Unit 2: Traditions/Relationships

Time Frame:  9 Weeks

ELA > Grade 7 > Unit 2

Unit Description

This unit will focus on comparing and contrasting, making inferences, and realizing connections between literature and everyday life. Students will read poetry, short stories, folk tales, and a classic play. Reading strategies will include finding main idea, interpreting poetry, understanding play form, and paraphrasing. Literary devices related to poetry, to characteristics of the play, and to short stories will be addressed. Writing instruction will include compare and contrast, interviewing, journalistic writing, poetry, and character study. Grammar, vocabulary, and spelling instruction will be constructed according to student needs.

Enduring Understandings

·         My interactions with others make a difference in my relationships and self-concept.

·         Basic human needs and motivations are constant across time.

·         Looking at my roots helps me to better understand who I am.

·         The same problems and possibilities recur across generations.

Essential Questions

·         How do my relationships with others affect my self-concept?

·         How can the basic needs of food, shelter, human connection and freedom increase my capacity to love and be loved? How can being deprived affect me?

·         How are the values of my parents and grandparents like/unlike my own? How does my past impact my values and beliefs?

·         How can I identify cross generational problems? What can I learn from them?

GLEs:  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 32, 36, 38, 39, 40, 42, 44, 45, 46

Content Questions

·            What techniques do authors use to describe characters?

·            How do I identify and explain the point of view of the narrator or other characters, as expressed in the characters’ thoughts, words, or actions?

·            What is the universal theme of this literature and how can I relate it to my life?

·            How do I interpret a story, prose, speech or play with poise, quality and use of voice, inflections, enunciations, pronunciations, and physical expression?

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