Rolling out all three units next year:
- Create unit overviews for each (see AP Lit poetry unit overview for an example) by the beginning of summer
- Teachers would know what they’re opting into.
- Make it possible for teachers to write their own lessons to fit the unit.
- Would also be good for parent and student communication.
- Also helpful for communicating with SpEd and ELL.
- Write sample lessons over the summer (not a lesson a day, but samples of types of lessons that would be repeated to practice skills and meet a goal).
- Also helpful for principals to have conversations with teachers about purpose of lessons.
- Objectives should be/align with CCSS. Include CCSS language, not just numbers.
- Need to decide on texts by end of the day to be able to start on overviews.
Unit 2:
- Texts proposed by NHS:
- Focused on short stories in district anthologies.
- Other recommended titles: “A New England Nun,” “The Lady or the Tiger,” “The Long Rain,” “Mama,” “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” “Hands,” “Unless It’s a Sucking Chest Wound” (from National Book Award collection)
- Raymond Carver?
- Still planning to use Heath Anthology organization.
- Vote: Curriculum writers will select a pool of possible stories for use with the unit, covering all time periods and providing diverse voices while aligning with unit objectives. They will select 5-8 core texts (one for each time period) that will be required reading. Unanimous approval.
- Vote: Use poetry overview model for overview of unit 2. Unanimous approval.
- Action Item: Read proposed NHS texts. Cathy will send out survey for voting on adoption of each of these Thursday. Please respond by Monday, 6/8.
Unit 3:
- Packard feedback
- Brings up interesting ideas, great that it’s written by woman about women, interesting how it focuses on religious extremism.
- Thought it was well-written but so dark. So little redemption at the end. That would be difficult for students; they’ll ask, “Why do we always read such depressing stories?”
- Nice how it addresses the power of the written word and the power of the collection of disenfranchised voices. Some empowering elements about writing to make change.
- Could make a nice springboard for what’s happening today around the world.
- Final task is an argumentative essay. What would the argument be? Could we have supplemental materials and focus on the boundaries of freedom of speech? Gender power relationships are not resolved – could that be the focus?
- What about Twilight? Better fit in unit 6.
- Laramie Project:
- Are we too limited by saying this has to be drama? Might be better options in fiction.
- If we switch now, there’s not time to pilot this year.
- If these plays don’t work, we’ll learn that in the pilot.
- Are we too limited by saying this has to be drama? Might be better options in fiction.
Vote: To adopt Laramie for piloting by some teachers. 8 yes, 1 maybe
Vote: To adopt Packard for piloting by some teachers. Unanimous approval.
Unit 6
- Twilight added to unit? Does have to go through IMC. Rated TV-PG w/graphic violence and language warning.
- Other recommended lit circle texts:
- Citizen by Claudia Rankine (maybe better to use section as smaller supplemental text)
- Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
- Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
- Toning the Sweep by Angela Johnson (small, might be great for ELL and SpEd)
- Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
- Unaccustomed Earth by Jumpha Lahiri (short story collection, used for 10th at SHS)
- Woman Hollering Creek by Sandra Cisneros
- The Jumping Tree by Rene Saldana, Jr.
- Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
- The Powwow Highway by David Seals
- Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina Garcia
- The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore
- The Color Purple by Alice Walker
- The Residue Years by Mitchell S. Jackson
- The Round House by Louise Ehrdrich
- Are we ready to select books, given that most of us haven’t read most of these? Or should we be developing guidelines for teacher selection of texts? Or some combination?
Vote: To adopt Twilight video as shared experience. Unanimous approval.