Alexander T. K. Elnabli
In this introductory unit to 9th grade ELA, students will learn how myths and spiritual stories ask and answer fundamental, humanistic questions about where we come from, who we are, and where we are going. While teachers may choose alternatives, this unit proposes Text Sets that pair a modern poem that contains an allusion to a classic myth or spiritual text with a relevant excerpt from that source. The text sets detailed below to fulfill the learning goals of the unit include selections from Old Testament Bible’s Genesis along with Robert Frost’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” the siren excerpt from Homer’s Odyssey along with Margaret Atwood’s “Siren Song,” and the Amar Chitra Katha graphic novel version of The Gita paired with T. S. Eliot’s “The Dry Salvages. These foundational myths and spiritual stories are chosen because the concepts, themes, symbols, and images in them are highly alluded to in later and contemporary literature and philosophy and because they offer insights into humanistic questions that span across time and geography.
Students will learn how knowing these classic texts is crucial for being able to understand how later storytellers allude to these in order to develop their answers to humanistic questions. Students will learn that these connections between storytellers across time and geography constitute traditions and that being familiar with traditions makes one a more aware, empathetic, and insightful inquirer in the humanities. As humanists-in-training, students will engage in discourses with their peers about fundamental human questions and develop a formal, argumentative short essay citing textual evidence to answer the prompt: How does an author use allusion in order to communicate an answer to a fundamental human question? What is the value of studying ancient texts?
Enduring Understandings
As this unit is designed to occupy most of an academic quarter, to build foundational habits and skills that will serve students throughout their high school ELA sequence, and to hook students by getting them thinking about classic humanistic questions, there are a handful of Enduring Understandings students should take away from the unit:
- Myths and spiritual texts ask and answer fundamental questions about what it means to be human.
- Different mythological and spiritual traditions offer similar and different ideas about what it means to be human.
- Humanities is the study of how humans have asked and answered the questions of who we are, where we come from, and where we are going.
- Reading for deep understanding requires becoming familiar with classic stories, images, and ideas to which storytellers continue to allude when communicating meaning.
- Strong readers use pre-reading, during-reading, and after-reading strategies to understand and interpret difficult texts.
- Reading for enjoyment and reading for understanding are both important, but they require different attitudes and skills.
- Reading for understanding requires an academic mindset, skills, and strategies that everyone can learn and in which they can improve.
- Writing for different audiences requires different styles and approaches, and writing for a formal audience requires pre-writing, during-writing, and after-writing strategies
- Being reflective of one’s own understanding, misunderstanding, and goals can help one learn better.
Essential Questions
In order to guide students toward arriving at the big ideas characterized in the Enduring Understandings, the following Essential Questions should be posed in the introduction to the unit and returned to throughout the unit. Students will have the opportunity explicitly to answer these questions and see how their answers change over the course of the unit as they gain new knowledge and skills:
- What does it mean to be human?
- What common elements do stories share that can help us understand their meaning?
- How do writers use allusions to communicate an answer to a fundamental human question?
- How do strong readers make sense of difficult texts?
- How do strong writers develop impactful writing?
Knowledge and Skills
The unit aims to train students in the ELA 9-10 Common Core-aligned skills of literally comprehending, figuratively interpreting, and making connections between texts, both antiquated and contemporary. While there is a heavy focus on foundational reading and writing skills and academic habits that will serve the disciplined collegiate reader who can independently decode, interrogate, interpret, and make meaning of and between a variety of texts, the unit also places emphasis on students’ comprehending the genres of myth and spiritual text. The following curriculum unit may be adapted for use throughout the high school English or humanities curriculum. In those cases, while the knowledge and skills required may not change, the need to provide explicit instruction and multiple practices may be adjusted.
By the end of the unit, students will know:
- key terms (e.g. humanities, allusion, myth, spiritual story, tradition, theme, character, setting, plot).
- the differences of aim, attitude, and method of reading for enjoyment versus reading for understanding.
- the differences of aim and strategy for developing writing for specific audiences.
- the plots and themes in classic myths and spiritual stories that inform later works of literature.
- requirements for an MLA-formatted, typed essay.
By the end of the unit, students will be able to:
- identify literary elements of setting, character, and plot, in order to arrive at literal comprehension and thematic understanding of a myth or spiritual story.
- use context clues and outside resources to determine the meanings of unfamiliar vocabulary to support literal comprehension of text.
- use a Three-Reads strategy to analyze literal and figurative meaning in poetry.
- participate actively and appropriately in small and large group academic discourses about humanistic questions.
- analyze how an author uses allusions to communicate meaning.
- write a formal, MLA-formatted argumentative writing piece in multiple stages.
- employ written and verbal feedback on writing to inform revisions.
- self-reflect on learning in order to appreciate personal growth and set goals for further learning.
Academic Habits of Mind
Finally, as this curriculum unit may be used at the start of 9th grade, it is designed to train students in and to have them continually practice a set of “academic habits of mind” that will serve them as growing readers, writers, and thinkers. The list below reflects the set developed by my department in keeping with our Social Emotional Learning (SEL) goals. Students in the unit consciously reflect on their own behavior and performance in class using these virtuous habits in order to become autonomous, self-aware, and intentional learners. Please feel free to replicate, expand upon, or adapt this list of academic habits of mind to your teaching context:
- CURIOSITY – desire to know about the world
- OPENNESS – willingness to consider new ways of being and thinking in the world
- ENGAGEMENT – sense of investment and involvement in learning
- CREATIVITY – ability to use novel approaches for generating, investigating, and representing ideas
- PERSISTENCE – ability to sustain interest in and attention to short- and long-term projects
- RESPONSIBILITY – ability to take ownership of your actions and understand the consequences of those actions for yourself and others
- FLEXIBILITY – ability to adapt to situations, expectations, and demands
- METACOGNITION – ability to reflect on your own thinking and learning
