Although this unit, like many in English, touches on almost all the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) at some point, there are a few that deserve special attention.
This unit of instruction naturally has a high degree of focus on the Reading Literature strand of the CCSS, 11-12.1-6, with a focus on author’s craft and structure. They will be analyzing and comparing a variety of text over the course of the unit, always with a mind for discerning the authors’ decisions, the literary techniques and devices involved, and the implications of their decisions on the literature created.
Regarding writing, this unit addresses the CCSS Literacy Strand 11-12.3. Students write an imagined narrative paying attention to all the forms and trappings accorded to this writing form. Furthermore, since this is a process-oriented paper, this unit also heavily stresses the skills needed in strand 12.4-6 as students plan, organize, develop, and workshop their papers over the course of the unit.
Considering their writing is fiction and focused on creating an experiment in voice, this unit stresses the CCSS Language Strand 11-12.5, but in a creative rather than an analytical or argumentative sense: instead of discerning an author’s use of figurative language and creating an argument from this, students must employ figurative language in their own work of literature in order to achieve their desired effects.