Unit Plan Template
B. Vogt
“Seafarer”
Unit AuthorFirst and Last Name / Barbara L. Vogt
School District / Dare County
School Name / Manteo High School
School City, State / Manteo, North Carolina
Unit Overview
Unit Title
From Legend to History (A.D. 449 -1465)
Unit Summary
The Seafarer; (other works to be covered in this unit > Beowulf; The Canterbury Tales: The Prologue, The Pardoner’s Tale; The Wife of Bath)
Protagonist and speaker: an old sailor
Antagonist: an indifferent culture
Conflict: person vs. self; person vs. nature
Point of view: first person, with narrator as character
Significant techniques: metaphor setting, characterization, atmosphere, personification
Setting: somewhere in northern Europe before A.D. 950
“The Seafarer” describes the sea voyage of its narrator, an old sailor. Readers are introduced to the narrator’s love of the sea to be more exciting and fulfilling than life on land. This section also concerns the transitory nature of earthly pleasures and glories, and of life itself. The last twenty-one lines contain the narrator’s belief that all people should look to God for an answer to the question of life’s meaning.
Throughout the course: A Senior-Graduation Product
Subject Area
English IV
Grade Level
Grades: 12
Approximate Time Needed
(See Benchmark Dates) Posted behind this sheet
Unit I
North Carolina Essential Standards
English Language Arts: English IV
C = Written and Oral Communication
EIV.C.1 Use appropriate language and conventions during oral, written, and digital communication.
Ø EVI.C.1.1 Use appropriate diction punctuation and sentence variety to achieve a specific purpose and to reach a defined audience.
Ø EIV.C.1.2 Use structure, details, and transitions to communicate ideas effectively.
Ø EIV.C.1.3 Use self-evaluation, peer reviews, and teacher conferences to revise and to edit oral, written, and digital communication to produce fussiness, technical, and academic texts.
Ø EIV.C.1.4 Use the appropriate mode of communication informative—informative, reflective, argumentative, and critical—to speak, to read, and to write.
EIV.C.2 Analyze Literary conventions of oral and written communication
Ø EIV.C.2.1 Analyze literary conventions in terms of appropriateness for a specific purpose and defined audience.
Ø EIV.C.2.2 Use appropriate literary conventions during oral and written communication.
EIV.C.3 Use appropriate literary strategies to construct persuasive arguments.
Ø EIV.C.3.1 Classify appropriate literary strategies according to purpose and audience.
Ø EIV.C.3.2 Use appropriate analytical strategies during an oral presentation or written literary analysis for a specific purpose and defined audience.
EIV.C.4 Evaluate the oral presentation skills of speakers.
Ø EIV.C.4.1 Summarize information presented during oral communication.
Ø EIV.C.4.2 Use oral instructions to perform specific tasks, to answer questions, and to solve problems.
Ø EIV.C.4.3 Evaluate Speeches in terms of thesis, elaboration, structure, style, voice qualities, and delivery strategies.
EIV.C.5 Evaluate differing perspectives and conclusions from online and other sources of academic discussions.
Ø EIV.C.5.1 Use various technologies, such as blogs or other online collaborative tools, to conduct academic discussions addressing different perspectives and conclusions.
Ø EIV.C.5.2 Evaluate online and other sources of academic discussions according to their different perspective and conclusions.
EIV.C.6 Create persuasive multimodal small group presentation about global issues.
Ø EIV.C.6.1 Evaluate historical documents, British literature, and nonfiction as sources for persuading a global audience regarding a specific purpose within a defined content.
Ø EIV.C.6.2 Produce a multimodal small group presentation to persuade a global audience to understand divergent perspectives about a global issue.
L = Language and Meaning
EIV.L.1 Analyze language for meaning, structure, conventions, and literary techniques
Ø EIV.1.1 Differentiate between contextual word meaning and denotative meaning
Ø EIV.L.1.2 Classify sentences according to their structure, type, conventions, and literary techniques.
Ø EIV.L.1.3 Use language to compose communication for a specific purpose, audience, and context.
EIV.L.2 Use appropriate print and digital sources to determine meaning, pronunciation, word origin, spelling, and usage of words.
Ø EIV.I.2.1 Understand how to use etymology, linguistic features (including roots, affixes, and cognates), and contextual clues to determine word meaning and usage.
Ø EIV.I.2.2 Understand common idiomatic expressions, allusions, and nuances in language and word meaning.
Ø EIV.L.2.3 Use common idiomatic expressions, allusions, and nuances appropriately when speaking and writing within the informative, reflective, argumentative, and critical modes of communication.
EIV.I.3 Evaluate written, visual, and digital texts for the meaning of language, points of view, and internal references
Ø EIV.L.3.1 Understand how to retrieve written, visual and digital texts with literary, abstract, or real life ideas
Ø EIV.L.3.2 Use literary, abstract, or real life ideas to create written, visual and digital texts.
Ø EIV.L.3.3 Evaluate written, visual, and digital texts on the basis of the interpretation of objective language, rational points of view, and scholarly references.
EIV.L.4 Analyze satire in texts for purpose and audience.
Ø EIV.L.4.1 Contrast humor, parody, sarcasm, and satire in British literature, nonfiction, visual, and digital texts.
Ø EIV.L.4.2 Analyze satirical texts in terms of combined purpose, audience, and stated and inferred meanings.
Ø EIV.L.4.3 Use satire to communicate ideas for a specific purpose and audience.
T = Critical Thinking
EIV.T.1 Analyze oral, written, and digital texts from British literature, nonfiction, and visual sources using the classical appeals of logos, pathos, and ethos.
Ø EIV.T.1.1 Analyze selected passages in oral, written, and digital texts from British literature, nonfiction, and visual sources in terms of the primary characteristics of logos, pathos, and ethos.
Ø EIV.T.1.2 Use the classical appeals of logos, pathos, and ethos to communicate ideas for a specific purpose and audience.
EIV.T.2 Evaluate British literature, nonfiction, and visual texts in terms of their complexity and their ability to inform, to persuade, and to entertain.
Ø EIV.T.2.1 Analyze the complexity of ideas, diction, syntax, themes, figurative and rhetorical language, organizational structure, and visual features in selected passages from British literature, nonfiction, and visual texts.
Ø EIV.T.2.2 Evaluate, aural, visual, and written images and other special effects as tools for informing, persuading, and entertaining.
EIV.T.3 Analyze a variety of British literature and nonfiction texts for themes of the human experience within the context of global perspectives and historical and current events.
Ø EIV.T.3.1 Understand human experiences in British literature, nonfiction, visual, and digital texts within the context of global perspectives and historical and current events.
Ø EIV.T.3.2 Analyze British literature, nonfiction, visual, and digital texts in terms of global perspectives and human experiences, both historical and current.
EIV.T.4 Evaluate solutions to literary and real life problems from British literature and nonfiction texts.
Ø EIV.T.4.1 Evaluate solutions to literary and real life problems from British literature and nonfiction texts to distinguish among facts, opinions, evidence, inferences, logical fallacies, derogatory language, and faulty reasoning.
Ø EIV.T.4.2 Use literary and real life problems to create appropriate solutions.
R = Research
EIV.R.1 Produce extended researched arguments using primary and secondary sources, visuals and appropriate citation style.
Ø EIV.R.1.1 Plan an extended researched argument using a writing process that includes barious forms of media resources, research notes, and graphic organization.
Ø EIV.R.1.2 Understand how to retrieve online and other sources of academic discussions containing different perspectives and conclusions.
Ø EIV.R.1.3 Use increasingly sophisticated strategies, such as quantitative, technical, and mathematical approaches to information, to specify details in support of generalizations.
Ø EIV.R.1.4 Use appropriate oral, written and digital communication to understand and to use information in maps, charts, graphs, timelines, tables, diagrams, advertisements, political cartoons, photographs, and paintings.
Ø EIV.R1.5 Produce an extended researched argument using primary and secondary sources, visuals, and appropriate citation style.
EIV.R.2 Produce multimodal presentations based on global issues contained in literary, nonfiction, or digital texts.
Ø EIV.R.2.1 Analyze literary, nonfiction, or digital texts using critical thinking, research methods, appropriate modes of communication, and appropriate citation style.
Ø EIV.R.2.2 Produce multimodal presentations as reflections of academic and personal inquiry, using multiple research methods, specialized reference texts, primary and secondary sources, and appropriate citation style
NC Standard Course of Study
Pages 1-15
Wl.1.03.7 Identify and analyze influences, contexts or biases.
IR. 2.01.1 Process texts that relate issues from various critical stances
LT.5.01.2 Relate cultural and historical events to British literature and identify ambiguity, prejudice, and complexity therein.
Lt.5.01.1 Recognize common themes in British literature and support ideas with textual evidence.
LT.5.02.5 Discern the effect of interpreting British literature from critical perspectives.
GU.6.01.2 Understand use and application of grammatical, metaphorical, and rhetorical devices
Pages 16 a – 33
WL.1.03.10 Analyze and evaluate connections among concepts, characters, and experiences.
IR.2.01.1 Process texts that relate issues from various critical stances.
IR.2.01.4.7 Identify and analyze influences, contexts, and biases.
LT.5.01.2 Relate cultural and historical events to British literature and identify ambiguity, prejudice and complexity therein.
LT.5.02.5 Discern the effect of interpreting British literature from critical perspectives.
GU.6.01.2 Understand use and application of grammatical, metaphorical, and rhetorical devices
v Respond to an elegiac Lyric
v Identify and explain Kennings
v Evaluate the contribution of poetic devices to setting, characterization, and atmosphere
v Support an opinion
v Learn and practice vocabulary. Generate examples to reinforce meaning.
v Identify the elements of an epic poem including setting, character, plot, and theme.
v Practice sorting poetic elements into a graphic organizer.
v Practice analyzing the setting, characters, and Anglo-Saxon elements.
v Use text marking to identify poetic elements.
v Practice tracking poetic elements using a graphic organizer.
v Review strategies for reading for detail.
v Complete a Skills Check to demonstrate understanding of poetic elements.
v Identify the mood of a poem.
v Use text marking to identify words that reflect the mood
v Find symbolism within a poem.
v Identify imagery in a poem. Use text marking to indicate examples of imagery. Practice identifying symbolism in a poem.
v Review and use Target Words in new contexts, using the words expressively in discussion and in writing. Practice word-study strategies: verb endings, word families.
v Identify the topic, supporting details, and conclusion in a literature response.
v Identify the form, audience, and purpose for writing.
v Brainstorm ideas for writing using a graphic organizer.
v Generate appropriate word Choices to respond to a writing prompt.
v Plan a literature response using a graphic organizer
v Write a first draft of a literature response.
v Use a rubric to assess and then revise writing.
v Write an autobiographical narrative.
v Delivering Autobiographical Presentations
v Analyze Literary Periods.
v Recognize complete sentences; identify and correct run-on sentences.
v Identify and use correct word order.
v Edit draft to correct specific spelling, grammar, and usage errors.
v Proofread a writing sample for specific spelling, grammar and usage errors.
v Read background information.
v Practice test-taking strategies: restating the question.
v Demonstrate understanding of text selection, vocabulary, and skills.
v Practice on-demand writing by responding to a short answer prompt.
Curriculum-Framing Questions
Essential Question / Are there recurring tasks in your life that you both enjoy and fear? What Keeps you doing these tasks? Are these tasks obligations that you must meet? Did the poem change your view of what matters most in life? (Students are likely to mention the satisfaction they feel when they succeed at things they were initially afraid to do.)
Unit Questions / 1. What impact did Alfred the Great have on the development of English?
Hint: What was one way Alfred earned the title “The Great”?
2. In what ways did literature keep history alive in Anglo-Saxon and medieval England?
Hint: What was the Venerable Bede’s contribution to literature and history?
3. In what ways did literature keep history alive in Anglo-Saxon and medieval England?
Hint:How did Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales present a cross-section of medieval society?
4. In what ways did literature keep history alive in Anglo-Saxon and medieval England?
Hint: What was The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, and in what language was it written?
5. In what ways did literature keep history alive in Anglo-Saxon and medieval England?
Hint: What role did medieval romances play, especially tales about King Arthur?
Content Questions / 1. What kinds of feelings about the sea does the speaker experience? (He seems both tormented by the sea and enamored with it).
2. What goals does the seafarer think the most worthy ones in life?
(keeping one’s mind on Heaven, living humbly, fearing God).
3. How would you describe the differences between the first and second halves of the poem? (the first half of the poem is filled with action and vivid description of life at sea. The second half explains the seafarer’s ideas about fate and his religious beliefs).
4. What final thoughts does the speaker leave the reader? (The speaker explains that God is stronger than any man, so ultimately people’s thoughts should turn to eternity and the hope of heaven).
5. What kinds of feelings about the sea does the speaker experience? (He seems both tormented by the sea and enamored with it).
6. What goals does the seafarer think the most worthy ones in life?
(keeping one’s mind on Heaven, living humbly, fearing God).
Assessment Plan
Assessment Timeline
Before project work begins / Students work on projects and complete tasks / After project work is completed
Build Background
Anchor Backgound
Preview/Teach Vocb.
Vocab. Study / Teach/Practice/Apply
Anglo-Saxon Elements
Setting
Character
Atmosphere
Tone
Personification
Kennings
Test Type:
Elegy / Teach Literary Element with a poster project or Power point:
Mood
Symbolism
Imagery
Text Type:
Anglo-Saxon lyric/
Elegy
Kenning
Caesura
Epic
Legendary hero
Character capable of great deeds
Frame story
Allegory
Medieval romance
Folk ballad / Review and Extend: with Poster or Power point project:
Vocab. Study
Review and Extend:
Word Challenge
Compound Words
Word Families / Writing and Grammar:
Literature Response
Grammar and Usage:
Correcting Run-On Sentences, and Compound Sentences
Using Correct Word Order, / Real-World Connection:
Review Skills
Comprehen-sion Vocab. Short Answer Questions and discussions
Test Taking Strategies
Critical Thinking
Assessment Summary
Poster project; background quiz; elegy quiz; group work and discussion; test. “The Seafarer” translated by Burton Raffel Activity Sheet