Date: 23 August 2017
Home Connection Highlights of Unit 1: American Voices Dear Family, In this unit, students will investigate what it means to be American. They will consider how tradition and experience affect this question of identity. Students will read a variety of texts and view media as they discuss the Essential Question for the unit. ESSENTIAL QUESTION: As a class, as well as in small groups and independently, students will work to answer this question: What does it mean to be “American”? Give your student the opportunity to continue the discussion at home. TALK IT OVER WITH YOUR STUDENT • What are some of the ways you could answer the question What does it mean to be “American”? • When does someone new to the country become American? Can one be more or less American or is it simply something you are or aren’t? • Why do you think stories related to cultural identity are so popular in American media and books? UNIT 1 SELECTION TITLES, AUTHORS, GENRES Whole-Class Learning “A Quilt of a Country” Anna Quindlen essay “The Immigrant Contribution” John F. Kennedy essay “American History” Judith Ortiz Cofer short story SMALL-GROUP Learning “Rules of the Game” from The Joy Luck Club Amy Tan novel excerpt “The Writing on the Wall” Camille Dungy blog post “With a Little Help From My Friends” Firoozeh Dumas memoir “Morning Talk” Roberta Hill Whiteman poem “Immigrant Picnic” Gregory Djanikian poem INDEPENDENT Learning Your student will choose one of the following to read independently. You may want to read it as well so that you can discuss it together. from When I Was Puerto Rican Esmeralda Santiago memoir “Finding a Voice: A Taiwanese Family Adapts to America” Diane Tsai autobiographical essay “The New Colossus” Emma Lazarus poem “Legal Alien” Pat Mora poem “Grace Abbott and the Fight for Immigrant Rights In America” BBC media: video TALK IT OVER WITH YOUR STUDENT • How did you choose which selection to read? • What is the most interesting aspect of the idea of American voices that you learned from your reading? PERFORMANCE TASKS AND PERFORMANCE-BASED ASSESSMENT Your student will need to respond to the question: How is an “American” identity created? He or she will write a nonfiction narrative and present an interpretative reading, drawing on knowledge gained from the selections in this unit as well as from the Performance Tasks he or she completed. Whole-Class Learning Performance Task After completing the Whole-Class section of the unit, students will learn how to write a nonfiction narrative. They will then write a narrative answering this question: How does your generation define what it means to be an American today? Small-Group Learning Performance Task After completing the Small-Group section of the unit, your student will work with his or her group to record a podcast that addresses this question: How do the realities of immigrants’ experiences reflect or fail to reflect American ideals? End-of-Unit Performance-Based Assessment At the end of the unit, your student will pull together his or her learning by completing a Performance-Based Assessment answering this question: How is an “American” identity created? In response to that question, students will prepare a nonfiction narrative and present an interpretative reading. Activities and assignments in Unit 1 will help your student meet the following Common Core State Standards for reading literature and informational texts, writing, as well as speaking and listening. Here are some key standards that students will work toward in this unit: Reading Literature • Analyze how complex characters develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme. • Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it, and manipulate time create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise. • Analyze how the author unfolds an analysis or series of ideas or events, including the order in which the points are made, how they are introduced and developed, and the connections that are drawn between them. • Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how an author uses rhetoric to advance that point or view or purpose. Writing • Write informative/ explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas, concepts, and information through the selection, organization, and analysis of relevant content. • Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and wellstructured event sequences • Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation. Speaking and Listening • Present information, findings, and supporting evidence clearly, concisely, and logically such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning and the organization, development, substance, and style are appropriate to purpose audience, and task. Thank you for your continuing support! |
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