Unit 4: The Persistence of Memories
Duration of Days: 40
How does the past impact the future?
Informational Text Structure
Figurative Language
Language, Style, and Audience
Connotation and Denotation
Poetic Elements and Structure
Character
Story Structure
Media
Students will think about the unit’s theme and essential question as they focus on the literary period of surrealist literature, analyzing the informational text “The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí” and an excerpt from Dream Psychology: Psychoanalysis for Beginners. They will also study the genre of informational texts while reading excerpts from the autobiographies and memoirs “By Any Other Name”; Rituals of Memory; Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer: A Story of Survival; and the graphic memoir Persepolis. In addition, reading the poems “From Behind a Covered Window” by Ngo Tu Lap and “Love Is Not All” by Edna St. Vincent Millay will provide students with an opportunity to read across genres and consider how past experiences affect one’s ability to exist in the world.
Students will begin this unit as readers, and they will finish as writers, as they apply what they have learned about narrative elements to their own narrative writing projects.
Multiple Choice and Open-ended Question Responses (THINK); discussion; Close Read Write Response; Narrative Writing
Informational Text Structure
Figurative Language
Language, Style, and Audience
Connotation and Denotation
Poetic Elements and Structure
Character
Story Structure
Media