Integrating Young Adult Literature through the Common Core Standards Planning Sheet
Potential Theme: Censorship and Government Control
Common Core Standards
Each unit can be designed to teach any or all of the district's priority Common Core State
Standards, as long as both informational and literary texts are incorporated.
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Potential Essential Questions
Do you let your world control you, or do
you control your world?
Has technology gone too far?
What is the value of books/free thought?
What are the potential dangers of
censorship?
Connected/Supporting Texts
Young Adult Novels:
 Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
 The Giver by Lois Lowery
 The House of the Scorpion by Nancy
Farmer
Nonfiction:
 “Learning to Read and Write” by Frederick
Douglass
 “The Joy of Reading and Writing:
Superman and Me” by Sherman Alexie
 “The Great Imagination Heist” Reynolds
Price
 “You Have Insulted Me: A Letter” Kurt
Vonnegut
 “Learning to Read” Malcolm X
 “The Country That Stopped Reading” from
The New York Times, David Toscana
 ‘Drones for America!’ from the New York
Times
 Nothing to envy : ordinary lives in North
Korea by Barbara Demick
Poetry:
 “Burning a Book” William Stafford (Poem)
 “Barter” Sara Teasdale (Poem)
Graphic Novels:
 Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 : the
authorized adaptation by Tim Hamilton
Illustrated Fiction:
 Lost and Found: Three by Shaun Tan by
Shaun Tan (The Lost Thing)
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Potential Anchor Texts
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
1984 by George Orwell
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Multimodal Connections
Databases:
 Bookmark to the Gale Database Resources
on Fahrenheit 451
 Bookmark to the Gale Database Resources
on 1984
 Bookmark to the Gale Database Resources
on Brave New World
Lesson Plans/Study Guides:
 Class Zone by McDougal Littell
 Big Brother vs. Little Brother: Updating
Orwell’s ’1984’ from the New York Times
 Penguin Study Guide to 1984
 Louisiana Unit
 Study Guide
Film Clip:
 Gleeditions-Fahrenheit 451
*Please remember that if you are trying to access the Gale database from outside of the
Salem-Keizer School District, you will need to provide the User ID/Password.
Adapted From:
Carmichael, Shelia B. Common Core Curriculum Maps in English Language Arts Grades 9-12.
1st. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2012. Print.
"Themes and Essential Questions." Greece Central School District. Greece Central School
District, n.d. Web. 31 Oct. 2013. <http://www.greece.k12.ny.us/academics.cfm?subpage=923>.
Wadham, Rachel L., and Jonathan W. Ostenson. Integrating Young Adult Literature through the
Common Core Standards. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2013. Print.
Wells, Cyndi. Common Core Curriculum Maps in English Language Arts Grades 6-8. 1st. San
Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2012. Print.