Module 12.1 includes a shared focus on text analysis and narrative writing. Students read, discuss, and analyze two nonfiction personal narratives, focusing on how the authors use structure, style, and content to craft narratives that develop complex experiences, ideas, and descriptions of individuals. Throughout the module, students learn, practice, and apply narrative writing skills to produce a complete personal essay suitable for use in the college application process.

Find the rest of the EngageNY ELA resources at https://archive.org/details/engageny-ela-archive .

Over the course of Module 12.2, students practice and refine their informative writing and speaking and listening skills through formative assessments, and apply these skills in the Mid-Unit and End-of-Unit Assessments as well as the Module 12.2 Performance Assessment. Module 12.2 consists of two units: 12.2.1 and 12.2.2. In 12.2.1, students first read “Ideas Live On,” a speech that Benazir Bhutto delivered in 2007. Next, students analyze the complex ideas and language in Henry David Thoreau’s essay, “Civil Disobedience.”

Find the rest of the EngageNY ELA resources at https://archive.org/details/engageny-ela-archive .

In Module 12.3, students engage in an inquiry-based, iterative research process that serves as the basis of a culminating research-based argument paper. Building on work with evidence-based analysis in Modules 12.1 and 12.2, students use a seed text to surface and explore issues that lend themselves to multiple positions and perspectives. Module 12.3 fosters students’ independent learning by decreasing scaffolds in key research lessons as students gather and analyze research based on vetted sources to establish a position of their own. Students first generate a written evidence-based perspective, which serves as the early foundation of what will ultimately become their research-based argument paper.

Find the rest of the EngageNY ELA resources at https://archive.org/details/engageny-ela-archive .

In this 12th grade module, students read, discuss, and analyze four literary texts, focusing on the development of interrelated central ideas within and across the texts. |The mains texts in this module include|A Streetcar Named Desire|by Tennessee Williams, “A Daily Joy to Be Alive” by Jimmy Santiago Baca, “The Overcoat” by Nikolai Gogol, and|The Namesake|by Jhumpa Lahiri. As students discuss these texts, they will analyze complex characters who struggle to define and shape their own identities. The characters’ struggles for identity revolve around various internal and external forces including: class, gender, politics, intersecting cultures, and family expectations.|

Find the rest of the EngageNY ELA resources at https://archive.org/details/engageny-ela-archive .

Students research, evaluate, and synthesize information about the Harlem Renaissance from varied resources, create an exhibit, and highlight connections across disciplines (i.e., art, music, and poetry) using a Venn diagram.

This inquiry takes students through an analysis and evaluation of the Compelling Question “Is protest important in a democracy?” using the Vietnam War as a lens to approach the topic. To accomplish this, students will become more media literate through evaluating sources, biases, perspectives, and the goals of creating media. Throughout the inquiry, students will engage in activities designed to promote and develop media literacy while analzying the Compelling Question and learning about the historical protests of the Vietnam Era.This inquiry is expected to take two weeks (10 periods) to complete: one 45-minute class period to stage the question, introduce the inquiry, and to review media literacy; two 45-minute class periods for each of the three supporting questions; and then three 45-minute class periods for students to write and research their argumentative thesis. If students are as of yet less familiar with media literacy, the instructor should add at least another class period, or more, introducing them more fully to this.The full unit, along with all materials and resources, is available as a PDF attachment.

'Lived History' documents the making of the Wind River Virtual Museum, a high definition archive of Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho ancestral artifacts. In the accompanying lesson plan (found in the Support Materials) students will learn from the time when Europeans first traveled in North America, they took collectors' interest in the arts, weaponry and attire of Native Americans. Sometimes they purchased artifacts, sometimes they stole them, and sometimes they killed for them. Over the years, pipes, war bonnets, cradle boards and parfleches accumulated in museums. The method of acquisition was often forgotten; exact historical documentation was often difficult. Many of the artifacts have perished or deteriorated over time. Many ancient artifacts remain in the vaults and display cases of museums far from their place of origin or the people who might best explain and appreciate them.

"Lived History" documents the creation of the 'Wind River Virtual Museum'—an archive of high definition images of ancestral artifacts created with guidance from Wind River tribal elders. Items like nineteenth century amulets, bags, drums, ceremonial headdresses and robes, everyday clothing, medicine related objects, hunting apparel, moccasins, and other meaningful objects were brought out of storage and displayed for the elders. Their commentary becomes part of the precarious and precious transmission of oral culture that the people of Wind River strive to honor and preserve, for future generations.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

Students will learn about different artifacts of the Shoshone and the Arapaho people and their significance/use.
Students will gain a deeper appreciation for the resiliency of people and the importance of cultural preservation.
Students will explore their own cultural identity and understand that culture is a system of beliefs, values, and assumptions about life that guide behavior and are shared by a group of people.
Students will name three objects identified in the Lived History video and gain an understanding of their uses and cultural significance.
Students will dentify some of the resources used to make traditional items and locate areas in which these resources are found.

This lesson will introduce students to postcolonial literature--the major players, unifying themes, and major debates surrounding the classification of this genre. It also contains links to readings, discussion questions, and a collaborative project aligned to multiple Common Core standards.

This activity can be used after reading Chapter 5 of The Great Gatsby. Listening and watching the video for Lana Del Rey's song, and title track for the film, students will dig deep into the lyrics of the song identifying figurative language, draw connections between the lyrics of the song and direct quotes from the text, and have meaningful discussion about point-of-view and symbolism in the video. Guaranteed to engage students and make valuable text to text connections!

This media literacy unit was designed and piloted with junior English classes at the start of the school year. Activities can easily be adapted to suit secondary students at various levels. Within the unit, students analyze corporate logos, corporate advertising, movie trailers and stereotypes found in media related to Native American culture. Within the unit, students also learn how to consider the ways in which media appeals to ethos, pathose and logos and how to identify the tone of a piece of media. 

This set of lessons extends over a few days. Students read and annotate Ernie Pyle's "A Long Thin Line of Anguish." Students complete a SAYS/DOES graphic organizer, working on summarizing the text, noticing the choices the author makes about use of details, and describing the choices the author makes regarding the structure of the article.

Students complete a SOAPStone handout, identifying subject, occasion, author, purpose, speaker and tone (SOAPStone is a pre-AP/AP strategy). Students develop claims about why Ernie Pyle makes the writing choices he makes. Students write an informal, free-response style assessment about the impact of Pyle's choices.

Learn how the long life of Chief Washakie bridged a century of change in the American west—from the time of nomadic tribes following buffalo herds, to the period when tribes relinquished their claims to vast tracts of land in the West. That's when the Eastern Shoshone settled on the Wind River Indian Reservation. In the accompanying lesson plan (found in the Support Materials) students will understand the character traits of Chief Washakie.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

Students will write and deliver a speech pretending to be Chief Washakie talking to the people of the 21st Century.
Students will learn character traits and qualities and describe every individual and determine life choices for all.
Students will practice identifying “cause and effect” with historical events based on character qualities.

Based on the Wyoming PBS program What’s in a Name, students will view episodes of the program to learn about how Wyoming towns got their names. In the introductory video Phil Roberts from the University of Wyoming introduces the PBS series entitled “Main Street Wyoming: What’s in a Name”. This introductory clip discusses how early explorers first named the rivers, streams, and mountain ranges and passes of Wyoming. Students will then work as a group to create a fictitious Wyoming town.