Carolyn L. Streets
I am confident the selected objectives will help students become proficient in these skills. These objectives correspond to the College and Career Readiness (CCR) anchor standards--the former are grade specific, the latter are broader standards--both work to define the end of year skills students are expected to demonstrate. This unit seeks to meet two overall aspects of the K-12 College and Career Readiness (CCR) reading anchor standards. By the end of the school year students can: 1. Synthesize ideas, articulate their own, and confirm their understandings. 2. They understand author’s intent while questioning the author’s assumptions in order to draw their own logical conclusions. I believe these two anchor standards best compliment the ELA middle school curricular objectives selected for this unit. I thought it useful to categorize objectives most complimentary to how I will scaffold student learning. The first objectives R1-R3 focus on key ideas and details whereas R4 focuses on craft and structure.
Objective R1: Cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text: The first objective will be introduced during our viewing of
The Arrival
. This is a wordless visual graphic novel in which students will be required to make inferences and support conclusions drawn from their observations. Students will be challenged to use their background knowledge to form their interpretations based in the visual details presented. Our class discussion of the author’s use of pictures rather than words will help activate students’ inferential skills.
Objective R2: Determine two or more central ideas in a text and analyze their development over the course of the text; provide an objective summary of the text: Students will examine excerpts from the book and film
Brooklyn
in order to determine its central ideas or themes. We will then use class discussion to connect all the ideas/themes gleaned from the readings to the interpretations made when reading the text and then watching film adaptation of
The Arrival
. This book has been translated into a short orchestral film available online. During this time, students will draw tighter inferences about the enduring understandings that connect both stories.
Objective R3: Analyze the interactions between individuals, events, and ideas in a text (e.g., how ideas influence individuals or events, or how individuals influence ideas or events). This objective calls for students to analyze how and why ideas develop and interact over the course the text. Students will then use their background information from their previous readings to analyze the central ideas/themes, and to draw comparisons between all three texts in order to determine their unified enduring understandings.
Objective R4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings; analyze the impact of a specific word choice on meaning and tone: This objective focuses on craft and structure. It requires students to use their interpretive skills to determine how words and phrases are used in a text and to draw conclusions around those interpretations. This will be met during our reading of
Home of the Brave
. Students will specifically focus on the connotative and figurative meanings and then extend their interpretations to analysis on how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.