Great Expectations Unit Curriculum Map
Essential Questions:
1. Is more ever enough?
2. What is a quality life?
3. How will the geographical and
historical setting affect the
characters in Great
Expectations?
4. How does society affect
literature?
5. How can expectations change
your life?
6. What is the role of heritage and
culture in shaping a person's
perspective?
7. How will your understanding of
the historical period enhance
your reading of the book, Great
Expectations?
8. How are people motivated to
change the power structure in a
society?
9. Why is it important to read
different genres?
10. How does an author’s use of
language influence a reader’s
 Formative Assessments (Unit) 
Enduring Understandings:
1. Reading literature from various
time periods and cultures builds
an understanding of the many
aspects of human experience.
2. Authors write for a variety of
purposes.
3. Understanding a text’s structure
helps a reader better understand
the meaning.
 Summative Assessment (End of the Unit) 
Themes: Bildungsroman~
Overcoming Expectations
Victorian Research Project:
Students will be able to investigate a
particular topic pertaining to Victorian
England in the 1800s. (Topic picked on
student interest)
Response to Literature:
Students will respond to the following
question: Based on these examples, what is
Dickens trying to say about the concept of
revenge?
Comparative analysis:
Students will conduct a comparative analysis
between events in Pip’s life and events from
Dicken’s biography
Adopt a Character:
Students will be assigned a character based
on readiness. They will become an authority
on that character and will be called on to
contribute to class discussion, as well as
complete specific tasks based on a variety of
events in the novel.
*If Time* Alternate Ending: Students will
write an alternate ending to the novel.
 Reading Quizzes
 Notebooks Organization
 Vocabulary Development
 Event Map
 Character Map
 Epic Hero (Interest, Readiness)
 Exploring and Tracing Satire
(readiness)
 Bildungsroman
Standards-based Essential Skills & Concepts to
be Targeted Throughout the Unit

 READING OUTCOMES 
How Students will Demonstrate
Their Understanding
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Understand the relationship between literature
and its historical, social, and cultural context
Use textual evidence to substantiate interpretive
claims
Analyze the text for figurative language such as
sensory imagery, similes, metaphors,
personification, hyperbole, allusion
Analyze and interpret complex elements of plot
development
Condense and summarize ideas from one or
more texts
Strategies or Best Practices Used to
Explicitly Teach Skills & Concepts
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Literary Glossary
Conversations Across Time (with
Essential Questions)
Event Map
Character Map
Interactive Notebooks (interest,
readiness)
Collaborative Annotation (readiness)
Readers’ Bookmarks
Instructional Resources
Anchor Text(s):
Great Expectations by Charles
Dickens
Poetry:
Ozmandias by Shelley
Short Stories:
The Jilting of Granny
Weatherall by Porter
Everyday Use by Walker
Journey of the Maji by Eliot
A Nincompoop by Chekhov

 WRITING OUTCOMES 
Theme, Enduring
Understandings &
Essential Questions
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Establish topic, audience, and purpose by
conducting research and accessing
technological resources; by responding to an
article, graph, or prompt; and/or by drawing
from personal experience
Discriminate between relevant and irrelevant
details & facts and opinions, as well as discern
the quality and reliability of information
sources
Choose an appropriate organizational structure
given the topic, audience, and purpose
Engage the reader by establishing a context and
using an appropriate tone based on an
awareness of the audience and the purpose
Demonstrate control over the conventions of
standard English
Organize relevant ideas and information in
preparation to begin writing
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Writing activities
o Sentence Beginnings
o Voice
o Rhetorical Strategies
o 6 Traits of Writing
o ABC Thesis
o Essay Structure
o Using appeals
o Peer Revision (readiness)
o Prewriting Tools
o Revision & Edit
o Audience
o Analysis
o Format
o Research Process
All final drafts are published at
teenink.com
“About Revenge” by Francis
Bacon
Drama:
Nonfiction:
Articles on Russian Revolution,
Farms, Pigs, and Windmills.
Me Talk Pretty One Day by
Sedaris
Other:
“Pip’s World: A Hypertext on
Charles Dickens’s Great
Expectations”
www.umd.umich.edu/casl/hum/
eng/classes/434/geweb/TITLES
PA.htm
“The Victorian Web”
www.victorianweb.org
The Hero with a Thousand
*** All Highlighted pieces are new DI lessons
SPEAKING & LISTENING OUTCOMES 
Great Expectations Unit Curriculum Map
understanding of a text?
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Students will listen, speak, read, and write for
information and understanding.
Students will relate texts and performances to
their own lives; and develop an understanding
of the diverse social, historical, and cultural
dimensions the texts and performances
represent.
Students will listen, speak, read, and write for
critical analysis and evaluation.
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Cooperative Learning Groups (based
on readiness)
Class Discussion
Faces.
www.JosephCampbell.org/mon
omyth