ELA+Unit+-+To+Kill+a+Mockingbird

I've spent a significant amount of time dreaming up what I'd consider a "dream" unit. I contemplated a number of possibilities including:


 * A civil war unit that groups students into researching teams around four important themes:
 * The role of technology and weapons
 * The role of the structure of the government
 * The impact of geography
 * The role of the state of the economy
 * Each team would compare and contrast the American Civil war with a current civil war happening somewhere in the world in the context of each of the four themes. The final, unifying project would be to predict an alternate outcome of the civil war if it were to happen in modern-day America.
 * The cultural aspects could be studied within an English Language Arts classroom by reviewing a variety of fiction and non-fiction texts created or inspired by the civil conflict of the time.


 * A "relationships" unit (inspired by a lecture given by Jeffry Wilhelm I attended a few years ago) to replace (or supplement) the traditional //Romeo and Juliet// 9th grade English unit. Another inspiration for a unit like this is the popular book //Twilight// which looks at adolescent relationships under a more current lens.
 * A variety of texts, both fiction and nonfiction, electronic and traditional, would be available for teams of 3 - 5 students. Students would be taught to generate questions and have in-depth discussions around common reading material. Alternately, groups may each pick different reading material and discuss questions around the relationship theme such as:
 * What makes a healthy, or mature, relationship?
 * What makes a relationship unhealthy?
 * How are the concepts of "love" and "relationship" similar or different?
 * What are the things you can and cannot control in relationships?
 * What are the various categories of relationships? Do they ever overlap?
 * Students would create a variety of written responses and projects to demonstrate their understanding of the concepts including, double entry-journals, individual and/or classroom blogs, literary analysis around a particular question using multiple sources, and/or original creative writing works following a similar theme.

I've never worked out the details in either of the above examples, however I have found one lesson plan that has served as a template. This unit is found on the Library of Congress website. In their teacher resources, there is a brilliant little link to The Learning Page that contains lesson plans for use with primary source documents. The [|To Kill A Mockingbird] lesson plan is a great example of how to tie a classic novel that may not appeal to all students and make it into a thematic unit with historical perspective, readings from multiple sources and differentiated projects and assessments. It makes cross-curricular connections between social studies and language arts. The key understandings are listed on the main page as McREL standards. Although these may not be ideal, they do capture the spirit of the unit.

One of the biggest draws for me is the use of primary source documents. One of the possible unit themes, for example, is mob justice. How much more real might history seem when students study this letter written my Elanor Roosevelt?



The procedures for the unit are outlined [|here] with links to other examples of primary sources and a suggested time line divided by various themes. I would alter the unit in some ways such as differentiating the required reading and omitting the objective test about the novel and adding essential questions that would guide discussions and projects throughout the unit. These questions could be:
 * How has the history of American Civil rights shaped our literary culture? Other media?
 * When do the rights of a minority outweigh the consensus of the majority?
 * Is the struggle for civil rights over?
 * Why is it important to remember and teach historical perspectives?