Unit Overview: Fantasy and Reality inTuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
Unifying Concept: What Makes Us Who We Are?
Overview: In this unit, students will explore the fantasy genre. Through Reading and writing explanatory and informational text, students will gain a sense of responsibility, logical reasoning and understanding real life situations and how to deal with them. Students will identify the main ideas of the chapters as well as the small inflections that led up to these. Students will apply their knowledge in group activities for each chapter as well as assessments and questioning. Each chapter will also include a project that the students will complete on their own. Additionally, students will apply these same skills while doing research to create their essays. Students’ essays will include a cover page, bibliography and be ready to present three scrapbook pages on a character.
Purpose:
To write daily to explore each chapter
To complete group work
To outline the major and minor details of a reading selection
To employ note taking strategies such as the use of graphic organizers
To write biography on a character of their choice
To conduct research, note taking, paraphrasing, organizational skills and adherence to deadlines.
Enduring Understandings:
Exploring identity and culture uses reading and writing as a way to offer supporting opinions, demonstrate understanding of ideas, and convey real and imagined experiences and events. / Essential Questions:
1. Why do people tell stories?
2. How do cultural experiences influencewho weare?
3. What ways can a writer’smessage be impacted bypunctuation and grammatical correctness or incorrectness?
Target Standards are emphasized every quarter and used in 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).
6.RL.1 Cite textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
6.RL.3 Describe how a particular story’s or drama’s plot unfolds in a series of episodes as well as how the characters respond or change as the plot moves toward a resolution.
6.RL.6 Explain how an author develops the point of view of the narrator or speaker in a text
6.L.1Demonstrate command of the conventions of Standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.
  1. Ensure that pronouns are in the proper case (subjective, objective, and possessive).
  2. Use intensive pronouns (e.g., myself, ourselves).
  3. Recognize and correct inappropriate shifts in pronoun number and person.
  4. Recognize and correct vague pronouns (i.e., ones with unclear or ambiguous antecedents).
e. Recognize variations from Standard English in their own and others’ writing and speaking, and identify and use strategies to improve expression in conventional language.
6.L.2 Demonstrate command of the conventions of Standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.
  1. Use punctuation (commas, parentheses, dashes) to set off nonrestrictive/parenthetical elements.
  2. Spell correctly.
Supporting are related standards that support the highly-leveraged standards in and across grade levels.
6. RI.3 Analyze in detail how a key individual, event, or idea is introduced, illustrated, and elaborated in a text
6. RI.6 Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text and explain how it is conveyed in the text.
6. W.5 With some guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach. (Editing for conventions should demonstrate command of Language standards 1–3 up to and including grade 6.)
6. SL.1 Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 6 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.
  1. Come to discussions prepared having read or studied required material; explicitly draw on that preparation by referring to evidence on the topic, text, or issue to probe and reflect on ideas under discussion.
  2. Follow rules for collegial discussions, set specific goals and deadlines, and define individual roles as needed.
  3. Pose and respond to specific questions with elaboration and detail by making comments that contribute to the topic, text, or issue under discussion.
d. Review the key ideas expressed and demonstrate understanding of multiple perspectives through reflection and paraphrasing.
Constant Standards are routinely addressed every semester.
6.RL.10
6. RI.10
6.W.4,6,10
6.SL.1,6
6.L.6
Selected Readings of Complex Texts:
Extended/Short Texts:
Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt
Sacrifice of Isaac text
What Good Readers Do
Performance Assessments:
Formative Assessments:
Outline for Essay Organization
Chapter Questions
Journal Entries
Group Activities such as Game Board
Character Bio Organizer
Essay Paragraphs, Bibliography and Cover Page Organizer
Weekly vocabulary and comprehension checks and quizzes
Note taking / Summative Assessments:
Final Essay
Answer Key Only School City Assessment

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