SECOND NINE WEEKS

Big Idea Focus: Mystery and Suspense

Skill Focus: Literary Analysis

Guiding question:

How does an author use characterization, setting, mood, and diction to create suspense?

How does an author use connotative diction, imagery, details, and figurative language to develop characterization?

Texts:

Major Work: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Fiction: Excerpts from The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway and The First Betrayal by Patricia Bray

Poetry: “The Highwayman” by Alfred Noyes and “The Shark” by E.J. Pratt

Nonfiction: Excerpt from Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

Songs: “The Highwayman” by Lorenna McKennet and “Everywhere” by Fleetwood Mac

Painting: Watson and the Shark by John Singleton Copley

Overview: In preparation for their transition to high school, eighth grade students continue to hone their analytical reading and writing skills. Since eighth graders are expected to master how an author creates suspense, this nine weeks focuses on a theme of mystery and suspense. Students begin with an easily accessible lesson on mood, explore suspense in multiple texts from various genres, and then progresses to the more complex skill of analyzing tone.
Goal: I can continue to use close reading strategies (identifying connotative diction, imagery, details, figures of speech, and point of view) to extract meaning from a variety of texts and to write analytical compositions investigating how authors purposefully use setting, tone, and mood to contribute to the development of suspense and characterization.
I can
·  Understand and apply annotation skills to works studied
·  Create and use dialectical journals and graphic organizers from my annotations
·  Actively participate in purposeful discussions of the selected texts both in small group and whole class settings
·  Link setting, mood, tone, point of view, imagery, and diction to characterization and suspense
·  Compare and contrast setting, mood, and characters in multiple texts
·  Contrast a narrative poem and its musical interpretations
·  Analyze syntax to identify the author’s purpose
·  Identify purposeful use of figurative language, imagery, mood
·  Compose, edit, and revise paragraphs analyzing a text’s purposeful use of literary elements
·  Compose an analytical multi-paragraph essay demonstrating control of paragraph structure, sentence variety, and mechanics