Ninth Grade - ELA
1: Semester 1
Unit 1: Lord of the Flies
Lesson 1
The Call
The Parent Plan lists the skill to "determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text," which asks students to track how ideas emerge and are shaped. Activity 1 asks students to identify common elements among dystopian works and to anticipate which elements they might see in Lord of the Flies, prompting comparison and connection-making across texts. The homework and wrapping-up prompts ask students to consider how the island might shift from utopia to dystopia and to predict which boys will survive, which requires students to follow events and consider their consequences.
Lesson 2
Life on the Island
Students are instructed to create and continually update STEAL character pages (Speech, Thoughts, Effect on others, Actions, Looks) and to "add your impressions" as they continue reading so they can "notice through your notes how the characters are changing." The Getting Started section explicitly tells students that "the way the boys think and act...gradually shifts" and that readers can "observe how characters develop over time and through challenges." The Parent Plan gives examples of using chapter examples to infer changes (e.g., Ralph's rule-making, Jack seizing the conch) and tells students to contrast initial impressions with later changes in appearance and behavior.
Lesson 3
Paths in the Jungle
Students read a linked article about dystopian fiction and are instructed to annotate the text and "identify the author's thesis and supporting points." The Student Activity Page asks students to record the "Author's main argument/thesis" and list "Key points that support the thesis." The Parent Plan and activity directions explicitly tell students to locate the thesis, note supporting points, and record reactions to evaluate the writer's view.
Lesson 5
Not Hunting, But Hunted
Students are asked to analyze underlined passages from Lord of the Flies and to notice how interruptions and minute details slow narrative pace and develop a scene. The Skills and Introducing the Lesson sections explicitly state that students will learn how authors structure a text, order events, and manipulate time (pacing, flashbacks) to create effects like mystery or tension. Students compare Example A and Example B to identify differences in order, sentence-level development (series of verbs), and the way details are introduced to produce reader experience. Students watch a video on 'Slowing Down Time' and then recreate an important moment using slow-motion narrative pacing to practice how order and development affect meaning.
Lesson 6
Symbolism, Part 1
Students select interpretations for symbols on the "The Conch and the Glasses" activity and write brief explanations supported by text evidence, practicing connecting details to broader ideas. A discussion prompt asks students whether the importance of the conch changes from the beginning to later chapters, prompting students to trace that change over the course of the novel. The journal entry requires students to record actions and quotes that indicate how the boys affect one another and the island, asking them to track character priorities, fears, and trust across events.
Lesson 7
Bowed and Bowed Again
The Parent Plan lists the skill: "Analyze how an author's choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it ... create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise." The Introducing the Lesson explains how Golding reveals the paratrooper to the reader (Chapter 6) before the boys discover it, explicitly teaching dramatic irony and its effect on suspense. Activity 1 asks students to predict characters' responses based on what the characters know versus what the reader knows, prompting students to compare different orders of knowledge and their consequences.
Lesson 8
Defects of Human Nature
The Parent Plan explicitly tells students to "Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details." Students are asked in activities to choose minor themes that support Golding's major theme and to "support those choices by referring to details from the novel." Option tasks require students to write 3–4 sentences explaining how a chosen minor theme supports the major theme, and the lesson text describes how Golding uses characters and events to portray the central idea.
Lesson 9
Symbolism, Part 2
Students complete a "Recognizing Archetypes" activity in which they identify and label characters (e.g., Ralph, Piggy, Jack, Littluns) as hero, mentor, villain, or innocent and cite character traits and examples. Students complete an "Allegory Analysis" page asking them to describe what Ralph's tribe, Jack's tribe, Piggy, Simon, and the island might represent, prompting them to map events/characters to abstract social or political ideas. Students add to STEAL character pages and are prompted by the skills section to analyze how complex characters develop over the course of the text and to determine theme development using specific details.
Lesson 10
Which Is Better?
Students are asked to analyze character development and theme (Parent Plan skills) by comparing Ralph's and Jack's leadership and by determining how themes like civilization and savagery develop over the course of the text. Students complete a Developing Civilization chart that requires them to compare and contrast the boys' experiences with early civilizations, drawing connections between events on the island and historical examples. Students write a one-page journal entry analyzing aspects of Jack's leadership, contrasting it with Ralph's and with pre-island civilized behavior, which requires them to interpret events and relationships among ideas and characters.
Lesson 11
The Film
Students are asked to watch the 1963 film and complete a "Movie vs. Book" chart that asks them to record similarities and differences for characters, setting, theme, and plot. Students answer journal questions asking whether any omitted scenes were too critical to the major theme and to give examples of visual differences, and discuss which movie scenes were most important. The materials and answer key highlight how omissions or added scenes change theme and plot (e.g., missing Ralph/officer conversation, omitted magical place for Simon) and include a note to review narrative pacing and theme.
Final Project
Now You Have the Conch
Students are instructed to return to specific chapters and "note passages" where events occur (e.g., Chapter 7 contending scenes) and then "see what patterns you noticed," which requires analyzing a series of events and their effects. Prompts ask students to trace character change ("How does the character change throughout the story? What influences and experiences cause those changes?") and to analyze how a symbol is used "throughout the novel." The Parent Plan skills explicitly state students will "determine a theme... and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text" and to "cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis."
Unit 2: Short Stories
Lesson 1
The Gift of the Magi
Students are asked to record the plot including conflict, climax, and resolution, which requires identifying the sequence of events. Annotation instructions direct students to mark where the action changes locations or when gaps in time occur so they can follow the timeline and notice the story's structure. Homework asks students to research and explain how allusions contribute to understanding the story, prompting students to connect referenced material to the narrative's meaning. A guided discussion asks students to consider how descriptive language at the beginning indicates the characters' economic status, which asks students to consider how an idea is introduced and developed.
Lesson 2
The Necklace
Students are asked to identify the central theme and to trace how it is developed across the story by rereading annotations and noting repetitive literary elements (e.g., imagery and symbolism) and their contexts. The Exploring Theme activity directs students to fill a theme web answering: How is a central theme developed in the story; What evidence in the story reflects this theme; How do the characters reflect this theme. The objective-summary activity and journal prompts require students to state plot events and explain how the main theme reveals itself, and the Parent Plan explicitly states students will "determine a theme... and extensively analyze its development over the course of the text."
Lesson 3
Literary Response
Students identify and compare elements that affect plot development (for example, the lesson explicitly prompts students to consider "the role that poverty plays in the development of the plot"). Students gather and cite specific examples and quotations from each story (the Brainstorming and Details & Support pages require students to prove points with textual evidence and to "extend" by explaining how the evidence supports their ideas). Students plan and write organized analysis with attention to how ideas connect, using the Informal Outline and rubric criteria that require explanation of evidence and use of transitional words and phrases.
Lesson 4
Characterization
Students are asked to cite evidence about Roger's change after interacting with Mrs. Jones (Question #2), which requires them to analyze development of a character over the course of the story. The Parent Plan and Skills list explicitly state that students will "analyze how complex characters develop over the course of a text" and to consider how characterizations advance plot or theme. The Characterization activity and student pages require students to identify direct and indirect techniques across speech, thoughts, actions, appearance, and others' responses and to think about how those characterizations advance the plot or theme.
Lesson 5
Edgar Allan Poe
Students are asked in Activity 2 to locate three to four examples of foreshadowing in "The Tell-Tale Heart" and record what each instance refers to, which requires tracing clues introduced earlier and connected to later events. Question 3 asks students to compare first-person and third-person point of view and explain how first-person forces readers to experience the narrator's thought process, prompting analysis of how Poe introduces and develops perspective. The "Crazy Like a Fox?" homework asks students to list textual evidence supporting both the narrator's rationality and irrationality, requiring students to collect and weigh pieces of the narrator's statements and actions across the text. The storyboard task asks students to select a scene, illustrate it in sequence, and quote the corresponding sections, connecting specific passages to ordered visual panels.
Lesson 6
The Lottery
Students are instructed to locate and record each passage in which the black wooden box is described or mentioned, focusing on its physical descriptions, the townspeople's reactions, and connections between the box and the town's history. Students analyze the contrast between the story's positive opening setting and the horror of the final scene to see how early descriptions set up reader expectations. Students are directed to consider how the symbol contributes to plot and theme by tracing how the box's characteristics and the villagers' responses recur and accumulate meaning across the narrative.
Lesson 7
Everyday Use
Students identify the story's narrator (Question #1) and explain how point of view shapes focus and meaning. Students rewrite a scene from another character's point of view and write a reflection about how the change alters reader feelings and the story's meaning (Day 2 activity). Students analyze symbolism and link biographical research about Alice Walker to story elements (Author's Biography and Symbolism activities).
Lesson 8
Harrison Bergeron
Students compare the printed short story to two film adaptations and complete an activity page asking them to list scenes the director added, altered, or deleted and to explain why those changes were made. Students analyze film techniques such as voice-over exposition and note how the film changes the pacing and development of key events (for example, the slower build-up to Harrison's execution in the film vs. the abrupt shooting in the text). Students are asked to consider which concepts or themes are emphasized more in the film and how those changes affect meaning.
Lesson 9
Dialogue
Students are asked in Activity 2 to write a paragraph analyzing how an author uses dialogue in a chosen short story, with directions to refer to specific lines or sections of dialogue. The guiding prompts ask students to consider what dialogue reveals about characters, how dialogue affects pacing (e.g., speeds up or slows down the story), and to speculate how a scene would differ without the dialogue. A sample paragraph about "The Necklace" explicitly models analysis of how dialogue frames crucial points, slows pacing in key sections, and produces the impact of the surprise ending.
Final Project
Writing a Short Story
Students create and use a Plot Diagram to identify and plan exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution, explicitly practicing the order in which events occur. Students complete brainstorming and Writing Tips pages to decide narrator choice, opening line, and how theme and scenes are introduced and developed. During revision and reader review, students evaluate whether the plot line is well-developed, whether the beginning captures readers and the ending is satisfactory, and they revise sequence and connections among events accordingly.
Unit 4: Poetry
Lesson 5
What Does It Mean?
Students follow a step-by-step checklist to summarize poems (identify title, read aloud, determine speaker, look up words, write a brief summary). Students analyze how meanings develop across a poem by identifying symbols and extended metaphors (e.g., who the captain and ship represent in "O Captain! My Captain!" and how the comparison is sustained). Homework on "The Fish" asks students to notice the progression of the poem and track how the speaker's feelings change from beginning to middle to end.
Lesson 7
Analyzing Poetry
Students are asked to note if the tone changes in a poem and to record where and how it changes on the Poetry Map, which directs them to examine development across the text. The Poetry Puzzle has students analyze a list of words from Blake's "London" and ask why the poet repeated words so many times, prompting consideration of how repetition develops an idea. Students annotate poems (examples: an annotated "Ozymandias" and annotating Frost's "October"), marking rhyme, structure, word choice, and sequence of lines while writing marginal notes that connect images and meanings.
Lesson 8
Types of Poems
Students are asked to mark rhyme scheme and follow iambic pentameter and to identify sonnet type, with explicit guidance that a Petrarchan octave usually introduces a problem/question and the sestet presents a solution and that Shakespearean quatrains often establish a problem with the final couplet resolving it. In the free-verse and Whitman activities, students answer questions about the poem's central point and how comparisons or figurative address (apostrophe) function. The ekphrasis chart requires students to analyze what a poem says about an artwork, the emotions evoked, and how the poem changes or adds to the artwork's meaning. Narrative-poem tasks ask students to summarize events, identify speaker and tone, and consider how dialect affects understanding.
Lesson 9
The Crossover
Students are asked in Homework Option 1 to look at specific poems ("Where Do We Go from Here" and "Free Throws") and explain what "crossover" means in each poem and whether using the word in different ways is effective, which asks them to track a term's development across the book. In Homework Option 2 students compare "Basketball Rule #3" and "Basketball Rule #10," explaining whether those presented rules are good rules for life, which requires connecting ideas presented in separate poems. The Parent Plan Skills explicitly states students will "analyze how a particular sentence, chapter, scene, or stanza fits into the overall structure of a text and contributes to the development of the theme, setting, or plot," directing students to consider how parts contribute to the whole.
Lesson 10
Poems and Poets
Students are asked to use a Poetry Map to analyze poems by filling in sections for word choice, imagery, tone, sound devices, speaker, summarizing the poem, and identifying its theme, which requires attention to how parts contribute to meaning. The Parent Plan skills explicitly instruct students to "analyze how a particular sentence, chapter, scene, or stanza fits into the overall structure of a text" and to "analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text relate to each other and the whole." Activity 4 directs students to relate biographical and cultural information to poem content and to explain how cultural references enrich understanding, prompting students to draw connections between context and textual elements.
Lesson 11
Reciting Poetry
Students are asked to determine the speaker, tone, and meaning of poems and to consider images and word choice (homework and parent plan), which requires attention to how ideas and images are presented. The lesson directs students to notice enjambment and to mark pauses, prompting them to consider line-to-line continuation and how sentences and thoughts flow. An example (Housman) asks students to consider how specific word choices create images over successive lines, and Activity 2 asks students to analyze recorded recitations for how performances communicate meaning.
Final Project
Poetry
The poetry explication choice asks students to perform a close, thorough analysis of a poem, including its structure, rhyme and meter, sound devices, speaker, tone, imagery, word choice, figurative language, symbols, literal meaning, and theme. The Parent Plan skills explicitly include "Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole" and "Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development." The Director's Notebook and lighting activities ask students to analyze narrative elements in Frost's "The Fear," note repeated motifs (the lantern) and consider how scenes and reveals are staged.
Unit 5: Nonfiction
Lesson 1
Types of Nonfiction
Students are asked to examine front matter, back matter, and catalog records to decide whether a work is a biography, autobiography, or memoir, citing specific evidence from the book. The Student Activity Page directs students to add notes about how characters, setting, and plot events contribute to the book's theme, which asks students to connect events to larger ideas. Students are asked to compare themes, viewpoints, and evidence about a book's accuracy across titles, requiring them to identify relationships and connections between texts.
Lesson 3
The Taliban
Students are asked to read Chapters 7, 8, and 10 of I Am Malala and answer comprehension questions about events and characters, which requires recounting the sequence of events. The Parent Plan lists targeted skills including "Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas." The Wrapping Up section says students will "practice paraphrasing," and the discussion prompts ask students to explain Fazlullah's methods and compare terrorism and war, requiring analysis of events and their effects.
Lesson 5
Displacement
The Parent Plan explicitly lists the skill "Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas," which indicates students are expected to identify central ideas and summarize supporting details. Students are asked to read Chapters 16–17 (and summaries of 14–15) and answer specific questions about events (e.g., why the family moved, how school was different, what they discovered when they returned), which has students recount and summarize a sequence of events. The lesson summary of skipped chapters provides explicit sequencing of events that students read and respond to, supporting work with event order and development of plot points.
Lesson 6
A Day Like Any Other
The Parent Plan lists the skill "Analyze how and why individuals, events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text," which directly aligns with analyzing unfolding ideas or events. Students are asked to read specific chapters and use the APE (Answer, Prove, Extend) strategy to analyze decisions Malala or her father made, requiring them to cite textual evidence and explain how examples support their answers. The Wrapping Up question about foreshadowing asks students to identify where authors hint at later events, which asks them to consider how the authors introduce and develop ideas over the text.
Lesson 7
Life in England
Students watch an 11-minute documentary and are asked to take notes comparing how the filmmaker and Malala present events and people. Students respond to specific prompts about how Malala's father's influence is portrayed in the video versus the book, what the filmmaker's focus is compared to Malala's, and why the film and book create different impressions of characters. Students also consider the filmmaker's suggestion that media coverage may have affected the attack and evaluate ways the film and book are effective in telling Malala's story.
Lesson 8
Civil Rights
Students read and respond to substantial excerpts of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail," listing the four basic steps of a nonviolent campaign (an exercise in sequencing the author's procedural claims) and explaining which argument they found most persuasive and why (analyzing development and effectiveness). Students identify the historical and religious figures King references in the "People of the Past" activity and write descriptions linking those references to King's points (analyzing connections King draws). Students complete a "Just and Unjust Laws" double-entry diary in which they underline excerpts, state agreement or disagreement, and articulate King's reasoning (examining how particular claims are developed).
Lesson 9
Civil Disobedience
Students compare and analyze excerpts from Thoreau and King in the "MLK and Civil Disobedience" activity by highlighting parallel phrases and filling in an "Overlapping Ideas" column that draws connections between the authors. Students read sets of passages (Passages A, B, C) and identify areas of agreement and disagreement on topics such as what makes a law just, when it is acceptable to break the law, and the role of government. In Activity 2, students evaluate opposing quotes on America, the role of government, and voting and write explanations of which author's views they align with and why.
Lesson 10
Learning from the Past
Students read and annotate Elie Wiesel's speech, complete short-answer questions about his style and tone, and identify metaphors and supporting quotations. Students skim the speech to find a universal truth and write a paragraph connecting Wiesel's claims to those of MLK, Malala, or Thoreau using direct quotes. Students compare speeches and essays (reading Thoreau vs. listening to MLK) and reflect on rhetorical devices that convey tone and emotion, and they use textual evidence in activities and answer keys to explain Wiesel's points.
Lesson 11
A Boy's Story
Students are directed to read the Chronology (pp. 222-224) to learn who was involved with the war and how the war began and progressed, which asks them to follow the sequence of events. Questions ask students to explain the RUF's initial goal and to analyze why the RUF continued fighting and why the civil war lasted so long, prompting students to connect causes and outcomes. Students are asked to use a map to track the author's movements during the story, requiring them to order events geographically and temporally. The author interview question asks students to state what the book tries to explain about the effects of violence, which asks students to identify the author's central ideas.
Lesson 13
Child Soldier
Students answer targeted questions about events and author choices (e.g., why the lieutenant shows bodies, why commanders repeat lines, why boys are given drugs) that require analyzing motives and cause-effect in the narrative. Students complete a "Role of Rap" activity asking how music influences story development and character change, and they compare the book and a video in the "Different Accounts" activity to determine which details each medium emphasizes. The "Truth about Memoirs" journal prompt asks students to evaluate claims and reasoning about accuracy, encouraging analysis of how the author presents and supports events.
Lesson 14
Rehabilitation
Students are asked to re-read the lieutenant's speech (p. 123) and the conversation with the RUF child soldier (p. 134) and then evaluate whether the lieutenant's analysis of the two sides is accurate, using examples or quotations to support their conclusion (Activity 1, Option 2). Students complete a comparative worksheet ('RUF vs. Government Soldiers') marking which war-crime actions apply to each side and citing textual evidence (Activity 1, Option 1). Students also connect Elie Wiesel's quotations to Beah's memoir by selecting a quote and explaining, with specific examples from the book or video, how the quotation relates to the events and themes (Activity 2).
Lesson 15
A New Life
Students are instructed to read chapters and produce summaries, with explicit steps to "jot down what you think the main idea and most important points are," annotate key points, and "determine what the main point is" before writing. The Comparing Memoirs activity and Student Activity Page ask students to compare how education and other themes are addressed, to examine specific scenes for differences in presentation, and to discuss why the memoir ends where it does. Discussion prompts ask students to consider authors' use of rhetoric and whether details included were appropriate for purpose and audience.
Final Project
Expository Essay
Students are instructed to state their thesis and list their three points in the introduction in the order they will be discussed, and the rubric's Organization criterion requires that thesis points be explained and connected with transitional words and phrases. The Parent Plan and skills list explicitly tell students to "use appropriate and varied transitions to link the major sections of the text" and to produce writing with clear development and organization. Part 4 (Developing Paragraphs) directs students to use an APE (Answer, Prove, Extend) structure so that each point is introduced, supported, and connected back to the thesis.
Semester Exam
Semester Exam
Students are asked to review the Nonfiction unit and "explain how Malala Yousafzai and Ishmael Beah have used their experiences to try to improve others' lives," how Thoreau's writing influenced Martin Luther King, Jr., and how the term "war crimes" applies to both Wiesel's and Beah's experience, which requires comparing authors' ideas and perspectives. In Part IV discussion prompts, students must explain civil disobedience, what Thoreau meant, and how King defined it, and they must use essays and speeches from the Nonfiction unit to discuss the importance of writing about war, tasks that ask students to analyze relationships among ideas across texts. The Quoting and Paraphrasing task also asks students to integrate and restate authors' language, which supports evaluating how authors present evidence and claims.
2: Semester 2
Unit 1: Ender's Game
Lesson 3
Science Fiction
The "Questions to Discuss" section presents several of Graff's pronouncements and asks students to react to each one, noting that Graff frames broad assertions to "inspire, influence, or manipulate Ender." The discussion prompts guide students to identify inaccuracies (e.g., "No one person invented the wheel") and to consider Graff's persuasive intent and use of fear-based claims (e.g., "for all we know"). The homework and wrap-up ask students to review themes and read chapters, supporting text-based discussion about characters' interactions with persuasive speech.
Lesson 4
Divergence
The lesson asks students to recount how Ender approaches the Giant's Drink: he initially chooses between two options (convergent thinking), becomes trapped, then redefines the problem and attacks the giant/rule-maker (divergent thinking). Activity 2 directs students to test and refine creative problem solving by sketching and generating alternative uses, linking those activities to the narrative example of Ender moving past the giant. Homework and discussion questions require students to explain moments from the text (e.g., Ender's imagined level, the meaning of the anger quote), which ask students to interpret events and character decisions.
Lesson 5
Movement and Time
The Parent Plan skill statement explicitly asks students to "analyze how an author's choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise." The Introducing the Lesson section defines flashbacks and explains how they slow narrative pace, provide background, and foreshadow future events. Activity 2 (Flashbacks) requires students to find a flashback in Chapter 5, name its functions, explain what insights it gives about Ender, and analyze how it increases tension or suspense.
Lesson 6
Performance Is Personal
Students are asked to review the first few paragraphs of each chapter and complete a Text Structure activity that asks them to identify foreshadowing, explain how the opening conversations create tension through conflicting opinions, discuss the job roles revealed in Chapter 8 and why that revelation matters for plot development, and describe stylistic differences between those conversations and the main text. The Parent Plan Skills explicitly instruct students to analyze how an author's choices about structure, ordering of events (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulation of time create effects such as mystery, tension, or surprise. The lesson also points out the ordering choice that the conversations are initially anonymous and only later (Chapter 8) are the speakers identified, which students are directed to analyze.
Lesson 7
Leaders Motivate
Students read the explanatory opening that defines authority, contrasts it with power, and then introduces leadership, which presents a sequence of related ideas (authority → power → leadership). In Activity 1 students read about John Locke and Demosthenes and write a journal entry linking those historical figures to Peter and Valentine, which asks them to analyze how the author draws on source material to develop character and political ideas. A discussion question asks students to consider why the author reveals Valentine's thoughts but not Peter's, prompting students to analyze the author's narrative choices about what information to introduce and when.
Lesson 8
Flies and Self-Loathing
The Parent Plan Skills section explicitly instructs students to "Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text...relate to each other and the whole." The Lord of the Flies vs. Ender's Game activity asks students to compare settings, leadership, themes, responsibilities, fears, and consequences, prompting students to identify connections between the two works. Discussion prompts ask students to evaluate Ender's perception of his own actions and to compare Ender and Bean, which requires students to consider how character ideas and perspectives are presented and related across scenes.
Lesson 9
Conflict Within and Without
Students are asked to identify and categorize examples of internal and external conflict from Ender's Game using a chart and to explain how each conflict fits into the story's theme and plot. Students write a journal paragraph describing the development of a selected conflict over the course of the text and note that some conflicts "wax and wane in importance as the plot develops." In Activity 2, students analyze the chapter title "Veni, vidi, vici," explaining why the author may have chosen it and how it foreshadows plot development.
Lesson 11
Thud, Whump, Huut
Students are asked to re-read a book scene and re-watch the same scene in the movie, taking notes on differences and on which information or dialogue was omitted or changed. The comic-book activity directs students to list narration or dialogue that was omitted or changed on each page and to decide whether the comic communicated the omitted material through pictures. The Parent Plan skills note asks students to analyze the representation of a subject or key scene in two different artistic mediums and what is emphasized or absent in each treatment.
Lesson 12
Campbell's Comparisons
Students watch a video that summarizes the 12 steps of Campbell's hero's journey and record those steps in their journals, demonstrating attention to the ordered sequence of a narrative framework. Students choose six steps and use a graphic organizer to describe clear parallels between each chosen step and specific events in Ender's Game (e.g., Status Quo, Call to Adventure, Trials, Crisis, Return, New Life). The provided sample answers explicitly map novel events to ordered steps and identify connections (e.g., Ender's departure with Graff = Departure; Ender's final battle = Crisis/Treasure).
Lesson 13
The Enemy's Gate Is Down
The Parent Plan skills explicitly include analyzing how an author's choices concerning structure, order of events (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulation of time create effects. Students complete a "Discovering Subplots" activity that asks them to list mysteries/tension in the Graff, Ender, and Peter/Valentine threads and to consider how those subplots enhance the main plot. A discussion question asks students to compare how the Graff subplot is structured (begins each chapter) versus how the Peter/Valentine subplot is developed (mainly in specific chapters), prompting attention to order and development.
Final Project
Think-Tac-Toe
The Parent Plan skills explicitly require students to "analyze how an author's choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it, and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks)" and to "analyze the structure of texts". The unit test (Part II) asks students to define flashback and list two functions, and Box 2 asks students to write an inserted flashback, requiring analysis of how time shifts affect meaning. Box 6 asks students to map six "hero's journey" steps from Ender's Game and create a storyboard, which requires tracing the order of events and their narrative connections; Boxes 5 and 8 ask students to compare/contrast leadership development and to identify similarities/differences and authorial purpose for historical references, which requires analyzing how ideas are introduced, developed, and connected.
Unit 2: Grammar, Part II
Lesson 8
Parallelism
Students are asked to "Order items in a list or series by chronology (in the order it happened) or by degree of importance" on the Parallelism activity page, which addresses the sequencing of points. The activity also asks students to list coordinating and correlative conjunctions and to compare examples of parallelism, which requires recognizing how items are connected grammatically. Students read explanatory material (webpage and book) and take notes on numbered sections that map to different parallelism problems, requiring attention to how list items and comparisons are structured.
Unit 3: Informational Texts
Lesson 1
What Are Informational Texts?
Students identify organizational features in Outliers (Activity 1) by comparing the book's Contents and locating items such as index, footnotes, headings, and bibliographic material. Students watch Gladwell's TED talk (Activity 2) and discuss how he reinterprets the David and Goliath story, explaining specific points Gladwell introduces (e.g., David's advantages) and the evidence he uses. Homework questions ask students to explain the sequence of events that led Rosetans to Pennsylvania and to state researchers' conclusions about the connection between community life and health.
Lesson 2
Outliers
Students are asked to examine how Gladwell defines "outlier" by locating definitions on specific pages (p. 3 and p. 7) and to re-read the last two paragraphs (pp. 10-11) to see how the Roseto study functions as an analogy. Activity prompts require students to explain the purpose of the Introduction and to identify how analogy and other strategies help the reader understand the term. Homework questions ask students to explain causal chains (e.g., the birthday cutoff leading to selection and continued advantage) and to define and apply the "Matthew Effect."
Lesson 3
The Matthew Effect
Students are asked in Activity 1 to evaluate the charts the author uses and to create alternative graphics, which requires them to analyze how the author presents and organizes information visually. Homework Question #4 asks students to explain how the author relates the 10,000-hour rule back to the sports examples, prompting students to identify connections the author draws between general claims and specific examples. The Parent Plan lists skills that include determining a central idea and analyzing its development over the course of the text, and the Wrapping Up summary points prompt students to restate the author's claim about practice and advantage.
Lesson 4
The 10,000 Hour Rule
Students are asked to summarize Sections 1–3 and answer targeted questions on the "Looking Closely" page that require analysis of how Gladwell introduces and develops Bill Joy (e.g., identifying words/phrases in the last two paragraphs that signal a shift). Students must explain why Bill Joy is omitted from Section 2 and how Section 3 adds to understanding of Joy and the 10,000-hour rule, which asks them to trace the order and development of ideas. The Parent Plan and answer key explicitly direct students to analyze how Gladwell arranges information, pauses to present supporting science, and then returns to the story to connect examples to broader claims.
Lesson 5
Harlan, Kentucky
Students read Chapter 6 and answer targeted comprehension questions that require them to identify the pattern of violence, the concept of a "culture of honor," the jury's rationale, and the University of Michigan experiment and its findings. The lesson asks students to consider why Gladwell focuses on a small town as an example of cultural legacies and notes that Gladwell continues the idea in Chapter 7, prompting students to think about connections across chapters. Homework asks students to research local settlers and reflect on how ancestral influences persist, which asks students to relate evidence to larger cultural claims.
Lesson 6
The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes
Students answer specific section-by-section questions in Activity 2 that ask what details provide clues about outcomes, the purpose of descriptive sections, how particular descriptions contribute to understanding, and what connections link sections. The Homework prompt explicitly asks students to explain why Gladwell delays revealing the chapter's central issue and to relate the order and development of ideas to their predictions. Activity 5 (Option 2) directs students to chart criticisms and Gladwell's responses, requiring students to analyze how Gladwell develops, defends, or omits parts of his argument across sections.
Lesson 7
Rice Paddies and Math Tests
The Parent Plan Skills list explicitly names the standard "Analyze how the author unfolds an analysis or series of ideas or events..." and also asks students to "Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text." Students are assigned to read specified sections of Outliers, answer questions about content and connections (e.g., how rice farming relates to the 10,000-hour rule), and create an infographic that condenses and explains a concept from the chapter. The Wrapping Up and homework discussion prompts ask students to evaluate Gladwell's main goal (inform vs. persuade) and to explain links among talent, preparation, and opportunity.
Lesson 8
With Malice Toward None
Students read Lincoln's "Second Inaugural Address" and are instructed to "analyze Lincoln's rhetorical strategies including the choices he made regarding tone, organization of ideas, and word choice". Students answer guided questions about how Lincoln justifies his choices, restates the cause of the war, and frames optimism, which requires attention to the order and introduction of points. For homework, students choose three sentences that correspond to background, main message, and a forward-looking statement, explicitly having students identify how the speech's ideas unfold in sequence.
Lesson 9
Writing about History
Students are asked in the homework (QUESTION #1 and QUESTION #2) to list the subtitles of "The Search for the Site of the Sand Creek Massacre" in order and to explain why the author organized the information that way, which targets sequencing and development. QUESTION #3 asks students to identify how the author communicates a theme (the desire to find and memorialize the site) and what evidence is provided, prompting identification of connections between points and supporting details. Activity 1 (Firsthand Accounts) requires students to match secondary-source claims to supporting primary-source evidence, which has students trace how claims are developed and supported across texts.
Lesson 10
Science Writing
The Parent Plan explicitly lists skills that require students to determine how an author explains or clarifies a scientific phenomenon, to trace how supporting details are incorporated, and to analyze the structure of relationships among concepts. The student activity 'Investigating Claims in Science Writing' directs students to explain how the author supports two specific claims and to identify the methods the author uses to explain the term 'centripetal force.' The answer key describes students identifying specific explanatory methods (highlighting, explanation, example, illustration) and using examples and frames of reference to explain claims.
Lesson 11
Technical Writing
In Activity 1 students annotate a hydroponics passage to identify main topics, paragraph/section breaks, headings, highlighted vocabulary, and places that would benefit from bulleted or numbered lists, which requires them to examine the order and organization of ideas. In Activities 3 and 6 students plan and write step-by-step how-to guides, record and sequence materials and steps in chronological order, and revise by going through their steps exactly as written to ensure clarity and proper ordering. The Guide Checklist and revision tasks ask students to add an introduction, conclusion, glossary, headings/subheadings, and to make sure steps are in chronological order, prompting attention to how information is introduced, developed, and navigated.
Lesson 12
Logical Fallacies
Students are asked to identify the main point and how it is supported in Gehrig's speech (Appeals in Gehrig's Speech asks for the thesis and how he supports it). In the Andrew Jackson activity students highlight at least three weak arguments and label fallacies (examples given include non-sequitur, straw man, bandwagon, and ad hominem). The Wrapping Up section directs students to notice when two statements are placed together without a clear connection, prompting follow-up research. The Parent Plan explicitly states students will "delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is valid and the evidence is relevant and sufficient."
Final Project
Argumentative Research Essay
The lesson teaches the classical argument structure (introduction, narration, confirmation, concession/refutation, conclusion) and instructs students to organize their essay paragraphs according to that order. The Essay Rubric explicitly requires that key points be "presented in the classical order" and that students use transitions to "clarify the relationships between claim(s), counterclaims, reasons, and evidence." The "Present the Evidence" activity asks students to record source quotes and reflect on how each piece of evidence influences their thinking, encouraging attention to how information supports points.
Unit 4: Drama
Lesson 2
How to Read Drama
Students identify and analyze the plot by answering whether it centers on a discovery or a reversal and by describing how the plot is unified in time, place, and action. Students trace the sequence of events by noting beginning, middle, and end and by locating specific clues and their order (e.g., the bird, the torn cage, sewing). Students analyze connections among elements (symbolism of the bird to Mrs. Wright, diction differences between men and women, and how those connections develop the play's theme).
Lesson 3
Life and Times
Students are instructed to read Robert Nemiroff's "Introduction" (pp. 5-14) and the setting and cast pages and to answer guided questions about content and time frame. The Parent Plan explicitly lists the skill: "Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details." Students also watch a Civil Rights Act video and discuss how Hansberry's play "presaged" later events, linking biographical and historical context to the text.
Lesson 4
A Raisin in the Sun
Students are asked to write a paragraph summarizing Act I that includes the setting, main characters, and the plot of each scene, which requires them to sequence events. Students complete a "Characters and Their Dreams" organizer to note the adjectives Hansberry uses and to record each character's stated or implied dreams as they are introduced. Students analyze dialect and consider why Hansberry chose the stage form (Activity 3) and answer questions about character motives and relationships that draw connections among actions and consequences.
Lesson 5
Act II
The Parent Plan explicitly lists the skill "Analyze how and why individuals, events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text." Activity 2 (Hansberry Quotes) asks students to read excerpts and explain which characters or themes the quotations describe, prompting students to connect biographical ideas to events and characters. The Reader Response Paragraph requires students to make claims about characters/events and "prove" them with specific examples and quotations from the play using the APE method.
Lesson 6
Act III
The lesson's Skills section explicitly asks students to "analyze how and why individuals, events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text," directing work on development and interaction. Reading questions ask students to explain character motives and decisions (e.g., Beneatha's change about becoming a doctor, Walter's plan to get money), which requires students to trace events and character development. Activity 1 and the Student Activity Page have students analyze Hughes's imagery and similes and then relate those images to specific characters' deferred dreams, asking students to draw connections between the poem and the play.
Lesson 8
Shakespeare
Students read explanatory front-matter ("Reading Shakespeare's Language" and "Shakespeare's Life") and answer questions that require identifying causes and connections (e.g., what historical changes affected Shakespeare's life and writing). Students use an activity sheet to analyze an Act 1 Scene 2 passage by identifying speakers, meanings, actions, desires, visualizing the scene, and summarizing the passage in their own words. Students create a timeline by ordering events from Shakespeare's life, cutting and placing dated boxes in chronological sequence.
Lesson 10
Figurative Language
Students are asked to cut out and unscramble the lines of the Prologue sonnet, mark its rhyme scheme (ABAB CDCD EFEF GG), and explain what major conflict the sonnet summarizes, which requires them to determine the order and development of the poem's ideas. Students are asked to read Romeo's speech, circle oxymorons and underline paradoxes, then explain why Shakespeare uses many oxymorons and paradoxes, which asks them to analyze how lines and devices develop Romeo's mixed feelings and the connections between contradictory phrases. Students also read Act II scenes and write journal summaries of the most important events, practicing identification of key events in sequence.
Lesson 11
Nuanced Meaning
Students read Act 3 (Scenes 1–5) and answer specific comprehension questions about who acts, who is punished, and what events occur. Students are asked to summarize in their journals the most important event that occurred in each scene, which asks them to identify central events. Students rewrite a six-line exchange as modern text messages and are asked to demonstrate the relationship between characters, the plot of the scene, and the emotions the characters feel.
Lesson 12
Time and Tension
Students read Act IV and are directed to "explore how Shakespeare creates tension in the act by manipulating time." Students complete a Time and Tension activity that has them count time-related words across the play and analyze specific scenes and monologues (Scene 1 Friar Lawrence, Scene 2 Capulet's "3 times," Scene 3 Juliet's waiting, Scene 5 Nurse's monologue) for how mentions of time and pacing create suspense. The parent plan explicitly lists the skill of analyzing how an author's choices about structure, ordering events, and manipulating time create effects such as tension.
Lesson 13
Tragic Hero
Students create a scene-by-scene timeline for chosen characters, filling in actions/events from Act 1 through Act 5 and using that order to evaluate whether characters are static or dynamic. Students answer guided questions about Act V events (e.g., Romeo buying poison, the tomb confrontation, the families' reaction) that require attention to the sequence of events. Students compare Ovid's "Pyramus and Thisbe" to Romeo and Juliet, identifying parallels and connections between the source material and Shakespeare's plot developments.
Final Project
Drama
Students are asked to determine a theme or central idea and "analyze in detail its development over the course of the text" and to "analyze how and why individuals, events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text" in the Skills section. Students must sequence and summarize action when they create a comic strip/storyboard (labeling each panel with act and scene and providing a brief summary). The unit test asks students to explain plot causation (e.g., why Romeo is banished; why Friar Lawrence's message did not reach Romeo), which requires tracing events and their consequences.
Semester Exam
Semester Exam
Students are asked multiple times to explain Malcolm Gladwell's claims in Outliers (e.g., why Roseto residents were "outliers," what cultural factor Gladwell links to plane crashes) and to provide examples from the book showing how he supports those claims. The Part IV discussion prompt F explicitly asks students to decide whether Outliers is primarily informational or persuasive and to consider features (endnotes, charts, headings) and Gladwell's rhetorical methods (ethos, logos, pathos) and criticisms of the chapter "The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes." Several short-answer items require students to cite Gladwell's examples (e.g., 10,000 hours, cut-off dates) to support analysis of his points.