Eighth Grade, Unit 2 American Stories Stories of Identity

8th Grade, Unit 2: Literature

American Stories Stories of Identity
Introduction, Overview, Aims, and Calendar
 8th Grade Literature Unit 2 Overview: American Stories Stories of Identity

In this second unit of the year, students will read a variety of stories and essays written from people of various backgrounds and identities. Throughout the
unit they will challenge the idea of a single story and will explore how accepting ones identity is often a revolutionary act requiring bravery and courage.

Teachers should access the following documents a resources throughout the unit:
Bundle texts (Close Reading, Reading to Learn, and supplementary texts).

Over the course of course of Unit 2, students will engage in three key lesson types (Reading Workout, Close Reading and Socratic Circle) to build thematic,
genre, and topical understandings necessary to effectively complete the performance task. The majority of the lessons are Reading Workout and Close
Reading. The Socratic Circle in this unit that will be used to prepare for the units performance task.

Success in this unit hinges on students having a very clear understanding of the 2 anchor texts in the unit: Age of Identity by Charles M. Blow and THe
Danger of a Single Story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. These texts will provide the lens by which students analyze and understand the texts they will read
throughout the unit. Sometimes the lessons culminating question references the ideas in the anchor texts explicitly; other times, the connection will be
implicit.

This reading unit should take 4-5 weeks to complete. Nightly reading homework recommendations are built into the unit plan. There are flex days built into
the unit to account for data-drive instruction or other instructional choices.

Note: With a unit that attempts a title like American Voices Stories of Identity, the builder is left less than confident that she was able to incorporate a
complete reading experience that deserves the title. A great deal of time was spent collecting texts that speak to a variety of experiences and voices;
however, there will invariably be a voice that is missing or not completely captured. It is the unit builders hope that teachers will find and include texts that
broaden the scope of this unit and deepen student understandings and learnings, and will share those texts and lessons with the builder so that future
iterations of this unit may be thus improved. In this way, all AF students will continue to receive the very best material possible.

Teachers who would like to share additional texts or lessons are kindly asked to email them to Arliea Cloer (arlieacloer@achievementfirst.org.)

This reading unit should take 4-5 weeks to complete. Nightly reading homework recommendations are built into the unit plan. There are flex days built into
the unit to account for data-drive instruction or other instructional choices.

Where does this unit fit into the year?

Unit 2 allows students to build off what they have learned in Unit 1 with a continued focus on POV and theme, and authors craft moves. This unit, like unit 1,
is a bundle unit. Students will be exposed to a variety of writers and writing styles and stories.

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What will this unit focus on?
Throughout Unit 2, students will continually ask themselves the question: How is a persons acceptance of self a revolutionary act? How can reading and
writing promote a multi-storied picture of identity and experience? Students will analyze many texts through the these questions and the lens provided by
the anchor texts: The Age of Identity and The Dangers of a Single Story.

Notes on Alignment: the table below captures alignment both horizontally and vertically.
Writing Alignment History Alignment Science Alignment Vertical Alignment

During this time, the
Composition Unit 2 focuses on
The Value of Education.
N/A N/A There are many units throughout
the middle school experience that
incorporate analysis and thinking
about the big idea of identity,
including:
5th Grade: Neighborhood Odes
6th Grade: The Outsiders
7th Grade: Night
8th Grade: Unit 5s focus on civil
rights literature.

What resources might I find helpful for teaching this unit?

Unit 2 Bundle: available on BetterLesson and Google Drive.
TED TALK video: Adichies talk on The Danger of a Single Story
Common Core State Standards: Literature
Unit Power Standards:
Top 3-5 Most Commonly Occurring Standards in this Unit Why is this standard so important to this unit?
NOTE: This does not include Standards RL/RI 1 and 10 assume these standards are crucial on
a daily basis.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.2 Throughout the unit students will be asked to explain
Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the the central idea of a text and how it relates to the
course of the text, including its relationship to the characters, setting, and plot; units big ideas and essential questions and
provide an objective summary of the text. understandings. Students will do this mainly with
nonfiction and essays, but also with poems and
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.8.2 fiction.
Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of
the text, including its relationship to supporting ideas; provide an objective

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 summary of the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.1 Students will need to analyze texts both for their
Cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text explicit and implicit meanings and messages in order
says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. to speak and write about the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.8.3 The many texts that students are reading throughout
Analyze how a text makes connections among and distinctions between individuals, the unit are both unique and similar because they are
ideas, or events (e.g., through comparisons, analogies, or categories). connected by ideas and yet each experience and
point of view is distinct and individual. There are
many times when students will need to analyze how
a text (and texts) make these connections.
Essential Questions:
KNOWLEDGE & TEXT:
How is self-acceptance a revolutionary act?
How do single stories affect individuals and groups of people? How do individuals combat these single stories in their writing?
Enduring Understandings:
KNOWLEDGE & TEXT:
In his op-ed The Age of Identity, Charles M. Blow argues that any act of over self-acceptance is a revolutionary act because it takes bravery and
courage to choose not to play along with the misogyny, racism, sexism, homophobia, ect. that exists in our culture. In all of the texts in this unit,
authors illustrate the brave choice of saying yes to themselves and their existences.
According to Adichie, the danger of a single story is that it flattens people and reduces experience to stereotypes and simplistic understandings.
Throughout the texts in this unit, writers expose the single story and work to either disprove it through their own experience or offer a multi-
storied truth, either by describing different characters or by explaining the choices available (or unavailable) to people.

Unit Assessments

Below are descriptions of the diagnostic, formative, and summative assessments for Unit 2. The formative assessments may be used daily, weekly, and in
combination to measure students progress toward unit goals. The summative assessment should be delivered uniformly across the grade in order to
accurately measure students achievement.

Diagnostic Formative Summative

STAR Lexile Do Nows, as deliberately linked to necessary End-of-unit Performance Assessment.
Fluency Assessment scores world knowledge
F&P scores (for some scholars) Class work artifacts from reading notebooks,
Unit 1 Assessment data graphic organizers, class or small-group

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 discussions, etc.
Student-teacher conferences
Close reading performance
Weekly Quizzes, either about knowledge and
the text, skills and the text, or both
Homework
Exit tickets

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Summative Assessments
Summary
The following performance task will assess student performance on Unit 2:
Note: The Performance Task and corresponding Socratic Circle will run over the course of four days.
During the Socratic Circle, students will answer the question: Based on the selected texts, how is coming to self-acceptance despite (or in spite of) the
single story/stories that attempt to define us, a revolutionary act or bravery and courage?
To do this, students will be broken up into two groups. Each group will have a unique set of texts. The following chart details how the texts will be split up
by group:
Group 1: Group 2:
-I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings -The Souls of Black Folk
-Black Ice -Dispatches from a Dying Generation
-Indian Education -Only Daughter
-Nikki Rosa
Each group will be responsible for discussing their texts in relation to the SC question. When Group 1 is discussing, Group 2 is responsible for taking
careful notes in case they wish to use some of the texts/ideas in their PT. And, when group 2 is discussing, Group 1 is responsible for taking careful notes
in case they wish to use some of the texts/ideas in their PT.
Performance Task

Prompt: How is coming to self-acceptance - despite (or in spite of) the single story/stories that attempt to define us - a revolutionary act of bravery and
courage?
In order to receive full credit, you must pull evidence from the following sources:
-Age of Identity
-The Danger of a Single Story
AND two texts from the following list:
-I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
-Black Ice
-Indian Education
-The Souls of Black Folk
-Dispatches from a Dying Generation
-Only Daughter
-Nikki Rosa

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Exemplar general framework:
Thesis: Both Charles M Blows editorial Age of Identity and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichies TEDtalk The Danger of a Single Story discuss the bravery of
self-acceptance given societys pressure to conform and the many single stories that give rise to stereotypes and misunderstandings. Two texts that
explain how self-acceptance is a revolutionary act requiring bravery and courage are excerpts from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Black Ice. In
each of these, the speakers endure the low expectations of society and yet still seek to accept themselves and triumph.

Evidence: The evidence below serves one of two functions. Some of this evidence describes the single story or conflict that the main character/speaker
must endure, and some of the evidence serves as proof of a revolutionary act of self-acceptance:

Text Evidence from Text

Age of Identity Presenting herself as nature made her was an act of self-loving defiance that demanded not her alteration but the
The Danger of a Single
Story
alteration of others attitudes about how we expect people to bend in order to belong, about how many destructive
subliminal messages weve all absorbed and how we must search ourselves for the truth of our own prejudices.
But to me, my daughters message was bigger than her, or hair, or a debate between teenagers. It was a life lesson that
we all have to learn, over and over: Self-acceptance, of all stripes, large and small, is always an inherently political and
profoundly revolutionary act.
We are so suffused in a mix of misogyny, patriarchy, racism, sexism, homophobia and hetero-normative exclusionary
idealism that we can easily lose sight of the singular acts of ordinary bravery that each of us displays every time we
choose not to play along.
Life is an endless negotiation with ourselves and with the world about who we are the truest truth of who we are
and whether we have the mettle to simply be us, all of us, as we are, backlash notwithstanding.
And every time we answer yes to the question of courage, we stand an inch taller and we rise closer to the light.
That is why I greet with overwhelming optimism the continuous stream of people who refuse to conform and who insist
on acknowledgment of their own identities, as they are, in all of their inherent glories and by way of their
revolutionary acts.
Then one Saturday, we went to his village to visit, and his mother showed us a beautifully patterned basket made of
dyed raffia that his brother had made. I was startled. It had not occurred to me that anybody in his family could actually
make something. All I had heard about them was how poor they were, so that it had become impossible for me to see
them as anything else but poor. Their poverty was my single story of them.
She had felt sorry for me even before she saw me. Her default position toward me, as an African, was a kind of
patronizing, well-meaning pity. My roommate had a single story of Africa: a single story of catastrophe. In this single
story, there was no possibility of Africans being similar to her in any way, no possibility of feelings more complex than
pity, no possibility of a connection as human equals.
It is impossible to talk about the single story without talking about power. There is a word, an Igbo word, that I think
about whenever I think about the power structures of the world, and it is "nkali." It's a noun that loosely translates to
"to be greater than another." Like our economic and political worlds, stories too are defined by the principle of
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 nkali: How they are told, who tells them, when they're told, how many stories are told, are really dependent on power.
Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.
The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are
incomplete. They make one story become the only story.
Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to
empower and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity.
I would like to end with this thought: That when we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single
story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise.
Excerpt from I Know We were maids and farmers, handymen and washer-women, and anything higher that we aspired to was farcical and
Why the Caged Bird presumptuous.
Sings It was awful to be a Negro and have no control over my life. It was brutal to be young and already trained to sit quietly
and listen to charges brought against my color with no chance of defense.
the words of Patrick Henry had made such an impression on me that I had been able to stretch myself tall and
trembling and say, I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.
We were on top again. As always, again. We survived. The depths had been icy and dark, but now a bright sun spoke to
our souls. I was no longer simply a member of the proud graduating class of 1940; I was a proud member of the
wonderful, beautiful Negro race.
Excerpt from Black Ice He told me High Passes were not the end of the world. The other think that I doubt you are giving yourself credit for,
he said, is that youve just come in, as a new Fifth Former and youve just come straight from your old hometown
high. Some of these other students have had a different preparation. But the fact is, I dont see how you can expect
much more of yourself right now.
Mr. Hawley told me that hes seen students take a year or two to adjust to St. Pauls, not just public-school students,
but kids from fancy day schools.
I wondered if anyone here had ever expected me to do better than this. White faces of the adults flashed in my head,
smiling, encouraging, tilted to one side, asking if Id like to talk, extending their welcome. I felt betrayed, first by them,
then by own naivet. HPs were probably what theyd meant by finefor black scholarship kids. Maybe thats what
theyd been saying all along, only I hadnt heard it.
Whatever I had planned to tell themabout how I did not feel like myself here, how I was worried that the recruiters
expected little more than survival from us, how I was beginning to doubt that they could see excellence in us, because it
might pop out through think lips and eyes or walk on flat feet or sit on big, bodacious behindsI kept to myself.
The work of school chugged along: I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.
I think I can, I think I can I think I can. Up jumped the good little girl inside, ever hopeful, she who believed that all she
needed was one more win. Up she jumped as if this were a fifth-grade penmanship context, the tie-breaker in a spelling
bee, an audition for Annie Get Your Gun.
The ball came at me. The crazy little girl inside tore after it. Girls who had beaten me in wind sprints were unable to
catch me. My arms pumped up and down as I ran. They helped push me forward. Maybe this was it, I thought, maybe.
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 I almost cried with gratitude.
I loved how he called out to his fullbacksas if they could stop me.
Sure. Got a bruise or two. I felt like a brutish distortion of those big, black women I so admired, like Sojourner Truth as
the actresses portrayed her: Ah kin push a plow as far as a manAnd aint I a woman?!
Indian Education But the little warrior in me roared to life that day and knocked Frenchy to the ground, held his head against the snow,
and punched him so hard that my knuckles and the snow made symmetrical bruises on his face. He almost looked like
he was wearing war paint. But he wasnt the warrior. I was.
Indians, Indians, Indians. She said it without capitalization. She called me indian, indian, indian. And I said, Yes, I am.
I am Indian. Indian, I am.
At the farm town high school dance, after a basketball game in an over-heated gym where I had scored twenty-seven
points and pulled down thirteen rebounds, I passed out during a slow song. The Chicano teacher ran up to us. Hey,
he said. Whats that boy been drinking? I know all about these Indian kids. They start drinking real young.
I walk down the aisle, valedictorian of this farm town high school, and my cap doesnt fit because Ive grown my hair
longer than its ever been. Later, I stand as the school-board chairman recites my awards, accomplishments, and
scholarships.Back home on the reservation, my former classmates graduate: a few cant read, one or two are just
given attendance diplomas, most look forward to the parties. The tribal newspaper runs my photograph and the
photograph of my former classmates side by side.
Excerpt from The Souls They approach me in a halfhesitant sort of way, eye me curiously or compassionately, and then, instead of saying
of Black Folks directly, How does it feel to be a problem? they say, I know an excellent colored man in my town; or, I fought at
Mechanicsville; or, Do not these Southern outrages make your blood boil? At these I smile, or am interested, or reduce
the boiling to a simmer, as the occasion may require. To the real question, How does it feel to be a problem? I answer
seldom a word.
I remember well when the shadow swept across me.
I had thereafter no desire to tear down that veil, to creep through; I held all beyond it in common contempt, and lived
above it in a region of blue sky and great wandering shadows. That sky was bluest when I could beat my mates at
examinationtime, or beat them at a footrace, or even beat their stringy heads.
It is a peculiar sensation, this doubleconsciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of
others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his
twoness,an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark
body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.
The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,this longing to attain selfconscious manhood, to merge
his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost.
Dispatches from a Lately, with the mounting toll of homicides, drug abuse and prison stints threatening to decimate a generation of young
Dying Generation black men, Im still wonderingnot as an outsider but as one who came perilously close to becoming a fatal statistic
myself.
Bottom of 270 (second page of article) lots of details which could be argued make up a single story
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 What should I say? Get a job? Go to college? Adopt my middle-class success strategies? The fact is, I know what theyve
been through. And I understand what they face. I took the plunge myself, several times.
Many people are puzzled about the culture of violence pervading black communities: its so foreign to them. Some
wonder if there is something innately wrong with black males. And when all else fails, they reach for the easy response:
Broken homes? Misplaced values? Impoverished backgrounds? I can answer with certainty only about myself. My
background and those of my running partners dont fit all the convenient theories, and the problems among us are
more complex than something we can throw jobs, social programs or more policeman at. he goes on to debunk the
single story
We perceived our choices as being severely limited. Nobody flatly said that. But in various ways, inside our community
and out, it was communicated early and often that as black men in a hostile world our options would be few. The
perception was powerfully reinforced by what we saw in our families, where we had inherited a legacy of limited
choices.
For nearly three years, I was forced to nurture my spirit and ponder all that had gone on before.
Malcolm Xs autobiography helped me understand the devastating effects of self-hatred and introduced me to a
universal principal: that if you change your self-perception, you can change your behavior. I concluded that if Malcolm
X, who also went to prison, could pull his life out of the toilet, then maybe I could too.
My new life is still a struggle, harsher in some ways than the one I left. At times I feel suspended in a kind of
netherworld, belonging fully to neither the streets nor the establishment.
Only Daughter I wrote: I am the only daughter in a family of six sons. That explains everything. All of these had everything to do with
who I am today.
Being an only daughter for my father meant my destiny would lead me to become someones wife.
But the truth is, I wanted him to interrupt. I wanted my father to understand what it was I was scribbling, to introduce
me as My only daughter, the writer.
My father represents, then, the public majority. A public who is disinterested in reading, and yet one whom I am writing
about and for, and privately trying to woo.
My papa. He didnt mean anything by the mistranslation, Im sure. But somehow I could feel myself being erased. Id
tug my fathers sleeve and whisper: Not seven sons. Six! And one daughter.
Wasnt college an investment? And hadnt I spent all those years in college? And if I didnt marry, what was it all for?
Why would anyone go to college and then choose to be poor? Especially someone who had always been poor. Last
year, after ten years of writing professionally, the financial rewards started to trickle in. My second National
Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. A guest professorship at the University of California, Berkeley. My book, which sold
to a major New York publishing house.
Nikki Rosa and if you become famous or something / they never talk about how happy you were to have / your mother / all to
yourself and / how good the water felt when you got your bath
your biographers never understand / your fathers pain as he sells his stock / and another dream goes
and I really hope no white person ever has cause / to write about me / because they never understand / Black love is
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 Black wealth and theyll / probably talk about my hard childhood / and never understand that / all the while I was quite
happy

Criteria for Success

Content:
Defines identify as a revolutionary act
Supports this definition with textual evidence from both Age of Identity and The Danger of a Single Story in addition to the two other texts
Must use at least two other texts from those listed in the response.

Exemplar essays must also include: (these descriptions and requirements are taken from the On Demand PBA rubric).
A clear, defensible, comprehensive, and focused thesis statement that addresses all parts of the prompt. The thesis states a claim in the third
person. Assertions may be listed in the thesis statement.
Assertions guiding all body paragraphs. Each topic sentence at the beginning of a paragraph must be an assertion that supports the thesis
statement. The sequence of the assertions should be mostly intentional and should effectively advance the argument. (Most assertions will
explain how the individual text supports the thesis.)
The essay should be reasonable in structure, with body paragraphs that include appropriate content in a logical internal structure. The
introduction and conclusion should support the thesis.
Almost all the evidence selected is directly relevant to the assertion. Some evidence strongly supports the assertion, and there is an attempt to
create a progression of the evidence.
Almost all evidence is clarified or explained as needed. Most evidence is analyzed. Analysis is general plausible and attempts to relate back to the
assertions.
Language:
o Almost all sentences are complete and clear; writing is largely free of extraneous expressions.
o Varied academic and content vocabulary is used accurately.
o Consistently writes in 3rd person plural, any lapse in distance does not hinder formality.

All responses will also be graded using the Middle School PBA rubric; responses can be used as a supplementary diagnostic for the second Writing unit on
Literary Analysis. Please consult your grade-level writing teacher and academic dean for more information about using the PBA rubric for this assessment
(also listed above).

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 Key Definitions
- Identity: the fact of being who or what a person or thing is.
- Revolutionary: new, rebellious, full of change.

Key Information and Planning Decisions

- Between the regions, NY and CT, the unit should take between 20-24 days to complete. CT schools who build separate test prep units after unit 4
should delegate 20-22 days to this unit instead of the planned 24. This will ensure that they have enough time built in to teach a test prep unit. For
this reason, the unit builds in extra flex days so that the teacher has some choice in terms of what to cut from the unit.
- As stated in the overview, the unit builder acknowledges that while a strong attempt was made to include many different voices in this unit, there
are some voices/backgrounds/experiences that are represented in only a text or two and some that are not represented at all. For this reason, flex
days were built into the unit with recommended texts to use; however, teachers should also feel empowered to bring in additional texts that broaden
the scope of the unit and deepen the experiences of student readers. Teachers should also feel free to email Arliea Cloer
(arlieacloer@achievementfirst.org) with the texts and lessons they used so that future iterations of this unit can be strengthened.
- A relevant and meaningful question to ask throughout this unit include:
- The essential questions of the unit are closely tied to the Performance task and teachers should keep these question at the forefront of students and
teachers minds. To keep this question and theme present, consider including these question in daily lessons:
o What story is being told? What story is left out/not being told?
o Whose voice do we hear? Whose voice is absent?
o Is this a single story? If so, what questions should we ask ourselves so that we do not accept a one-dimensional understanding of a person
or group of people?
These questions can be answered in some way in every lesson.
- Days 7 and 8 do not directly connect to the EQs; instead, they focus on self-acceptance and identity. Teachers should try to make connections
throughout these lessons to bring in the EQs.
- On days 3 and 4 of the unit, students will be reading and analyzing Adichies TED talk THe Danger of a Single Story. During the fluent read, teachers
should feel empowered to allow students to watch/listen to Adichie deliver her talk while reading along with a printed version of the text (found in
the bundle). Adichies TED talk can be found here.

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Literature Aims Calendar
Note: Lesson types are listed next to each day.
Week 1
Day 1 Close Reading
TDQ: What is the central idea of this
text?
Shared Text: Age of Identity by
Charles M. Blow (NYTimes Op-Ed)
Relevant Standards: RI 8.2, RI 8.1
From text: regaled, staunch,
resistance, umbrage, alterations,
suppressive, defiance, subliminal,
prejudices, profound, commentary,
revolutionary, misogyny, patriarchy,
hertero-normative exclusionary
Day 2 Close Reading
TDQ: What tone does Blow close his
op-ed with? Why does he do this?
*This was the original TDQ.
OR:
TDQ: How does Blow build his claim
that self-acceptance is both a
revolutionary and unifying act?
*This is a revised TDQ. The at-a-glance
lesson plan for Day 2 uses this
question.
Shared Text: Age of Identity by
Charles M. Blow (NYTimes Op-Ed)
Relevant Standards: RI 8.1, RI8.4 and
RI 8.5.
From text: See Day 1.
Day 3 Close Reading Day 4 Close Reading
TDQ: How does Adichie define a TDQ: David Blow, in his op-ed The
single story and its impact? Age of Identity said, Self-acceptance,
of all stripes, large and small, is always
Shared Text: The Danger of a Single an inherently political and profoundly
Story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie revolutionary act. We are so suffused
in a mix of misogyny, patriarchy,
Relevant Standards: RI 8.2, RI8.1, racism, sexism, homophobia and
RI8.5 hetero-normative exclusionary
idealism that we can easily lose sight
of the singular acts of ordinary bravery
that each of us displays every time we
choose not to play along.
In what ways is Adichies argument to
avoid the single story also
revolutionary? Use details in her
speech to support your answer.
Shared Text: The Danger of a Single
Story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
and Age of Identity by William Blow
Relevant Standards: RI8.1, RI8.2, RI8.9
From text: obligated, impressionable, From text: See Days 1-3
vulnerable, foreign, unintended,
consequence, default, patronizing,
pity, consciously, embrace, fleecing,
power structures, colonial,
catastrophe, dignity
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idealism, negotiation, asserting,
noncomformists, diminution, subtle,
hacking, confronted, erode, trajectory,
immune, bias, diminish, mainstream,
rigid, privileges, continuous,
conformity.
Homework: Students should reread
Age of Identity and annotate for
words or phrases that are particularly
effective and help the writer make his
point. Teachers should collect
annotations and provide a grade for
analytical annotations.
Option: Ask your students to circle
their two best annotations to be
graded.
Week 2
Day 5 Close Reading
TDQ: How does Giovanni fight against
the idea of a single story in her
poem Nikki Rosa?
Shared Text: Nikki-Rosa by Nikki
Giovanni
Relevant Standards: RL8.1, RL8.2,
RL8.3, RL8.4
Homework: Read The Danger of a
Single Story and annotate for literal
comprehension.
Day 6 Reading Workout
TDQ: Angelou once said, You may
encounter many defeats, but you must
not be defeated. How does the
excerpt from Caged Bird support this
belief? How does this idea inform
Angelous story of self-acceptance?
Shared Text: Excerpt from Maya
Angelous I Know Why the Caged Bird
Sings
Homework: Homework: Read Nikki Rosa and
Option 1: Ask students to consider the annotate for literal understanding.
single stories that may exist in the Commented [Arliea1]: Teachers may opt to turn this into a 2-
day lesson.
world about them or about the people
Commented [Arliea3]: This lesson could become a reading
they know and love. Ask them to write
workout lesson, depending on how well your students understood
a paragraph that identifies the single the text.
story, its impact, and ways that people Commented [Arliea2]: Important Note:
could learn the truth. As a model,
reread Adichies speech, particularly The culminating TDQ: Angelou once said, You may encounter
many defeats, but you must not be defeated. How does the
paragraphs 17,18 and 28 OR 9-11 and excerpt from Caged Bird support this belief? How does this idea
29. inform Angelous story of self-acceptance?
Option 2: Preview the next days TDQ (This question has been revised to drop off the last question as it is
with students and have them create confusing and will likely produce confused responses.)
notes or an organizer preparing
After reviewing this lesson at a cohort day, a team of SLs gave the
evidence and ideas for the assignment. good feedback that this question is too leading it gives away too
much of the central idea. If it is provided as a culminating
question, that is okay. However, it is provided and unpacked at the
Day 7 Close Reading Day 8 Reading Workout
beginning of a lesson, it may be better to substitute either of the
following questions:
TDQ: How does the fruitcake come to TDQ: How does the author illustrate
-How does the authors use of imagery impact the mood of the
symbolize a part of the narrators the complexity of embracing both text?
identity? What does it reveal about Puerto Rican heritage and a new life in-How does Angelou use imagery and word choice to convey her
her? Jersey? central idea?
NOTE: This change would mean that the RW stopping points would
need to change.
Shared Text: Select paragraphs from Shared Text: Silent Dancing by Commented [Arliea4]: First section: ends at that we cut the
the excerpt Every Good-Bye Aint Gone Judith Ortiz Coffer fruitcake.
by Itabari Njeri
Second section: starts at Most afternoons, after I climbed and
Relevant Standards: RL 8.1., RL8.2., ends at British colonial rule or rawness of American racism.
Relevant Standards: RL 8.1, RL 8.3, RL8.3, RL8.5
Those sections could be further paired down as well.
14

From text: wealth, poverty
Homework: Read all or a selected part
Relevant Standards: RL 8.1, RL 8.2,
and RL8.3
Stopping Point Prompt
Paragraphs 1-4 Annotate for places in the text
where the speaker encounters
defeats and places where the
speaker exhibits the drive to
resist defeat. How does these
instances inform the speakers
sense of identity?
Paragraphs 5- Annotate for places in the text
11 where the speaker encounters
defeats and places where the
speaker exhibits the drive to
resist defeat. How does these
instances inform the speakers
sense of identity?
Paragraphs Annotate for places in the text
12-16 where the speaker encounters
defeats and places where the
speaker exhibits the drive to
resist defeat. How does these
instances inform the speakers
sense of identity?
Paragraph 17 - Annotate for places in the text
End where the speaker encounters
defeats and places where the
speaker exhibits the drive to
resist defeat. How does these
instances inform the speakers
sense of identity?
From text: frills, accomplishment,
decasyllabic, exposed, aspired, farcical,
presumptuous, abomination,
perfunctory, preliminary, palpable,
impertinence, nudged, outrageous,
elocution, soliloquy, chastening,
liberty, auctioned, dedication
Homework: Read the excerpt from
RL8.4
From text: currants, resemblance,
impotent, confection, culmination,
ritual, mending, extravagantly, absurd
resistance, incredulously, migration,
neoslavery, colonialism, scuffed
Homework: Read Silent Dancing
Stopping Point Prompt
Paragraphs 1- Annotate for details that reveal
7 the characters conflict
between maintaining their PR
heritage and embracing their
new home and culture in New
Jersey.
Paragraphs 8- Annotate for details that reveal
12 the characters conflict
between maintaining their PR
heritage and embracing their
new home and culture in New
Jersey.
Paragraphs Annotate for details that reveal
13-19 the characters conflict
between maintaining their PR
heritage and embracing their
new home and culture in New
Jersey.
Paragraphs 20 Annotate for details that reveal
- 31 the characters conflict
between maintaining their PR
heritage and embracing their
new home and culture in New
Jersey.
From text: christened, startling,
resistance, influx, dcor, linoleum,
apparent, perpetually, permeated,
aroma, fraternizing, assimilation,
supreme, imposed, exemplified,
intrusive, philosophically, generically,
imprinted, smuggled, humility,
primitive, cavernous, shriveled, retreat
Homework: Read the excerpt from
15
of the excerpt from Mayas Angelous I
Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and
annotate for literal understanding.
Week 3
Day 9 Reading Workout
TDQ: How is the narrator made to
confront others single story of her? Dubois text?
Does this encounter make her a better
person?
Shared Text: Excerpt from Black Ice by
Lorene Cary
Relevant Standards: RL 8.1., RL8.2.,
RL8.3
Stopping Point Prompt
Section 1 Annotate for areas of conflict
(either external or internal).
How might these indicate the
presence of a single story.
What is the impact on the
narrator?
Section 2 Annotate for areas of conflict
(either external or internal).
How might these indicate the
presence of a single story.
What is the impact on the
narrator?
From text: equivalents, accurate,
indicator, naivet, furor, spruce,
entwined, prepubescent, absorbed,
mildly, chugged, penetrated,
aggressively, parallel, drudgery,
brutish, distortion
Every Goodbye Aint Gone and
annotate for literal understanding.
Day 10 Close Reading Day
TDQ: What is the central idea of
personal anecdote illustrate his central
Shared Text: Excerpt from The Souls of
Black Folk by W.E.B. Dubois
Relevant Standards: RI 8.2, RI, 8.1
From text: delicacy, compassionately,
reduce, simmer, peculiar, rollicking,
Housatonic, peremptorily, veil,
contempt, wrest, strife, sycophancy,
relentlessly, unscalable, unavailing,
steadily, revelation, double-
consciousness, unreconciled, strivings,
ideas, asunder, attain
and annotate for literal understanding.
Day 11 Close Reading Day
TDQ: How does the writers use of a
TDQ: So far in this unit, we have readhttp://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/magazine/the-meaning-of-
idea?
Shared Text: Excerpt from The Souls of
Black Folk by W.E.B. Dubois
Relevant Standards: RI 8.2, RI, 8.1,
RI8.4, RI8.5
From text: delicacy, compassionately,
reduce, simmer, peculiar, rollicking,
Housatonic, peremptorily, veil,
contempt, wrest, strife, sycophancy,
relentlessly, unscalable, unavailing,
steadily, revelation, double-
consciousness, unreconciled, strivings,
ideas, asunder, attain
Black Ice and annotate for literal
understanding.
Day 12 FLEX - Close Reading Commented [Arliea5]: An article that was published after this
(Application Task) unit but may still pair really well with this text is: The Meaning of
Serena Williams: On Tennis and Black Excellence.
several writers self stories. Today, serena-williams.html?_r=0
you will write the two paragraphs of
your own self-story. You will emulate
Dubois structure in The Souls of Black
Folk. Like Dubois, your first paragraph
should include an anecdote. Your
second paragraph should tie this
anecdote to something you have
learned about yourself and your
identity.
Shared Text: Excerpt from The Souls of
Black Folk by W.E.B. Dubois
Relevant Standards: RL8.4, RL8.5,
W8.3 and W8.4
From text: See days 10 and 11
16
Homework: Read the excerpt from
The Souls of Black Folks for literal
understanding or a biography on WEB
Dubois.
Week 4
Day 13 Close Reading
TDQ: How does the poets use of
imagery reveal his central idea?
Shared Text: If We Must Die by
Claude McKay
Relevant Standards: RL8.1, 8.2, and
8.4
Homework: Possible TDQ: Is Dubois
text an example of a single story?
Why or why not?
Day 14 Close Reading
TDQ: What shared theme or story of
identity do these poems convey?
Shared Text: If We Must Die by
Claude McKay and Strong Men by
Sterling Brown
Relevant Standards: RL8.1, 8.2, and
8.4
Homework: You could preview the
next days task and students could
write a first draft (or brainstorm
various anecdotes)
Day 15 FLEX - Reading Workout
TDQ: To what degree is Nathan
McCalls experience in his memoir
Dispatches from a Dying Generation a
revolutionary act requiring bravery
and courage? Use details from his text
to support your claim.
Shared Text: Excerpt from Dispatches
from a Dying Generation by Nathan
McCall and Age of Identity by
Charles M. Blow
Relevant Standards: RI 8.1, RI8.2,
RI8.3
Stopping Point Prompt
Pages 269-270 Annotate the actions and
interactions that the
narrator describes. Would
you characterize these
actions as revolutionary
and brave? Why or why
not?
Pages 271-273 Annotate the actions and
interactions that the
narrator describes. Would
you characterize these
actions as revolutionary
and brave? Why or why
Homework: Students could finish their
narrative for homework. Or they
could read the text on Day 13 for
literal understanding.
Day 16 FLEX - Reading Workout
TDQ: How does McCall attempt to
create a many-storied view of the
young men he grew up with?
Shared Text: Excerpt from Dispatches
from a Dying Generation by Nathan
McCall
Relevant Standards: RI 8.1, RI8.2,
RI8.3
Stopping Point Prompt
Pages 269-270 Annotate places where you
see different stories
emerge that describe the
experiences of the young
boys in this text. What does
this reveal about their
identities and experiences?
Pages 271-273 Annotate places where you
see different stories
emerge that describe the
experiences of the young
boys in this text. What does
this reveal about their
identities and experiences?
Pages 274-276 Annotate places where you
see different stories
emerge that describe the
experiences of the young
17

From text: inglorious, accursed, defy,
constrained
From text: coffles, hatches, scourged,
branded, disgraced, cooped, shunting,
coaxed, unwontedly, prohibition
not? boys in this text. What does
Pages 274-276 Annotate the actions and this reveal about their
interactions that the identities and experiences?
narrator describes. Would
you characterize these
actions as revolutionary
and brave? Why or why
not?
From Dispatches: estranged, stealthy, From text: See Day 15
mounting, toll, disheveled, perilously,
conjure, establishment, pervading,
blighted, disadvantaged, perceive,
reinforce(d), assumptions, ponder,
suspended, alienated

Homework: Read Strong Men and
annotate for literal meaning.
Week 5
Day 17 Close Reading
TDQ: What makes Adichies argument
effective and compelling?
Shared Text: We Should All be
Feminists by Chimanda Ngozi Adichie
Relevant Standards: RI8.2, RI8.1, RI8.4,
RI8.5
Homework: Answer the TDQ: Do the
themes of Brown and McKay support
WEB Dubois central idea of the
excerpt we read from Souls of Black
Folks? Why or why not?
Day 18 Close Reading
TDQ: Explain the significance of the
words only and daughter in the
narrators story of self-acceptance.
Shared Text: Only Daughter by
Sandra Cisneros
Relevant Standards: RL 8.1, RL8.2, RL
8.4
Homework: Re-read the text,
annotating for evidence of the
narrators inner conflict and how this
influences his actions.
Day 19 - Close Reading: Paired Text
Day (Application Task)
TDQ: Is the narrator in Only
Daughter a feminist? Use details
from both We Should All Be
Feminists and Only Daughter to
support your answer.
Shared Text: Only Daughter by
Sandra Cisneros & We Should All be
Feminists
Relevant Standards: RL & RI 8.1, RL
Homework: Read We should all be
feminists and annotate for literal
understanding.
Day 20 Reading Workout
TDQ: Is the narrator able to rise above
the single story/stories of Native
Americans that he confronts
throughout his education?
Shared Text: Indian Education by
Sherman Alexie
Relevant Standards: RL 8.1, RL8.2,
RL8.3, RL8.5
Stopping Point Prompt
Grades 1-3 Annotate for areas where the
narrator confronts prejudice

18

From text: progressive, self-evident,
attribute, evolve, disservice,
vulnerability, masculinity, fragile,
aspire
Homework: Read Only Daughter
and annotate for literal understanding.
Week 6
Day 21: Socratic Circle Prep
Socratic Circle AIM: Based on the
selected texts, how is coming to self-
acceptance despite (or in spite of) the
single story/stories that attempt to
define us, a revolutionary act of
From text: circumstance, destiny,
retrospect, liberty, putter,
embroidering, erupting, fulfilled,
throbbing, translated, vials
Homework: Reread We Should All be
Feminists and create a list of criteria
that describes feminists, according to
Adichie.
Day 22 Socratic Circle
Socratic Circle AIM: Based on the
selected texts, how is coming to self-
acceptance despite (or in spite of) the
single story/stories that attempt to
define us, a revolutionary act of
and RI 8.2, RL 8.5
From text: See Days 17 and 18
Homework: Read Indian Education
for literal understanding
Day 23 Performance Task
How is coming to self-acceptance
despite (or in spite of) the single
story/stories that attempt to define us,
a revolutionary act or bravery and
courage?
(i.e., examples of a single
story). How does he react?
What does this reveal about
him?
Grades 4-6 Annotate for areas where the
narrator confronts prejudice
(i.e., examples of a single
story). How does he react?
What does this reveal about
him?
Grades 7-9 Annotate for areas where the
narrator confronts prejudice
(i.e., examples of a single
story). How does he react?
What does this reveal about
him?
Grades 10 - Annotate for areas where the
End narrator confronts prejudice
(i.e., examples of a single
story). How does he react?
What does this reveal about
him?
From text: symmetrical, savagely,
awe, commodities, stoic
Homework: Students should reread
the core anchor texts of the unit (Age
of Identity and The Danger of a
Single Story in preparation for the
Socratic Circle and Performance Task.
Day 24 Performance Task Cont.
How is coming to self-acceptance
despite (or in spite of) the single
story/stories that attempt to define us,
a revolutionary act or bravery and
courage?
19
bravery and courage? bravery and courage?
In order to receive full credit, you must In order to receive full credit, you must
Mandatory Texts for BOTH Groups: Mandatory Texts for BOTH Groups: pull evidence from the following pull evidence from the following
-Age of Identity -Age of Identity sources: sources:
-The Danger of a Single Story -The Danger of a Single Story -Age of Identity -Age of Identity
-The Danger of a Single Story -The Danger of a Single Story
Group 1: Group 1:
-I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings -I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings AND two texts from the following list: AND two texts from the following list:
-Black Ice -Black Ice
-Indian Education -Indian Education -I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings -I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Group 2: Group 2: -Black Ice -Black Ice
-The Souls of Black Folk -The Souls of Black Folk -Indian Education -Indian Education
-Dispatches from a Dying Generation -Dispatches from a Dying Generation -The Souls of Black Folk -The Souls of Black Folk
-Only Daughter -Only Daughter -Dispatches from a Dying Generation -Dispatches from a Dying Generation
-Nikki Rosa -Nikki Rosa -Only Daughter -Only Daughter
-Nikki Rosa -Nikki Rosa

Vocabulary: N/A Vocabulary: N/A Vocabulary: N/A Vocabulary: N/A

Homework: Continue to prep for the
Socratic Circle the next day.
Homework: Reflection on the Socratic
Circle and their
performance/participation.
Homework: Students can reflect on
their success throughout the unit,
including their homework completion,
their understanding of the texts (esp.
the anchor texts), their participation,
etc., and make goals for Unit 3.
Homework: Reflection activity on the
unit. Students may write about which
texts resonated the most with them,
which they enjoyed the most, and
which they would recommend not
teaching again.

20
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