As We Get Older, Our Perceptions of Our Personal Responsibilities and Ourselves Change

Unit Overview: A View of the World
Unifying Concept: A View of the World
Overview:In the unit, Innocence and Experience, students examine the development of themes in the texts, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, such as the loss of innocence and the struggle between parents and maturing children.
Purpose:To identify themes presented in the text and argue how they are developed through motifs, symbols, figurative language usage, character development, and plot structural devices. To examine the author’s choices in structure and time, and explain how those can affect the tone, meaning, and audience’s reactions. To use evidence from various texts to discuss an essential question: Should individuals stand up for what is right, even if it puts them at risk?To read various print sources in order to help answer the question. To connect the themes about innocence and experience in the text to the argument essay.
Enduring Understandings:

As we get older, our perceptions of our personal responsibilities and ourselves change.
Good writers use information from multiple sources to support their ideas and always avoid plagiarism.

/ Essential Questions:

How do our individual experiences shape who we become?
How do we remain our authentic selves as we move in and out of different communities, cultures, and contexts?
What do we gain when we learn about the lived experiences of other people?

Target Standards are emphasized during the quarter and used in a formal assessment to evaluate student mastery.
Highly-Leveraged1arethe most essential for students to learn because they have endurance (knowledge and skills are relevant throughout a student's lifetime); leverage (knowledge and skills are used across multiple content areas); and essentiality (knowledge and skills are necessary for success in future courses or grade levels).
9.RI.3 Analyze how the author unfolds an analysis or series of ideas or events, including the order in which the points are made, how they are introduced and developed, and the connections that are drawn between them.
9.RI.8 Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is valid and the evidence is relevant and sufficient; identify false statements and fallacious reasoning
9.W.8 Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced searches effectively; assess the usefulness of each source in answering the research question; integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation.
9.L.3 Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different contexts, to make effective choices for meaning or style, and to comprehend more fully when reading or listening. Write and edit work so that it conforms to the guidelines in a style manual (e.g., MLA Handbook, Turabian’s Manual for Writers) appropriate for the discipline and writing type.
Supportingare related standards that support the highly-leveraged standards in and across grade levels.
9.RL.7 Analyze the representation of a subject or a key scene in two different artistic mediums, including what is emphasized or absent in each treatment (e.g., Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts” and Breughel’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus).
9.RI.6 Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how an author uses rhetoric to advance that point of view or purpose.
9.RI.9 Analyze seminal U.S. documents of historical and literary significance (e.g., Washington’s Farewell Address, the Gettysburg Address, Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms speech, King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”), including how they address related themes and concepts.
9.W.2 Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.
a. Introduce a topic; organize complex ideas, concepts, and information to make important connections and distinctions; include formatting (e.g., headings), graphics (e.g., figures, tables), and multimedia when useful to aiding comprehension.
b. Develop the topic with well-chosen, relevant, and sufficient facts, extended definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples appropriate to the audience’s knowledge of the topic.
c. Use appropriate and varied transitions to link the major sections of the text, create cohesion, and clarify the relationships among complex ideas and concepts.
d. Use precise language and domain-specific vocabulary to manage the complexity of the topic.
e. Establish and maintain a formal style and objective tone while attending to the norms and conventions of the discipline in which they are writing.
f. Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from and supports the information or explanation presented (e.g., articulating implications or the significance of the topic).
9.W.7 Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a selfgenerated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
9.W.9 Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
a. Apply grades 9–10 Reading standards to literature (e.g., "Analyze how an author draws on and transforms source material in a specific work [e.g., how Shakespeare treats a theme or topic from Ovid or the Bible or how a later author draws on a play by Shakespeare]").
b. Apply grades 9–10 Reading standards to literary nonfiction (e.g., "Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is valid and the evidence is relevant and sufficient; identify false statements and fallacious reasoning").
9.SL.5 Make strategic use of digital media (e.g., textual, graphical, audio, visual, and interactive elements) in presentations to enhance understanding of findings, reasoning, and evidence and to add interest.
Constant Standards are addressed routinely every quarter.
9.RL.10
9.RI.10
9.SL.1
9.SL.2
9.SL.6
9.W.4
9.W.5 / 9.W.6
9.W.9
9.W.10
9.L.1
9.L.2
9.L.6
Selected Readings of Complex Texts
Extended/Short Texts:
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez
Additional Instructional Resources
Electronic Resources and Alternative Media:
“10 revolutionary acts of courage by ordinary people” by Robyn Johnson
“The Mind of a Hero” by Stephanie Newman Ph.D.
“Why Don’t We Help? Less is More, at Least When It Comes to Bystanders” by Melissa Burkely Ph.D.
Performance Assessments
Formative Assessments:

Compare/Contrast thinking map
Dialectical journal entries
Argument paragraph outlines
Discussion

/ Summative Assessments:

Argumentative essay- literature
School City 10 question summative

1This definition for highly-leveraged standards was adapted from the “power standard” definition on the website of Millis Public Schools, K-12, in Massachusetts, USA.