Unit Overview: Morality of the Masses
Unifying Concept: Tragedy and Restoration
Overview: In The Crucible people are forced to examine their morals and integrity, and students reading the play will examine how history can be repeated if it is not understood. Students will read and analyze a variety of texts and other materials to understand the historical events during the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism.
Purpose:
To examine the effects of gossip, rumors, and mass hysteria
Toidentify events relevant to the history of social justice around the world
To understand dramatic elements in a play
To make connections between events happening in the time of the witch trials and events that occur currently
To write to inform, to explain, or to argue
Enduring Understandings:
1. Literature explores the willingness to face challenges and explore the unknown.
2.Effective writers use informational writing, including statistics, facts, and anecdotes to inform, explain, and report. / Essential Questions:
  1. What do we gain when we learn about the lived experiences of other people?
  2. What are the politics and consequences of war, and how do these vary based on an individual or cultural perspective?
  3. Why do some people choose to avoid those who are different from them while others seek out diversity?
  4. What are the enduring struggles for justice throughout history?
  5. Does everyone have an equal responsibility to stand up to injustice?
  6. How are bias and prejudice created? How do we overcome them?

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).
11.RI.3 Evaluate the effect of the presentation of a complex set of ideas or sequence of events and explain how specific individuals, ideas, or events interact and develop over the course of the text.
11.RI.6 Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text in which the rhetoric is particularly effective, analyzing how style and content contribute to the power, persuasiveness, or beauty of the text.
11.W.8 Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources; assess the strengths and limitations of each source in terms of the task, purpose, and audience; integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and overreliance on any one source; and follow a standard format for citation.
11.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. Vary syntax for effect, consulting references (e.g., Tufte’s Artful Sentences) for guidance as needed; apply an understanding of syntax to the study of complex texts when reading.
Supporting are related standards that support the highly-leveraged standards in and across grade levels.
11.RL.3 Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama (e.g., where a story is set, how the action is ordered, how the characters are introduced and developed).
11.RL.6 Analyze a case in which grasping point of view requires distinguishing what is directly stated in a text from what is really meant (e.g., satire, sarcasm, irony, or understatement).
11.RI.8 Delineate and evaluate the reasoning in seminal U.S. texts, including the application of constitutional principles and use of legal reasoning (e.g., in U.S. Supreme Court majority opinions and dissents) and the premises, purposes, and arguments in works of public advocacy (e.g., The Federalist, presidential addresses).
11.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.
  1. Introduce a topic; organize complex ideas, concepts, and information so that each new element builds on that which precedes it to create a unified whole; include formatting (e.g., headings), graphics (e.g., figures, tables), and multimedia when useful to aiding comprehension.
  2. Develop the topic thoroughly by selecting the most significant and relevant facts, extended definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples appropriate to the audience’s knowledge of the topic.
  3. Use appropriate and varied transitions and syntax to link the major sections of the text, create cohesion, and clarify the relationships among complex ideas and concepts.
  4. Use precise language, domain-specific vocabulary, and techniques such as metaphor, simile, and analogy to manage the complexity of the topic.
  5. 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).
11.W.7 Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated 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.
11.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.
11.RL.1,10
11.RI.1,10
11.W.4,5,6,10
11.SL.1,2,6
11.L.1,2,6
Selected Readings of Complex Texts
Extended/Short Texts:
The Crucible, Arthur Miller
“Why I Wrote The Crucible,” Arthur Miller
“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,”Jonathan Edwards
“The Demons of Salem are With Us Still,”Victor Navasky
from “The Declaration of the Rights of Women,”Olympe de Gouges
“Half Hanged Mary,” Margaret Atwood
Additional Instructional Resources
Electronic Resources and Alternative Media:










Performance Assessments
Formative Assessments:
Questions for each Act of The Crucible
Unit vocabulary exercises
Quick Writes / Summative Assessments:
Informative/Explanatory Essay
End of Unit test
School City Answer Key Only Assessment

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