have learned by creating a group analysis and presentation of one of Woody’s poems.
Nikki Giovanni's poem 'The Funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr.' is paired with Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech, taking students on a quest through time to the Civil Rights movement.
This activity produces a fluent choral reading of Our Big Home: An Earth Poem, by Linda Glaser, when cooperative student groups rehearse, conduct vocabulary word study, and perform for their 4th grade peers.
The student will use the poetry of Phillis Wheatley, Jacqueline Woodson, Countee Cullen, and Amanda Gorman to draw conclusions about the historic eras in which they wrote.