Nafso, 1

What is Life without Free Will?

Unit Plan for Eighth Grade

The Giver

By: Lois Lowry

Table of Contents
The Unit Overview / 3
Unit Calendar / 9
Gateway / 15
Detailed Lesson Plan #1 / 19
Detailed Lesson Plan #2 / 26
Mini-Lesson / 29
Culminating Assignment / 36
Assessment Plan / 42
Reflection Letter / 47

The Unit Overview

Essential Question and Learning Targets

·  Key Resources: Wiggins and McTighe; Hillocks; Wilhelm; Common Core Standards

·  Essential Question

o  What would life look like without free will?

·  Core Text

o  The Giver by Lois Lowry

o  Genre: Science Fiction

·  Learning Targets, Rationale, and Common Core Standards

Concise Summary of Learning Targets

Section of Unit / Learning Target / 8th Grade Common Core Standards
Reading Strategy / Students will be able to make predictions and ask informative and interpretive questions about the text while keeping in mind how the theme affects the characters and the plot. / Reading > Key Ideas and Details
1. Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to the characters, setting, and plot; provide an objective summary of the text.
Literary Concept / Students will be able to identify the speaker, occasion, audience, purpose, subject, and tone of the text. / Reading > Craft and Structure
4. Analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including analogies or allusions to other texts.
Writing / Students will learn how to write a persuasive argument in the form of a letter to their “government,” who is taking away their freedom for their “safety” …they will be able to state their point and then back it up using evidence and quotes from the text / Writing > Text Types and Purposes
1. Write arguments to support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence.
b. Support claim(s) with logical reasoning and relevant evidence, using accurate, credible sources and demonstrating an understanding of the topic or text.
Speaking & Listening / Students will engage in small group discussions using an anticipation guide to focus their discussion. They will then be able to engage in a class discussion, bringing up the issues that were discussed in small groups. They will have to repeat what their groups members said (listening) and will have to articulate their argument and support it with evidence (speaking) / Speaking and Listening > Comprehension and Collaboration
1. Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 8 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly
Language / Students will be able to use context clues to explain the meaning of vocabulary used in the text
Students will learn to infer author’s word choice and will be able to articulate their reasoning behind characters’ speech patterns / Language > Vocabulary Acquisition and Use
4. Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words or phrases based on grade 8 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.
a. Use context (e.g., the overall meaning of a sentence or paragraph; a word’s position or function in a sentence) as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.

These learning targets are especially important because they facilitate students’ social, cognitive, and moral growth. These learning targets also prepare them for higher education. As eighth graders, these concepts are a strong learning base, and are therefore important to learn if they want to succeed in high school and then later in college.

From Common Core Standards: “To become college and career ready, students must grapple with works of exceptional craft and thought whose range extends across genres, cultures, and centuries. Such works offer profound insights into the human condition and serve as models for students’ own thinking and writing. To be college- and career- ready writers, students must take task, purpose, and audience into careful consideration, choosing words, information, structures, and formats deliberately. To become college and career ready, students must have ample opportunities to take part in a variety of rich, structured conversations—as part of a whole class, in small groups, and with a partner—built around important content in various domains. Whatever their intended major or profession, high school graduates will depend heavily on their ability to listen attentively to others so that they are able to build on others’ meritorious ideas while expressing their own clearly and persuasively. To be college and career ready in language, students must become skilled in determining or clarifying the meaning of words and phrases they encounter, choosing flexibly from an array of strategies to aid them.”

Rationale

The Giver by Lois Lowry is a popular text among middle-school students and is commonly used by teachers as the core text of a unit plan to take this novel and frame it in a way that engages students to the issues that the characters in the book face. Since the main character is a boy who is about the same age as the students, teachers can make this book relatable and relevant to students’ lives. The theme of this book is relevant to today’s events and teachers can frame this novel in a variety of ways that will help students comprehend the text. This novel also provides students with the opportunity to focus on real-world issues and discuss them as a class. I picked an essential question that would serve as an engaging focus for a unit plan. The question is, “What is life without free will?” With this question, I would want my students to think about giving up their freedom of choice for security and a safe world. It relates to the core text because in Jonas’ world, the people live without choice or free will; however, they feel “safe” in their world.

The Giver is useful in exploring the essential question and teaching the learning targets I have chosen because there are countless different activities and lessons that teachers can incorporate in order to help students to understand different concepts. Many concepts can be taught with The Giver that relate to the learning targets I have chosen. The Giver is told in the past tense by a third person narrator whose point of view is limited only to what the main character, Jonas knows. The author uses simple and direct language, which is appropriate for the audience (middle school students). In this case, students can learn about writing towards a specific audience. They can even learn that it is sometimes helpful to identify the audience by looking at the main character because the age, occupation, gender, or life of the main character can help identify the target audience. The tone of the book elevates in coordination with Jonas’ discoveries about the color of life. In this case, students can learn about tone of text and how it changes throughout the story. The key idea of this text is the idea of people living in a supposedly utopian society; however, is it really “perfect”? This is where the essential question can be addressed. Key concepts include the importance of memory, the relationship between pain and pleasure, the importance of the individual, and conflicts with a perfect society. Students can use these key concepts to learn about theme of the text. This text is also helpful in learning the elements of a story because it has a clear introduction, a rising action (Jonas receives memories), a climax (Jonas challenges society), a falling action (Jonas leaves the town with baby Gabriel) and a conclusion. This text also raises important issues, which will facilitate students’ ability to form opinions, make arguments, and support their claims with evidence. The emotions that can rise from this text will also facilitate fruitful class/group discussions and will help students to learn how to look at other perspectives. The Giver is also a good core text for students because they need to learn how to analyze texts through literary level and have a common language when it comes to analyzing those texts. It is part of the state and national standards for Eighth Grade ELA to have these skills. The Grade Level Content Expectations (GLCEs) for Eighth Grade ELA, states that students are required to “state global themes, universal truths, and principles within and across texts to create a deeper understanding.” Looking at different parts of The Giver helps students to consider themes, truths, and principles within the text to help students understand it on a different level. They do this by thinking about the context in which the author wrote the text and considering how the speaker, audience, and purpose impact the importance of the theme. GLCEs also require students to “set a purpose, consider audience, and replicate authors’ styles and patterns when writing narrative or informal text.” The Giver can help students to consider these aspects when they write because, as a class, we can work on identifying purpose, audience, etc. in the text. The Common Core State Standards address students’ need to “determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text,” which they will accomplish when they read The Giver.

My knowledge about my students has influenced the essential question. Eighth graders, being around the age of 12-14, are considered adolescents. This means they are at a stage where they are wondering about their role in society (Erikson’s stage of “identity vs. role confusion”). At this stage in life, they are wondering about how they fit into society. Reading a book about a boy who is around the same age and is figuring out his place in society will serve as a helpful connection to their own lives. This will help them to consider both essential questions that I have listed because they will be thinking about themselves and their place in the world. According to educational psychology, middle school students are at the stage where they can begin to take on other perspectives. Considering that both essential questions I have listed raises issues/opinions and can easily warrant discussion, it will facilitate their growth in perspective-taking. I hope to reach every student and make sure that they understand the concept based on what I know about how they learn. Some students may excel in reading skills while others excel in speaking skills. Some students work better in teams or groups while others work better individually. These aspects are important to consider when planning a lesson because different students may learn better in different ways. Also, using students’ different backgrounds may be helpful for teachers to relate to their students during the unit. It is also important to note these differences because students may have diverse ideas of the text or different ideas of a perfect society based on their backgrounds or prior knowledge.

The essential questions that I have narrowed down meet most of the criteria that we discussed in class. Both questions go to the heart of the discipline because attempting to answer them can help students dig deep into ELA content (posing an argument, backing up claims with evidence, speaking, listening, taking in other perspectives, writing how you feel about the issues, etc.). I think that each question naturally recurs because they create opportunities to transition to other situations and subjects. For example, the question of taking away free will or freedom of choice can transition into a talk or a lesson about the US Government/Constitution (social studies). The question of a perfect society can transition into a lesson on “utopia” and different examples of rules that a community may enforce on its citizens. Both questions raise other important questions. The question of how does society define a perfect world asks students to also consider what family life, religion, economy, educational system, traditions, law and order, government, and entertainment in that world would look like. The question of what would life look like without free will raises other questions such as, “Would you give up your freedom for security?” or “When does “government protection” of its citizens go too far?” Obviously, there is no one “right” answer for either of these questions. They both give students to think about many different answers based on how they feel and also based on other perspectives. Finally, both questions are framed to provoke and sustain student interest. While reading the book, The Giver, students can give a lot of thought to these questions and formulate an opinion. They may even feel differently about their answers to the questions by the time they reach the end of the book. Students are interested in their place in the world at this age, so these questions will most likely provoke their interest and will also maintain their interest throughout the story (especially because as they discover new things from reading, their opinions may change). Also, their idea of a perfect society at first might be something such as having pop in the drinking fountains; however, while reading the book with these essential questions in mind, they may formulate less superficial ideas of a perfect society and begin to think deeply about the issues raised.

Nafso, 1

Week 1
Monday / Tuesday / Wednesday / Thursday / Friday
·  Gateway lesson for The Giver
o  Topic: Utopia
o  Activity: “In a Perfect World” Skits
·  Announcements:
o  Journals will be collected every Friday
o  There will be a quiz every Friday / ·  Lesson on Free Will (definition, examples)
·  Look at journals for completion of homework
·  Use journals (skit reflections) to have a class discussion about ideas of perfect society