Unit Title: How to read and write a short story Grade Level: 6th Grade
Subject/Topic Areas: Language Arts Time Frame: 5 weeks
Links to Content Standards:
Connecticut State Content Standard One: Reading and Responding
Connecticut State Content Standard Two: Exploring and Responding to Literature
Connecticut State Content Standard Three: Communicating with Others
Brief Summary of Unit:
This unit is a launch for student learning of the structure and elements of a story. It will serve as a springboard for understanding longer and more complex pieces throughout the school year. Through a series of before, during and after reading activities, students explore several short stories taken …show more content…
What elements are needed to make an effective short story?
What key concepts/knowledge and procedures/skills will students acquire as a result of this unit? Fiction • Students will generate literal, inferential, interpretive, and evaluative questions before, during and after reading a short story. • Students will predict outcomes and actions in short story selections, based on context clues and personal experiences, and evaluate the accuracy of those predictions. • Students will analyze the feelings, traits, and motives of characters in a short story. • Students will identify ways in which the author informs the reader about a character in a short story. • Students will analyze the changing and unchanging relationships among several major and/or minor characters in short stories. • Students will compare and contrast the traits a character has at the beginning and at the end of a short story and explain what caused any change. • Students will analyze and identify details that support the themes of short stories and relate them to personal life. • Students will evaluate the effectiveness of the point of view in which a short story is …show more content…
• Students will identify and interpret figurative language a short story, including alliteration, onomatopoeia, similes, metaphors, personification, and hyperbole. Writing Process • Students will incorporate personal experiences, literature and other sources of ideas into their own writing. • Students will revise drafts to eliminate unnecessary words and phrases, combining sentences appropriately and include more vivid and precise vocabulary. • Students will proofread final drafts for effective use of language, conventional usage and syntax; appropriate transitions, conventional punctuation, capitalization and spelling. • Students will participate constructively in discussions and analysis of own writing and that of others at various stages in the writing process • Students will evaluate their published pieces to judge their success Writing Products • Students will write personal responses to the text. • Students will write a short story, including plot elements, character development and literary