UNIT OF STUDY
: literacy nonfiction-reflection (the memoir, the essay, and the speech
TIME FRAME:
First Quarter
ESSENTIAL/INQUIRY QUESTION(s):
How is reflecting different from remembering?
EVIDENCE OUTCOMES/ ASSESSMENT
Bolded and underlined EOs indicate focused attention throughout study & assessed EOs in this unit – All EOs will be assessed sometime throughout the year.
ACTIVITIES
KEY RESOURCES
List is for all activities throughout the unit
Speaking & Listening
(Formative & interim assessments are listed beside EOs being assessed – summative assessment(s) are listed separately & may target more than one EO.)
1.1a, 1.1.c,
Summative Assessment:
First, students will interview an adult member of their family. The interview must be substantive; if transcribed, it should be at least one thousand words.
Then, they will compose & present memoirs in the voice of the relative.
Reading for all Purposes
2.1.a, 2.1c, 2.2.c, 2.2.i, 2.2l
Summative Assessment:
Write an informative/explanatory essay in which you discuss how two literary texts studied illustrate
Faulkner’s thesis in his 1949 Nobel Prize acceptance speech. State your thesis clearly and include at least three pieces of evidence to support it. You may choose to post your draft on our shared online site and receive feedback from classmates before publication.
Identifying the elements of a good speech: Read & compare Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address with Martin
Luther King Jr.’s Address at the March on Washington and explain why these are both considered great speeches. Ensure students give specifics and cite from the texts.
Select a one-minute passage from one of the speeches listed and recite it from memory. Include an introduction that explains:
 The occasion/context of the speech
 Its literary and historical significance
Record your recitation using a video camera so you can evaluate your performance for accuracy.

Identify and explain the effect of stylistic devices used in memoirs.
Using multiple resources - read, identify and analyze the effect of rhetorical strategies in speeches such as alliteration, repetition, and extended metaphors.
Author style & purpose:
Reading & Writing: Review interjections and their punctuation. Identify the interjections in a passage from one of the memoirs. Explain why their use is appropriate. Would there have been another way to write the sentences(s) in which the interjections are used—and still have the same effect? Why or why not?
Articles o
"The Coming Merger of Mind and
Machine" (Ray Kurzweil) (E)
Essays o
“Lincoln and the Gettysburg Awakening”
(Glenn LaFantasie) (excerpts) o
“Avant-Garde and Kitsch” (Clement
Greenberg) o Life on the Mississippi (Mark Twain) (EA)
(excerpts)
Memoirs o
“A Four Hundred Year Old Woman”
(Bharati Mukherjee) o “A Sketch of the Past” (Virginia Woolf) o
"Learning to Read and Write" (Frederick
Douglass) (EA)
Speeches o “Brandenburg Gate Address” (Ronald
Reagan) o
“Gettysburg Address” (Abraham Lincoln)
(E)
 Art o Albrecht Durer, Self-Portrait at the age of 13 (1484)
Artemisia Gentileschi, Self-Portrait as the Allegory of
Painting (1630s) Additional Resources
 Online Bank of American Speeches
(americanrhetoric.com)
 Annotated List of Memoirs (ReadWriteThink)

Writing & Composition
2.2g, 3.3.a , 3.3g
Summative Assessment:
Write a memoir (perhaps after the style of one of those read) recounting a specific person, place, experience, event, day, moment, work of art, or another specific thing and convey its significance to you. You will add a multimedia component to your memoir, such as a digital slide presentation, for posting on the class web page.
Research & Reasoning
4.1a, 4.2c
Summative Assessment:
Reflection paper: How does an “artist’s – writer’s” biases impact the messages expressed to audiences?
Use examples from our studies and examples of your own thinking and biases.
Reading & writing --Examine the artworks listed.
Begin by comparing Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait at an early age with his Self-Portrait at the Age of 63. How has the artist depicted himself in both paintings?
Although you can infer from the titles and dates of the works that the artist has aged, what visual clues is
Rembrandt giving you? How is he drawing you, as the viewer, into the work of art? Is he telling a story through these portraits—and if so, how? Now view two very different self-portraits—by Jacob Lawrence and Pablo Picasso. How has self-portraiture changed, and remained the same, over time? What similarities can you find in these self-portraits? How do authors create the same visual images through their writing?
Examine Courbet’s The Desperate Man and
Matthíasdóttir’s Self Portrait with Dark Coat. How has each artist chosen to depict himself or herself? What mood is each painter trying to depict, and what visual clues led you to discover this? Why do you believe that painters paint themselves—especially in the case of these two images? Is it similar to why people write memoirs? Are these self-portraits believable—that is, do you think it is a faithful depiction of the painter?
What do we mean by "faithful” in portraiture, or in writing?
 Introducing the Essay: Twain, Douglass, and
American Nonfiction (National Endowment for the Humanities) (RI.9-10.5)
CONTENT CONNECTIONS
The unit allows students to recognize and appreciate the effective use of literary devices in nonfiction.
Students are exposed to memoirs from various cultures and look for common techniques. Works of art that address similar goals, such as self-portraits, are also examined to compare presentation. Students also consider the ways in which essays and speeches may exhibit the same reflective qualities, whereby the authors or orators engage readers or listeners to think carefully about literature, events, or ideas in a new way.

UNIT OF STUDY
:
TIME FRAME:
ESSENTIAL/INQUIRY QUESTION(s):
EVIDENCE OUTCOMES/
ASSESSMENT
Bolded and underlined EOs indicate focused attention throughout study & assessed EOs in this unit – All EOs will be assessed sometime throughout the year.
Speaking & Listening
(Formative & interim assessments are listed beside EOs being assessed – summative assessment(s) are listed separately & may target more than one EO.)
Summative Assessment:
Reading for all Purposes
Summative Assessment:
Writing & Composition
Summative Assessment:
Research & Reasoning
Summative Assessment:
ACTIVITIES KEY RESOURCES
List is for all activities throughout the unit
CONTENT CONNECTIONS

UNIT OF STUDY
:
TIME FRAME:
ESSENTIAL/INQUIRY QUESTION(s):
EVIDENCE OUTCOMES/
ASSESSMENT
Bolded and underlined EOs indicate focused attention throughout study & assessed EOs in this unit – All EOs will be assessed sometime throughout the year.
Speaking & Listening
(Formative & interim assessments are listed beside EOs being assessed – summative assessment(s) are listed separately & may target more than one EO.)
Summative Assessment:
Reading for all Purposes
Summative Assessment:
Writing & Composition
Summative Assessment:
Research & Reasoning
Summative Assessment:
ACTIVITIES KEY RESOURCES
List is for all activities throughout the unit
CONTENT CONNECTIONS

UNIT OF STUDY
:
TIME FRAME:
ESSENTIAL/INQUIRY QUESTION(s):
EVIDENCE OUTCOMES/
ASSESSMENT
Bolded and underlined EOs indicate focused attention throughout study & assessed EOs in this unit – All EOs will be assessed sometime throughout the year.
Speaking & Listening
(Formative & interim assessments are listed beside EOs being assessed – summative assessment(s) are listed separately & may target more than one EO.)
Summative Assessment:
Reading for all Purposes
Summative Assessment:
Writing & Composition
Summative Assessment:
Research & Reasoning
Summative Assessment:
ACTIVITIES KEY RESOURCES
List is for all activities throughout the unit
CONTENT CONNECTIONS