Ninth Grade - ELA
1: Semester 1
Unit 1: Lord of the Flies
Lesson 1
The Call
The lesson's Skills section 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," and to "analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone." Students read Chapter 1 of Lord of the Flies, respond to comprehension questions, and complete activities that ask them to identify common elements across dystopian texts and to anticipate which elements will appear in the novel. Vocabulary exercises require students to locate words in passages and consider context and connotation.
Lesson 2
Life on the Island
Students are instructed to create and continually update STEAL character pages (Speech, Thoughts, Effect on others, Actions, Looks) for each main boy, recording page numbers and examples from Chapter 1 and subsequent chapters. The lesson explicitly prompts students to notice and record how characters are changing over time and to contrast initial physical appearances with later changes. The parent-plan examples model locating specific sentences and actions (quoted lines and page references) as evidence used to infer character development.
Lesson 3
Paths in the Jungle
Students are directed to read an article, annotate it, and identify the author's thesis and supporting points (Activity 1, Student Activity Page). The lesson tells students to underline topic sentences, circle key words, and record "Key points that support the thesis" in a graphic organizer. The Parent Plan and Skills sections require students to cite textual evidence to support analysis and to use annotations to monitor comprehension.
Lesson 4
Images from Paradise
Students are asked to fill a Five Senses chart with quotations from the book and to explain how each quotation serves as an example of imagery, including whether the description is positive or negative. The lesson text models connecting particular sentences (e.g., a quoted passage describing the island) to the author's attitude and tone, noting that Golding's word choice conveys affection and awe toward nature. Activity directions also ask students to label examples as "paradise" or "dystopia" and to indicate whether a description suggests paradox or emphasizes contrast, prompting explanation of how specific language creates meaning.
Lesson 5
Not Hunting, But Hunted
The introduction and Activities explicitly direct students to examine how an author's choices about structure, ordering of events, and manipulation of time create effects such as mystery, tension, or surprise. Activity 1 has students analyze underlined passages from Lord of the Flies and explains how Golding's interruptions and minute details slow pacing and enhance tension; students compare Example A and Example B to see how sentence-level choices break a moment into discrete components. The student task asks learners to recreate an important moment using slow-motion narrative pacing, applying analysis of particular sentences and verbs to produce the effect.
Lesson 6
Symbolism, Part 1
The Parent Plan lists the skill "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," which directly references analyzing development over the course of a text. Activity 1 and the Student Activity Page require students to choose interpretations of symbols and "back up [their] explanation with support from the text," asking students to cite textual evidence for their claims. Activity 2 asks students to write a one-page journal that records actions and quotes from other characters, which requires students to gather and use specific details from chapters.
Lesson 7
Bowed and Bowed Again
The Getting Started section quotes the parachutist passage and explains how Golding's description in Chapter 6 (the falling paratrooper) creates dramatic irony that affects readers' responses in Chapter 7. The Beast activity asks students to predict how characters will respond under two knowledge conditions (the characters' knowledge vs. the reader's knowledge), prompting students to consider how withholding or providing information shapes understanding. The Parent Plan lists skills that include analyzing how an author's structural choices create effects like mystery, tension, or surprise and determining a theme and its development using specific details.
Lesson 8
Defects of Human Nature
The Parent Plan lists the skill: "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." Student activities ask learners to choose themes that support Golding's major theme and to "support those choices by referring to details from the novel." The lesson includes a specific paragraph about Ralph and the conch that students read and may cite, and Option 2 asks students to write 3–4 sentences explaining how a chosen minor theme supports the major theme.
Lesson 9
Symbolism, Part 2
The Parent Plan lists the skill: "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." The Allegory Analysis activity asks students to describe what Ralph's tribe, Jack's tribe, Piggy, Simon, and the island might represent, prompting students to connect characters and setting to abstract ideas. The Recognizing Archetypes activity asks students to identify archetypal roles for characters (e.g., Ralph=Hero, Piggy=Mentor) and to cite character details that support those labels.
Lesson 10
Which Is Better?
Students are asked to analyze Piggy's quoted speech just before his murder and to consider its symbolic effect on the novel's development of civilization versus savagery. Students are given a Parent Plan skill that explicitly asks them to determine a theme or central idea 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 must write a one-page journal entry in which they analyze aspects of Jack's leadership and contrast it with Ralph's leadership and the boys' pre-island lives, requiring them to draw on events and developments across chapters.
Lesson 11
The Film
Students are asked to complete a "Movie vs. Book" chart comparing similarities and differences in characters, setting, theme, and plot, which requires them to evaluate how particular scenes and sections contribute to overall meaning. The activities prompt students to identify omitted scenes they think were too critical to the novel's major theme and to explain why, asking them to connect portions of the text to theme development. The Parent Plan lists a skill to "analyze how complex characters ... develop over the course of a text," and the review directs students to consider narrative pacing, theme, and literary devices across the work.
Final Project
Now You Have the Conch
Students are asked to return to specific sections (e.g., Chapter 7) and "note passages" where Ralph and Jack contend and where the group is "caught up," then "see what patterns you noticed," which requires analyzing how those scenes develop Golding's ideas. Brainstorming and worksheet pages direct students to find passages, record key phrases and page numbers, and explain each passage's relevance. The Essay Organizer and outline templates require students to include specific examples and quotes and to "explain how the examples support the point." The Parent Plan skills list explicitly states students will "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."
Unit 2: Short Stories
Lesson 1
The Gift of the Magi
Students are asked to analyze the narrator's paired sentences about Jim and Della being both "unwise" and "the wisest," prompting examination of how those specific sentences develop the story's claim about sacrifice. The annotation activity directs students to mark words/phrases, character traits, and changes in action, which requires attention to particular sentences and passages (e.g., descriptive language in the story's opening that signals economic status). Homework asks students to research allusions (the Magi, Queen of Sheba, Solomon) and then explain how those references contribute to their understanding of the story, linking specific references to the author's meaning.
Lesson 2
The Necklace
Students are instructed to re-read their annotations and re-read only the sections of the story where repetitions occur, paying special attention to the context and similarities/differences across occurrences. The Exploring Theme activity asks students to record a central theme and directly asks, "How is a central theme developed in the story (paragraphs, etc.)?" Students complete a theme web using textual evidence and specific details to show how the theme emerges. The Parent Plan explicitly tells students to "extensively analyze [a theme's] development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is refined by specific details."
Lesson 3
Literary Response
Students identify specific similarities between the two stories (theme, irony, narrator, role of poverty) and are prompted to find and record quotations or examples from each text to support their claims. Students use APE (Answer, Prove, Extend) to turn assertions into questions, provide textual quotations as proof, and write explanations that connect evidence to their assertions. Students complete graphic organizers (brainstorming grid, informal outline, details and support) that require them to cite textual evidence and explain how that evidence supports their points.
Lesson 4
Characterization
Students read Langston Hughes's short story "Thank You, Ma'am" and identify concrete examples of direct and indirect characterization in specific sentences and passages by filling out the Characterization activity sheet. Students are asked to highlight those examples in the text and to record speech, appearance, thoughts, actions, and how others respond, tying particular lines or exchanges to character traits. Students are also prompted to think about and discuss how the author's characterizations advance the plot or develop the theme, citing text-based evidence.
Lesson 5
Edgar Allan Poe
Students are asked to find 3–4 examples of foreshadowing and record what those early sentences refer to later in the story, directly connecting specific lines to later events. In the "Crazy Like a Fox?" homework students list textual evidence in two columns to support whether the narrator is rational or insane, comparing the narrator's claims with other sentences in the text. A comprehension question asks students why Poe uses first-person point of view and how the experience would differ in third person, prompting analysis of how POV shapes the reader's understanding of the narrator across passages. The storyboard activity requires students to quote the corresponding section of the story under each panel, tying selected passages to a visual sequence.
Lesson 6
The Lottery
Students are instructed to use close reading to examine the parts of the story in which the black wooden box is described or mentioned and to record specific elements from those passages. The activity directs students to analyze physical descriptions, connections between the box and other aspects of the story, and how characters react to the box, including an explicit comparison of the story's opening sentences with the final scene. The Student Activity Page asks students to categorize textual notes into sections (description, reactions, historical connections) and to think about how the symbol contributes to plot and theme.
Lesson 7
Everyday Use
Students are asked to choose a brief scene or section of "Everyday Use," rewrite it from Maggie's or Dee's point of view, and write a reflective paragraph on how the different narrative point of view changed the story, which requires analyzing how a portion of the text shapes meaning. The Symbolism activity directs students to describe specific aspects of characters' appearance and actions and explain how those parts symbolize relationships to culture and heritage. The question set and class discussion prompts ask students to connect particular lines and moments (for example, the mother's lines about the quilts and Dee's statement about her name) to the story's significance and characters' attitudes.
Lesson 8
Harrison Bergeron
Students read the printed text and answer guided questions that require citing a specific quote (George's remark about the "dark ages") to explain how the society developed. Students identify narrative point of view (third-person limited) based on what the narrator reveals. Day 2 work asks students to compare the story's opening exposition (the first two paragraphs) to the film's voice-over and to list specific scenes, dialogue, and character changes between the text and the movie.
Lesson 9
Dialogue
Activity 2 asks students to skim and re-read sections containing dialogue and to refer to specific lines or sections of a short story to support their points. Students are prompted to consider how the dialogue reveals character traits and how it affects the pacing of scenes, and a sample paragraph models analyzing how quoted exchanges frame crucial points in a story. The Parent Plan and wrapping-up notes explicitly state that students will reflect on how one of the short stories they read employed dialogue and will write an informal paragraph about it.
Unit 4: Poetry
Lesson 1
Introduction to Poetry
Students are asked to mark and analyze specific words and phrases in poems (Activity 2 and the Poem Response homework) to identify denotation and connotation and to explain why particular word choices are effective. In the Richard Cory example students examine how line 3's wording ("sole to crown," "imperially slim," "richer than a king") builds an image of Cory's appeal. Students compare and revise their own definitions of poetry after reading multiple poets' quotations, and they answer questions about how the speaker's suggestions develop in Billy Collins's poem (e.g., which suggestions the speaker makes and how they differ from readers' expectations).
Lesson 4
Voice and Tone
Students are asked to identify words and phrases that convey tone in specific poems and to record those examples on the Tone activity page, directly tying particular lines and phrases to the poem's emotional effect. The Frost activities ask students to follow a line-by-line analysis of tone in "The Pasture" and to chart sight/sound images and interruptions in "The Fear," linking specific lines, punctuation (dashes), and repeated words to the poem's eerie tone. The parent plan also states students will "analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone," which points students to examine how particular wording refines the poem's effect.
Lesson 5
What Does It Mean?
Students are asked to summarize poems and may "summarize each stanza" for longer poems and to "notice the progression of the poem" (beginning, middle, end) in the homework on "The Fish." The lesson directs students to identify extended metaphor that is "sustained for much or all of the poem," and to relate symbols and allusions to meaning. Student activity pages prompt analysis of images, tone, symbols, and how references (allusions) help understanding, which asks students to connect particular portions of a poem to its overall meaning.
Lesson 7
Analyzing Poetry
Students are directed to annotate poems by marking words, writing questions, and noting conclusions, which requires close attention to particular lines and phrases (Activity 1). Students complete a poetry map that asks them to paraphrase the poem, identify word choice, imagery, symbols, tone, and to note where the tone changes (Activity 2). Students are asked to summarize in their own words and identify theme and where tone or meaning shifts, which has them track development across stanzas or sections of a poem.
Lesson 9
The Crossover
The homework Option 1 asks students to look at specific poems/pages ("Where Do We Go from Here" pp. 227-228 and "Free Throws" pp. 234-237) and answer what "crossover" means in each poem and whether using the word in different ways is effective. Homework Option 2 asks students to compare "Basketball Rule #3" (p. 66) and "Basketball Rule #10" (p. 230) and reflect on whether those rules are good rules for life, directing students to consider two separate poems/sections. The Skills section explicitly lists analyzing how a particular sentence, chapter, scene, or stanza fits into the overall structure and contributes to development of theme, setting, or plot.
Lesson 10
Poems and Poets
Students are asked to "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" in the Parent Plan skills list. The Poetry Map student page directs students to paraphrase the poem, identify theme, and analyze word choice, imagery, symbols/allusions, tone, sound devices, other figurative language, and speaker. Activity 1/2 require students to read aloud, annotate, and summarize a chosen poem, and Activity 4 asks students to analyze how cultural references in specific poems enrich meaning and inform understanding of the poet's culture.
Lesson 11
Reciting Poetry
Students are asked to consider why the poet chose certain words and are given a concrete example (Housman's "chaired" and "shoulder-high") showing how specific word choices create images. The lesson explains enjambment with a Wordsworth example and asks students to note when sentences continue across lines, linking sentence-level structure to meaning. Homework directs students to determine the speaker, tone, and the poem's meaning, to mark pauses, and to analyze the images the poem's words put in their mind. The Parent Plan lists skills including analyzing the cumulative impact of word choice and how ideas develop and interact over a text.
Final Project
Poetry
Students are asked to create a poetry explication presentation in which they copy and paste or type the poem (or the section they're focusing on) onto slides and demonstrate aspects such as tone, sound devices, rhyme, meter, imagery, word choice, figurative language, symbols, literal meaning, and theme. The lesson instructs students to highlight words and sections (e.g., put alliteration in one color, assonance in another) and to focus slides on particular parts of the poem. The skills list explicitly includes analyzing the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions relate to each other and the whole.
Unit 5: Nonfiction
Lesson 1
Types of Nonfiction
Students read the prologue and Chapter 1 of I Am Malala and answer questions about circumstances, relationships, and details, which gets them working with specific sections of a text. The Student Activity Page asks students to determine a book's genre using catalog/front/back matter, compare themes and viewpoints across books, and "add notes" about how characters, setting, and plot events contribute to the theme, implying analysis of larger portions of the text. The Parent Plan lists skills asking students to interpret words and phrases and assess how point of view or purpose shapes content and style.
Lesson 2
Pakistan
Students read Chapters 2–4 of I Am Malala and answer targeted comprehension and interpretive questions (e.g., differences between village and city life, effects of the Taliban, why the chapter was titled "A Warning from God," and what the magic pencil symbolized). Students use the book's timeline and specific chapters along with web resources to answer content and context questions about setting and development of events. The activity asks students to reference particular portions of the book (timeline, Chapter 1, Chapters 2–6) to support answers about historical and narrative details.
Lesson 3
The Taliban
The Parent Plan skills list explicitly tells students to "Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas." Students are assigned to read specific chapters (7, 8, and 10) of I Am Malala and answer comprehension questions that ask them to explain causes, events, and ideas (e.g., why the Taliban oppose Western culture, why they oppose education). The Wrapping Up section also instructs students that they "will practice paraphrasing," which supports close engagement with an author's wording and meaning.
Lesson 6
A Day Like Any Other
The lesson asks students to use the APE strategy, including a "Prove" step that requires students to "Provide evidence... Use specific examples and quotations from the text," which asks students to cite particular sentences or passages. The Wrap-Up includes a prompt asking whether the authors use foreshadowing and to point to examples (nightmares, crooked picture, diary entry), which asks students to identify authorial techniques across portions of the text. The listed skills include "Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis" and "Analyze how and why individuals, events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text," which orients students toward textual development and evidence-based analysis.
Lesson 7
Life in England
Students read Chapters 33-34 of I Am Malala and answer comprehension questions about setting, behavior, and family adjustment. Students watch an 11-minute documentary segment and take notes comparing how Ellick's film and Malala's book portray her father's influence, Malala's mother, and the filmmaker's focus, with prompts that point to specific pages (top of p.75, bottom of p.106, p.184). Students are asked to compare which details each account emphasizes and to evaluate how the film and book are effective in telling Malala's story, engaging with larger portions (chapters vs. film).
Lesson 8
Civil Rights
Students read both the first and second halves of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" and answer questions that ask them to identify the four steps of a nonviolent campaign and to name the most persuasive argument and explain why it was effective. Students underline and analyze four excerpts from the letter in a double-entry diary, recording agreement and their own opinions about King's reasoning. Students identify and explain the historical and religious figures King references ("People of the Past" activity), linking those allusions to his argument.
Lesson 9
Civil Disobedience
Students analyze and compare excerpts from Thoreau and King by highlighting phrases that express similar ideas and by filling an "Overlapping Ideas" column that asks them to explain areas of agreement. Students read multiple passages (Sets A, B, C) and complete activities that ask them to decide which author they agree with and to explain their reasoning. The Parent Plan lists skills that include determining an author's point of view and analyzing how an author uses rhetoric to advance that point of view.
Lesson 11
A Boy's Story
Students are asked to explain what the author says the book tries to explain (QUESTION #4 about the video) and to note how the book's style of writing differs from I Am Malala (Wrapping Up). The Parent Plan lists skills that include interpreting words and phrases and "analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone," which directs students to examine particular language. Several short-answer questions ask students to explain why the author includes small details (e.g., the moon adage), prompting consideration of authorial purpose and development of ideas.
Lesson 12
Running from War
Students are asked to read a specific paragraph (middle of p. 51) that explains how the author remembers details and to evaluate that explanation in Activity 2 (Memory). The homework APE task requires students to Answer a question about whether the author's dreams or memories are more traumatic, Prove with a quotation from the text, and Extend by explaining how the quotation supports their answer. The discussion prompts also ask students to judge the believability and accuracy of the author's explanation of his memory.
Lesson 13
Child Soldier
Students are asked to read specific chapters and answer questions about how events and repeated phrases (for example, commanders repeating that "The rebels are responsible for everything") influence characters' motivations, which requires attention to particular paragraphs and scenes. The "Role of Rap" activity directs students to specific pages and asks how music contributes to the development of the story and characters, prompting analysis across larger portions of the text. The "Different Accounts" activity requires students to provide examples or quotes from the book and then compare those book-based claims to an author video, asking students to delineate and evaluate claims across mediums. The Parent Plan explicitly lists skills such as citing strong textual evidence and delineating and evaluating arguments and specific claims in a text.
Lesson 14
Rehabilitation
The Parent Plan explicitly lists the skill "Analyze how the author unfolds an analysis or series of ideas or events, including the order in which the points are made, how they are introduced and developed, and the connections that are drawn between them." Activity 1 asks students to re-read the lieutenant's speech (p. 123) and the RUF conversation (p. 134) and to evaluate whether the lieutenant's claims are accurate, requiring students to cite examples or quotations to support their conclusions. Questions and activities ask students to draw evidence from specific lines (e.g., why Beah says "needed" instead of "wanted") and to explain how quotations from Wiesel relate to Beah's memoir, directing students to use particular passages to support analysis.
Lesson 15
A New Life
Students are asked to compare the two memoirs' style and rhetoric using the "Comparing Memoirs" activity and to examine specific scenes (for example, Malala's shooting on pp. 6-7 vs. Beah's rebel attack on pp. 24-25) to note differences in presentation. The Parent Plan explicitly lists the skill of determining a central idea and analyzing its development over the course of the text, including how it is shaped and refined by specific details. Discussion prompts ask students to consider why the memoir ends where it does and how particular stories (the hunter and monkey) relate to the author's experience, encouraging analysis of how larger portions contribute to meaning.
Semester Exam
Semester Exam
Students are asked to explain relationships among nonfiction authors (e.g., how Malala Yousafzai and Ishmael Beah used their experiences to improve others' lives, and how Thoreau's writing influenced Martin Luther King, Jr.), which asks them to analyze authors' ideas across texts. Discussion prompts (Part IV, items A and E) require students to write paragraph-length analyses about concepts such as civil disobedience and how authors' transparency and specificity about war lead readers to learn lessons. The Quoting and Paraphrasing task (Part V) asks students to integrate and paraphrase specific sentences from Wordsworth, which gives practice working with particular sentences from a text.
2: Semester 2
Unit 1: Ender's Game
Lesson 3
Science Fiction
Students read specific passages from Ender's Game (Graff's pronouncements) and are prompted to react to and evaluate those claims in the 'Questions to Discuss' section. Students read chapters 5–6 and answer comprehension questions that require interpreting actions and author choices (e.g., why Ender defeats the giant). The lesson also asks students to read an article about science fiction and complete organizer and identification activities that require distinguishing elements and themes in text.
Lesson 4
Divergence
Homework question #3 asks students to explain the meaning of the sentence "Ender's anger is cold, and he could use it. Bonzo's was hot, and it used him," which requires students to analyze a particular sentence's contribution to character understanding. The Parent Plan lists a skill asking students to "Analyze how complex characters... develop over the course of a text," which requires students to track character development across larger portions (chapters). A discussion prompt asks why the author used a racial slur in Chapter 6, prompting students to consider author word choice and its effects within a chapter.
Lesson 5
Movement and Time
The Parent Plan explicitly lists the skill: students will "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." Activity 2 (Flashbacks) asks students to find a specific flashback in Chapter 5, explain what insights about Ender the flashback gives, and explain how the flashback increases tension or suspense. Activity 1 requires a close reading of action sequences to notice how Card creates motion and pacing through words.
Lesson 6
Performance Is Personal
Students are asked to review the first few paragraphs of each chapter and complete the "Text Structure" activity page that asks them to identify foreshadowing, explain how chapter-opening conversations create tension, and describe stylistic differences between those conversations and the main text. The Parent Plan's Skills section explicitly directs students to analyze how an author's choices about structure, ordering, and manipulation of time create effects. The activity prompts (Questions 1–4) require students to cite specific examples from chapter openings to support their explanations.
Lesson 8
Flies and Self-Loathing
The Parent Plan explicitly lists the skill: "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." The Introducing the Lesson directs students to evaluate Ender's actions and to separate Ender's self-perception from the reader's view, which asks students to consider how portions of the text shape a character's portrayal. Students are assigned to read Chapter 11 and answer questions that require engagement with that larger portion of the text.
Lesson 9
Conflict Within and Without
Students are asked to identify examples of internal and external conflict from Ender's Game and to place them into a chart, which requires them to locate and categorize incidents across the text. Students must write a paragraph addressing how a chosen conflict impacts relationships, advances the plot, and contributes to character change, which asks them to analyze development over the course of the text. In Activity 2, students write one to two paragraphs speculating why the author chose the chapter title "Veni, vidi, vici" and how that allusion foreshadows an important plot development, prompting analysis of an authorial choice at the chapter level.
Lesson 10
View from Valentine
Students are asked to learn and identify third-person omniscient point of view ("Ender's Game is narrated from the third person omniscient point of view") and to "notice how much the story is enriched... when the narrator provides insights into the thoughts and feelings of the characters around Ender." The lesson prompts students to "imagine how the story would have been different" if written from Ender's point of view and includes the skill statement: "Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text." These elements require students to consider how the author's choice of narrator affects the presentation of ideas across a chapter.
Lesson 11
Thud, Whump, Huut
Students are asked to re-read a specific book scene and re-watch the same scene in the film, take notes on differences, and consider what information or dialogue was omitted or changed (Option 1). The Comic Adaptation activity directs students to read specific comic pages, compare quoted passages to the novel, list narration or dialogue that was omitted or changed, and judge whether the comic communicated the omitted material. The provided answer key models analysis of particular quoted passages and notes how omissions affect meaning (e.g., Ender's internal thought about Peter being missing).
Lesson 12
Campbell's Comparisons
Students watch a video summarizing Campbell's 12-step Hero's Journey and record the steps in their journals. Students choose six of those steps and use a graphic organizer to describe parallels between each chosen step and portions of Ender's Game. The parent plan provides sample mappings that connect specific moments or larger portions of the novel (e.g., Status Quo, Call to Adventure, Trials, Return) to steps in the Hero's Journey.
Lesson 13
The Enemy's Gate Is Down
Students are asked to analyze text structure and parallel plots in the Parent Plan skills section: "Analyze how an author's choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots)…create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise." Activity 1 prompts students to compare how the Graff subplot is structured across chapters and to consider whether Graff's subplot beginning each chapter creates mystery or tension. The Discovering Subplots activity page has students list unanswered questions and mysteries by column for Graff, Ender, and Peter/Valentine, linking those larger portions (chapters/subplots) to theme and effect.
Final Project
Think-Tac-Toe
The Parent Plan skills explicitly tell 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," and to "analyze how an author's choices concerning how to structure a text... create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise." Students answer unit-test questions about the definition and functions of flashbacks and provide examples from Ender's Game (Part II), which requires identifying how a structural device develops meaning. Several Think-Tac-Toe activities (Box 5 compare/contrast of leadership, Box 6 hero's-journey storyboard, Box 3 rewriting a passage from first-person) ask students to examine and reinterpret sections of the novel, linking parts of the text to larger themes or narrative effects.
Unit 3: Informational Texts
Lesson 1
What Are Informational Texts?
Students read a chapter of Outliers ("The Roseto Mystery") and answer questions that require them to identify causes and the researchers' conclusions (Questions 1, 2, 3, 4). In Activity 2, students watch Gladwell's TED talk and answer questions that ask them to explain Gladwell's interpretation of David and Goliath and the ways he argues David had advantages. Activity 1 asks students to examine how informational text features are used to make complex ideas accessible, prompting consideration of organization and presentation.
Lesson 2
Outliers
The Parent Plan explicitly tells students to "analyze how the author unfolds an analysis or series of ideas or events, including the order in which the points are made, how they are introduced and developed, and the connections that are drawn between them." Activity 1 directs students to re-read the Introduction and specific pages (p. 3, p. 7, pp. 10-11) to identify how Gladwell defines and refines the term "outlier," including use of dictionary definitions and the Roseto analogy. The activity asks students to explain the purpose of the Introduction and how Gladwell uses analogy and other strategies to develop his claims about success.
Lesson 3
The Matthew Effect
Students are asked to read Sections 1-3 of "The 10,000 Rule" and answer targeted questions that require explanation of author claims (QUESTION #2 asks students to explain "Achievement is talent plus preparation" and which part the author would argue matters more; QUESTION #4 asks how the author relates the 10,000 hour rule back to the sports examples from Chapter 1). The Parent Plan section explicitly lists the skill of determining a central idea and analyzing its development over the course of the text. Students also must summarize and interpret study findings for Activity 1 Option 2 by converting a paragraph about the TIMSS study into a visual representation, which requires understanding what the paragraph is claiming.
Lesson 4
The 10,000 Hour Rule
The Parent Plan skills list explicitly names "Analyze in detail how an author's ideas or claims are developed and refined by particular sentences, paragraphs, or larger portions of a text." Activity 1 (Looking Closely) asks students to summarize the focus of Sections 1–3, identify words/phrases in the last two paragraphs that signal a shift (e.g., transition word "however"), explain why Bill Joy is omitted from Section 2, and analyze the structure and sequencing of the three sections. Activity 2 and the homework ask students to track key opportunities across later sections and then create a visual that connects a specific example (The Beatles or Bill Gates) to the chapter's larger ideas, requiring synthesis across larger portions of the chapter.
Lesson 5
Harlan, Kentucky
The lesson directs students to read Chapter 6 (including footnotes) and answer focused questions that require explaining patterns (e.g., violence in Appalachia), defining "culture of honor," and describing the University of Michigan experiment. The Skills list explicitly includes "Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis" and "Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research," which ask students to use text-based evidence in analysis.
Lesson 6
The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes
Students are asked to read specific sections of Chapter 7 and answer targeted questions about what details the author includes, the purpose of particular sections, and how descriptions contribute to understanding (Activity 2 and Day 2 questions). The homework asks students to analyze why Gladwell structures the chapter the way he does and to predict how the ethnic/cultural issue is introduced and developed. Activity 5 Option 2 has students complete a chart linking specific criticisms to Gladwell's responses, noting which criticisms he addresses and evaluating the effectiveness of those responses, and Day 2 includes sentence-level interpretation (e.g., "We mitigate when we're being deferential to authority").
Lesson 7
Rice Paddies and Math Tests
Students read specified sections of the chapter and answer targeted comprehension questions that require tracing Gladwell's claims across portions of the text (e.g., questions about rice farming, counting systems, and the 10,000-hour rule). The Parent Plan Skills list explicitly instructs students to "determine a central idea... and analyze its development over the course of the text" and to "analyze how the author unfolds an analysis or series of ideas... including the order in which the points are made." The homework/mini‑project asks students to condense and clarify concepts from the chapter into an infographic, which requires synthesizing how ideas are presented across larger portions of the text.
Lesson 8
With Malice Toward None
The Parent Plan Skills list explicitly includes the standard: it tells students to "Analyze in detail how an author's ideas or claims are developed and refined by particular sentences, paragraphs, or larger portions of a text." The lesson asks students to read and analyze Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, identify rhetorical strategies (tone, organization, word choice), and complete an activity chart requiring them to cite specific quotes, name the literary device, and explain its intended effect. The homework asks students to choose three sentences from the text that correspond to background, main message, and forward-looking statement, prompting students to map how the president's ideas unfold across portions of the speech.
Lesson 9
Writing about History
Students are asked to list the subtitles of 'The Search for the Site of the Sand Creek Massacre' and explain why the author organized the information that way, requiring analysis of how larger portions/sections are arranged. Homework Question 3 asks students to identify how the author communicates the claim that there was a strong desire to find the site and to cite the evidence provided, prompting students to trace how parts of the text support a claim. The Firsthand Accounts activity and the accompanying organizer require students to match secondary-source claims with supporting primary-source excerpts and to note differences/consistencies, which has students connect specific passages to author claims and interpretations.
Lesson 10
Science Writing
Students are directed to read specified sections of the booklet (pp. 3-5 and pp. 15-17) and then explain how the author supports specific claims (e.g., "Noncontact forces are invisible" and "Centripetal force is often called a fictitious force"). The student activity asks learners to identify the methods the author uses to explain terms (highlighting, explanation, example, illustration) and to cite how supporting details and images clarify the claims. The parent-plan skills explicitly require students to cite specific textual evidence and to "determine how an author explains or clarifies a scientific phenomenon and trace how supporting details are incorporated in the author's explanation."
Lesson 11
Technical Writing
Students are asked to annotate a hydroponics passage to discover its purpose, identify main topics, underline terms, and mark places for paragraph breaks, headings, lists, and images. Activity directions explicitly tell students to separate text into paragraphs/sections that focus on one topic, create headings and a title, highlight subject-specific vocabulary, and convert information into bulleted or numbered lists to make the organization clear.
Lesson 12
Logical Fallacies
Students are asked to read and mark up full speeches (e.g., Andrew Jackson's message) and to "highlight to practice recognizing arguments based on fallacious reasoning," finding at least three passages and naming the fallacy for each. In the Gehrig activity, students identify the speech's main point and cite specific examples and phrases that support the thesis and appeal to ethos, pathos, and logos. The Common Fallacies and Informal Fallacies activities require students to match specific sentences or short examples to named fallacy types, showing attention to how particular sentences convey flawed claims.
Unit 4: Drama
Lesson 1
What Is Drama?
The Parent Plan Skills section explicitly lists "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," which mirrors the standard's language. The lesson also asks students to review sections (genres, stage types, terminology) and to watch/read clips and identify genre or stage type, providing some opportunities to consider how sections function within dramatic texts.
Lesson 2
How to Read Drama
The Parent Plan explicitly lists the skill "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." Students are instructed to watch/read Trifles and answer guided questions that ask them to connect symbolism (How is Mrs. Wright like the bird?) and identify clues that explain the murder, which requires linking specific parts of the play to overall meaning. The Applying Aristotle's Six Elements activity asks students to describe how the plot is unified in time, place, and action and to analyze diction (figurative language, dialect, how language evokes feelings), prompting attention to particular lines and character language.
Lesson 3
Life and Times
The Parent Plan explicitly lists the skill to "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 are assigned to read Robert Nemiroff's Introduction (pp. 5-14) and the cast/setting pages, and to answer questions about that material. The lesson also asks students to reread setting and characters and to discuss why Hansberry's play was revolutionary, which prompts consideration of the author's ideas across portions of the text.
Lesson 4
A Raisin in the Sun
Students identify the precise adjectives Hansberry uses in the "Characters and Their Dreams" organizer and link those descriptive details to each character's goals and the play's theme. Students analyze specific lines of dialogue (for example, Beneatha and Walter's exchanges and Walter's use of AAVE) to explain how speech reveals character. The lesson asks students to consider why Hansberry chose to tell the story on stage and to explain the purpose of particular episodes (e.g., the Travis rat story) in shaping audience understanding.
Lesson 5
Act II
The Parent Plan lists the skill "Analyze how and why individuals, events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text," which asks students to consider development across the play. Activity 3 (Reader Response Paragraph) requires students to support a claim with specific examples and quotations from the text using the APE (Answer, Prove, Extend) method, prompting use of textual evidence. The "Hansberry Quotes" activity asks students to read excerpts and explain how those passages relate to characters and themes in A Raisin in the Sun, which asks students to connect particular excerpts to larger ideas.
Lesson 6
Act III
Students are asked to read Act III and answer targeted comprehension questions about characters' motives and decisions (e.g., Beneatha's decision about medicine, Asagai's definition of 'idealists' and 'realists', Walter's plan regarding Lindner). The Student Activity Page directs students to identify five similes in Langston Hughes's "Harlem," analyze the final line "Or does it explode?" and compare that image with other lines, and relate those images to a character's deferred dream in the play. The Parent Plan Skills explicitly state objectives to "analyze how and why individuals, events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text" and to "analyze how an author draws on and transforms source material" (Hansberry drawing on Hughes).
Lesson 8
Shakespeare
The Parent Plan skills list explicitly includes "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." The Student Activity Page directs students to read a passage, identify the speaker, interpret hidden meanings, determine actions and desires, summarize the passage in their own words, and "consider how the passage relates to the play's theme and its impact on the storyline." The activity has students analyze dialogue in Act 1 Scene 2 and provides guided questions for close reading of that passage.
Lesson 9
Romeo and Juliet
Students are asked to read Act 1 and summarize the most important event of each scene in their journals, which requires identifying the function of larger portions of the text. The lesson tells students to "look out for characters or situations that provide comic relief — a section in a serious play that gives the audience a rest from the tension," prompting identification of a section's role. The Parent Plan lists a skill in which students will "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."
Lesson 10
Figurative Language
Students are asked to read Romeo's speech and "discuss why Shakespeare uses many oxymorons and paradoxes," which requires them to analyze how specific sentences convey Romeo's mixed feelings. The "Prologue Sonnet" activity has students reorder sonnet lines, mark the rhyme scheme, and "explain what major conflict in the play Shakespeare summarizes in the sonnet," asking them to analyze how a larger portion of text develops the play's central idea. The Parent Plan also instructs students to "determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone," which directs students to consider how authorial choices refine meaning across passages.
Lesson 12
Time and Tension
Students read Act IV and complete a 'Time and Tension' activity that directs them to identify and count time-related words across the play and in Act IV. Students analyze specific passages: they list ways time is mentioned in Friar Lawrence's monologue (Scene 1, line 90), examine Capulet's repeated use of "tomorrow" in Scene 2 and its effect on suspense, and analyze the Nurse's monologue in Scene 5 for foreshadowing and time references. The activity page asks students to work scene-by-scene (Scenes 1, 2, 3, 5) and to explain how time wording and pacing create tension.
Lesson 13
Tragic Hero
Students are asked to finish Act V and complete a 'Timeline and Character Development' chart that requires them to note actions/events across specific acts and scenes and use that chart to determine whether characters are static or dynamic. Students complete a 'Pyramus and Thisbe Excerpt' comparison activity that asks them to read Ovid excerpts and note similarities between that source material and Romeo and Juliet. The Parent Plan explicitly lists a skill to "Analyze how an author draws on and transforms source material" and asks students to explain how characters change over the course of the play.
Semester Exam
Semester Exam
Students are asked to analyze Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers in multiple items (explain the birth-date effect, identify the cultural factor in plane crashes, and debate whether the book is primarily informational or persuasive), and to identify how writers persuade using logos, pathos, and ethos. Discussion prompt F explicitly asks students to consider Gladwell's rhetorical methods, the selection of stories and facts, and how he uses endnotes, charts, and examples to support conclusions. Several short-answer and discussion questions require students to explain claims, counterarguments, and how evidence (e.g., the Roseto example) supports an author's conclusion.