District 11 Educational Support Services
Literacy & Language Arts

Grade 7, Quarter 2:  December Unit
Fiction and Poetry
(@ 15 days)

Overview                                                                              
As the quarter ends, you
will focus on finishing your narrative story.  Good stories, of course, have a clear structure with an engaging beginning, middle and end of the story -- so you'll want to pay attention to the structure of your story.  But you'll also want to use the techniques you saw in other stories you have read:  does your story have good images for your setting?  have you used good details to show the people in your story?  do your sentences move your reader along in a smooth and effective way?  As you work on your story, you'll also continue working with short readings and get practice in writing responses to those stories and poems.  You might be asked to make a personal response to the writings -- connecting the ideas in them with some aspect of your own life.  Or you might be asked to comment on some technique that the writer is using -- how an image affects the poem, or how a character has changed by the end of the story.  What kinds of connections can you make to the text?

For Teachers
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Yearly Overview

Enduring Understandings - important ideas that students should carry with them years beyond the instruction received this year.

  •  Different strategies and skills are required to understand a variety of texts.

  •  An effective communicator knows his/her audience and purpose.

  •  An effective communicator uses standard English language rules.

  •  Independent learners use critical thinking skills.

  •  Literature provides an understanding of human experience.

Essential Questions - most important “big picture” questions students should be able to answer after completing learning activities.

  • What is text?  How do we apply different strategies and skills to understand a variety of texts?

  • How do we communicate?  What is effective communication?  Why does effective communication require a process?

  • What is standard English?  Why do we need to know and use standard English rules?

  • How do we apply stylistic elements and appropriate formats?

  • What is critical thinking?  How do we think critically in our lives?

  • How can we make personal connections through literature?

Standards
  Highest Frequency Standards High Frequency Standards Other Standards & E-skills

Reading

 

6b. Use literary terminology accurately (for example, setting, character, conflict, plot, resolution, dialect, and point of view).

6c.  Apply knowledge of literary techniques (for example, foreshadowing, metaphor, simile, personification, onomatopoeia, alliteration, and flashback) to understand text. 

 

    6a. Read, respond to, and discuss a variety of novels, poetry, short stories, nonfiction, and plays.

    6d. Read, respond to, and discuss literature that represents points of view from places, people, and events that are familiar and unfamiliar.

    5c. Paraphrase, summarize, organize, and synthesize information about a topic in a variety of ways (for example, graphic organizer, Venn diagram, outline, or timeline).

 

        1a.  Compare and contrast texts with similar characters, plots, and/or themes. 

 

Writing


2a.  Write in a variety of genre - narrative.
2b.  Develop ideas and content with significant details, examples, and/or reasons.

2c.  Organize ideas so that there is an inviting introduction, logical arrangement of ideas, and a satisfying conclusion.
3a.  Identify parts of speech, such as nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions, and interjections.
3b.  Use standard English usage in writing, including subject/verb agreement (pronoun referents, modifiers, homonyms, and homophones.)

3c.  Write in complete sentences.

3d.  Use paragraphs correctly so that each paragraph is differentiated by indenting or blocking and includes one major but focused idea. 
3e.  Use conventional spelling in published work. 

3f.  Punctuate correctly (for example, apostrophe, quotation marks, end marks, and commas).

 

    2d. Use transitions to link ideas. 
    2e. Plan, draft, revise, and edit for a legible final copy.

    2f.  Use a variety of sentence structures with varied length.

    2g. Write with voice appropriate to purpose and audience.

    2h. Choose a range of words that are precise and vivid.

 

Lessons

Lesson 1: Lesson 1 Title
Duration: @ 1 class period

Standard information #: 
District Indicator:
 
Enduring Understanding:
 
Essential Questions:
 
Assessment:
 

Activities

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Resources

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Differentiation
Extension:
 
Support: