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10TH GRADE CURRICULUM
ELA 3-4
CONFLICT & CHANGE
The 10th Grade English Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum, based on the theme of , allows students to connect the ideas of inequality, conflict, and activism. Students will learn about and explore the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as they engage in a year-long Action Project where they will work to understand, ideate, prototype, and pitch something that can be solved at a local or global level. They do this while working towards mastery of the CA Common Core Standards. Every unit culminates with an opportunity for students to reflect on and then share their learning. This was designed to meet the needs of ALL students --- so that students get WHAT they need, WHEN they need it, in the WAY that they need it.
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COURSE OVERVIEW VIDEO
UNITS OF STUDY
UNITS 0 & 1
HOW DO ACTIVISTS INSPIRE CHANGE?
Unit 0 is designed to launch the school year with community-building activities and some background information about the U.N. Global Goals for Sustainable Development (SDGs) that students will examine throughout the course.
In Unit 1, students explore speeches and texts by various activists. They explore voting rights, climate justice, and the fight for quality education for all. They will learn more about the U.N. Sustainable Development goals, will analyze the goals in relation to unit texts, and will create a product about one Sustainable Development Goal. Students will explore claims, evidence, and reasoning in texts and will demonstrate their understanding through a rhetorical precis (academic summary). They will explore how activists inspire change and start to understand that they, too, can inspire change.
UNIT 2
HOW DOES INEQUALITY CREATE CONFLICT?
In Unit 2, students analyze author's style and learn to write analytical paragraphs. They will explore various texts including a novel and shorter texts. Students will also engage in Reciprocal Teaching and Socratic Seminar as they hone their text analysis skills. The unit will conclude with an exhibition featuring connections students have made between the class novel and their own lives based on the essential question, "How have others shaped your identity?"
UNIT 4
WHEN IS CONFLICT GOOD?
In Unit 4, students will examine when conflict can lead to good by learning about revolution in the Dominican Republic through the novel In the Time of the Butterflies* by Julia Alvarez. This novel was an NEA Big Read selection and SDUSD purchased 2,000 copies which are available through the Instructional Media Center. Students will examine Julia Alvarez' purpose for writing this novel by viewing speeches and reading additional essays she has written in addition to examining characterization and the narrative structure of the novel. The final assessment will be a literary analysis essay and students the exhibition will be a pitch of the SDG project idea.
*Note: You may substitute any novel with similar structure and theme.
*The IMC has 1,000 copies of this novel. You can order them through Destiny.
UNIT 5
HOW CAN WE HEAL FROM CONFLICT?
In this unit students will evaluate argument as they learn about genocide. They will research an example of genocide to teach the class, then they will explore the Holocaust through a novel read in book clubs.
Throughout the unit they evaluate argument including the elements of argument in various information texts, rhetorical appeals as well as logical fallacies. The unit concludes with an argument essay where they will have to take a position based on a claim.
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UNIT 6
HOW CAN CREATIVITY INSPIRE CHANGE?
In this unit, students will demonstrate their understanding of the power of creativity by presenting a short play or skit focusing on a global issue or Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). Students will read poems, analyze song lyrics, view fine art and movie clips and discuss short stories in order to gain and understanding of how messages can be shared via different formats.
