TMA CURRICULUM MAP

COURSE: LANGUAGE A GRADE: 8

Unit Title (Time Frame) / Areas of Interaction / Guiding Question / Assessment (IB Criteria) / Students will know. . . / Students will understand. . . / Students will be able to. . . / Common Core Standards / IB Objectives
If applicable, what area of interaction will be used as the lens for this unit? / What provocative questions will foster inquiry, understand, and transfer of learning? / Through what authentic performance tasks will students demonstrate the desired understanding? If applicable, what IB criteria will be used to assess the students? / What key knowledge and skills will students acquire as a result of this unit? (State/city standards) / What are the big ideas? What specific understanding aout them are desired? What misunderstandings are predictable? / What should students eventually be able to do as a result of the acquired knowledge and skill? / What relevant state Common Core Standards will this unit address? / What IB Objectives (as stated in Subject Guides) will this unit address?
Unit 1 (Sep-Oct) / Heroism is a concept that describes the triats of unordinary acts of kindness; an essay is a written argument backed by text details and prior knowledge. / What defines a hero and how visual images create or enhance meaning. / activate prior knowledge; identify tone; expand on the idea of challenge thorugh exploraiton of heroes in poems and film; define "heroism"; examine "heroism" through examples from articles and hisotrical figure sin poetry; apply the hero's journey archetype to film as prepartion for both embedded assessments.
Unit 2 (Nov-Dec) / Media is meant to influence and persuade audience; text-support features are traits of non-fiction texts that help reveal genre and text's meaning / How advertising and the role of media impacts their lives; appeals and manipulation of advertisers; how reflective analysis helps us think critically / write reflective analysis about a personal relationship with media; identify a problem in the media and generate a soluion; use writing process to strengthen ideas, organization, use of langauge and conventions; paraphrase and directly quote sources; identify a debatable topic; use persuasive appeals; cite research in an annoted bibliogrpahy or works cited page; incorporate quotatoins from research to suppor thesis
Unit 3 (Jan-Feb) / Revising and editing an essay is a process that takes place over time; collaboration requires working well with others; the writing process helps us strengthen our past work. / Reflection is an important process of learning and developing our malleable intelligence; becoming an independent learning is essential as they transition into high school / revisit the concept of personal and academic challgnes through a series of reflective writing prompts; examine multiple intelligences; expand on their knowledge of learning styels and complete timed writing prompts; generate and use a scoring guide; move towards indept. analysis of a sample student essay and demonstrate understanding of the revision process, revising an intro, body paragraph, and conclusion for coherence.
Unit 4 (Feb-Mar) / Literature circles consist of 3-5 students who are reading on similar reading levels; paraphrasing helps us avoid plagiarism; collaboration requires strong speaking, listening, and interpersonal skills. / Literature circles are higher level activities that help us become better team players and develop strong listening and speaking skills; author's write for a purpose; genre often reveals author's purpose; historical fiction and non-fiction texts require background knowledge and research / Activate prior knowledge and read Terrible Things: An Allegory of the Holocaust; work in literature circles and use double-entry journal to expand on knowledge of holocaust; research and do close-readings of film clrips from The Diary of Anne Frank and Life is Beautiful; develop speaking and listening skills as peers read with inflection and respond to texts; analyze the texts Terrible Things and "Frist They Came for the Communists" and then discuss the authors' purposes; generate connections b/w contemporary texts and issues thru the use of quotations and an online article aboute genocide in Darfur.
Unit 5 (Apr) / Test Prep Unit / Test Prep Unit / Test Prep Unit
Unit 6 (May-Jun) / Academic vocab that describes humor; comedy is a genre that requires equal analysis as other traditional genres; strong essays are organized and comprise of multi-paragraphs / Understand concept of high-and low-level comedy; analyzing elements of humor in print and non-print texts is similar to analyzing text-support features / explore a text about comedy; respond to humor and analyze humorous anecdote; analyze humorous print and graphic texts focusing on purpose, style, audience, and content; apply understanding of levels of comedy, elements of humor, and comedic vocab in written analysis of humorous text