Unit Overview/Summary - FOCUS:

This unit focuses on how authors use intentionality in their craft choices and structures to create meaning. This includes analyzing an author’s craft techniques of word choices and phrases, figurative language, and key details in poems and dramas. Studying the figurative and connotative meanings of words and phrases in context supports students in understanding how words convey a specific meaning. This prepares students for the work ahead related to central ideas and themes. Students will study the structures of stanzas, chapters, and parts of the text, and how sections of a text connect to the whole. This unit also includes the study of the organization and structures within and across informational texts and how authors create meaning with key details, words, and phrases.   

As authors of their own text, students will have opportunities to write narratives and strive to apply their knowledge regarding intentional word choices and phrases. Students will practice the application of developing characters, events, and experiences. These narratives may be personal narratives, realistic fiction short stories, memoirs, or poems.   

Unit Duration:

20 days (15 instructional and 5 reteach/enrichment days) Five periods per week based on a traditional bell schedule