In Unit 2, students will continue to read excerpts from The Lightning Thief. They will also analyze the Greek myths highlighted in the novel and compare themes and topics in the Greek myths with those evident in The Lightning Thief. In the second half of the unit, students write a literary analysis essay using the Painted Essay® structure comparing and contrasting watching parts of The Lightning Thief movie with reading about the same events in the novel.

In Unit 3, students reimagine a scene from The Lightning Thief, writing themselves into the action as a different demigod from Camp Half-Blood. They research a Greek god of their choosing (or another traditional figure for those who don’t feel comfortable imagining themselves as a child of a Greek god), and use their research to create a new character, the child of that figure. Students develop the attributes of that character and strategically insert the character into a scene from the novel, editing carefully so as not to change the outcome of the story. At the end of the module, students create a presentation outlining their choices and the reasons for their choices for the performance task.

Why do Greek myths continue to be relevant and popular today? In this module, students meet figures from ancient Greek mythology who are placed in a contemporary setting and evaluate how stories from a different time and place continue to resonate.

Students begin Unit 1 by launching their reading of The Lightning Thief. Students analyze how the author develops the point of view of the narrator, and then strategize to determine the meanings of unfamiliar words and phrases, including figurative language. In the second half of Unit 1, students prepare for a Socratic Seminar discussion by analyzing how Percy, the main character, responds to challenges. They create discussion norms to have productive text-based discourse about the novel. Theme is also introduced in the second half of the unit in preparation for Unit 2.

In Unit 2, students continue to read The Lightning Thief, some parts in class and others for homework. They analyze the Greek myths highlighted in the novel and compare themes and topics in the Greek myths with those evident in The Lightning Thief. In the second half of the unit, students write a literary analysis essay using the Painted Essay® structure, comparing and contrasting the treatment of events in the movie The Lightning Thief with the same events in the novel.

In Unit 3, students reimagine a scene from The Lightning Thief, writing themselves into the action as a different demigod from Camp Half-Blood. They research a Greek god of their choosing (or another traditional figure for those who don’t feel comfortable imagining themselves as a child of a Greek god) and use their research to create a new character, the child of that figure. Students develop the attributes of that character and strategically insert the character into a scene from the novel, editing carefully so as not to change the outcome of the story. At the end of the module, students create a presentation outlining their choices and reasoning for the performance task.

In Unit 2, students continue reading the anchor text, Two Roads, starting at the conclusion of chapter 18, just as Pop is leaving Cal behind at Challagi Indian Industrial School. For the first time, Cal is on his own. For the first time, Cal is aware of his Creek heritage. As Cal begins his venture into student life at Challagi Indian Industrial School, students continue to track his character growth through the challenges he faces. With the plot developing and Cal’s character evolving, students are able to identify emerging themes, such as “Identities are complicated and conflicting, and tensions may exist between our different identities” and “It is critical to study indigenous histories so their contributions are not forgotten.” Discussions around the anchor text allow students a space to examine their own emerging and evolving identities, racially and socially.

To better understand how an author reveals theme, students examine the use of allusion, an artistic technique in which the author incorporates indirect references to some cultural touchstones with which the audience is likely familiar. Additionally, students analyze word connotation to understand the subtle way in which word choice conveys emotions or meaning. By studying the nuances of language, students develop as discerning readers, able to interpret both explicit and implicit messages.

For the mid-unit assessment, students read a new chapter of Two Roads and answer selected response and short constructed response questions about Cal’s point of view, how Cal is responding and changing throughout the plot, and emerging themes in the text. Students also write an objective summary of the chapter, identifying a possible theme and the details from the text that convey that theme.

In the second half of the unit, students finish reading the novel and discover that Cal, spurred by a premonition that Pop is in trouble, has run away from Challagi to find Pop in Washington DC. Cal’s vision was correct, and he arrives just as the Bonus Army is being forcibly removed from the capital. Having proven himself mature enough to handle these tough situations, Pop gives Cal the option of staying with him or returning to Challagi. Students begin their work with argument writing by gathering evidence for and against Cal returning to Challagi. As letters are a key text feature in the novel, students write a narrative letter to Possum, embodying the role of Cal, as they make the argument. Students will hone their argument-writing skills in Unit 3 when they write a literary argument essay. Letter writing in this unit is the vehicle through which students practice defending a side, while also being assessed on the extensive grammar instruction they receive in this unit.

Throughout Unit 2, students build knowledge and skills about pronoun case, person, and number; and correcting vague pronouns. Additionally, a variety of interactive and discussion-based activities help students to practice strategies for incorporative more variety into their sentence patterns to enhance meaning, engage reader interest, and add style. For the end of unit assessment, students write their narrative letter and then revise their work based on pronoun case, pronoun number and person, vague pronouns, and sentence variety. An alternative end of unit assessment requires students to read a narrative letter and answer selected response and short constructed response questions about pronoun case, pronoun number and person, vague pronouns, and sentence variety.

Despite their painful and long-lasting impact, American Indian boarding schools are an often neglected topic of study. In Module 3, students are introduced to this topic, with the goal of amplifying long unheard voices and better understanding this critical time in North American history. Students read Two Roads, the story of a thoughtful and independent boy named Cal and his father “Pop,” who live as traveling “knights of the road” after losing their farm during the Great Depression. Cal faces a critical question of identity when he learns from Pop that, after a lifetime of identifying as white, he is, in fact, part Creek Indian. Cal’s father shares this revelation days before enrolling Cal at the Challagi Indian Industrial School while he travels to Washington, DC alone. Cal challenges the expectations of the school’s administration, develops close friendships with other students, and questions, explores, evaluates, and affirms his varying identities. To deepen their understanding of American Indian boarding schools beyond a literary context, students also read a variety of supplemental texts, including informational reports and first-person accounts of life at American Indian boarding schools. Together, these texts further contextualize the anchor text and illustrate a wider range of experiences.

In Unit 1, students read excerpts of the initial chapters of the anchor text, which serves as a “hook,” inciting student interest in the history of American Indian boarding schools. Students then develop their knowledge of the historical context of the topic by reading related informational and narrative supplemental texts. Students consider the purported objectives of American Indian boarding schools and compare these against the often far darker experiences reported by the students who attended these schools. Students then return to the anchor text at chapter 9, better equipped to contextualize the experiences of Cal, Pop, and Cal’s friends. Unit 1 assessments gauge students’ abilities to read critically and independently for the author’s point of view and for background information on the topic.

In Unit 2, students finish reading the anchor text. They demonstrate continued development of reading skills, tracking character growth and central ideas and themes in the Mid-Unit 2 Assessment using a new excerpt from the text. An additional supplemental text is included in Unit 2 to support connections across the anchor text and the historical context. At the end of the novel, Cal faces the decision of returning to Challagi school or staying with his father in Washington, DC. Students convey Cal’s vacillating perspective toward this challenging question through a narrative letter to Possum, focusing on just one of the possible outcomes. This narrative assignment, which has the option of being assessed for its appropriate and accurate use of pronouns and sentence variety (a second assessment targeting these skills is also available), helps prepare students for the argument essay of Unit 3. Some of the evidence and reasoning incorporated into these student narratives will be repurposed and strengthened in an argument essay for the Mid-Unit 3 Assessment.

In Unit 3, students revisit the Painted Essay® structure as they construct their own argument essays. In those essays, they grapple with the question of whether Cal should return to the boarding school or remain with his father, whom he has run away to find. Students first collaboratively produce an argument piece using a similar prompt to further prepare for their independent argument essays. Module 3’s performance task presents the culmination of students’ learning about and reflections on the American Indian boarding schools through the production of an audio museum exhibit. Students select an excerpt from a text written by a survivor of American Indian boarding schools; they then write a preface to situate their text within a historical context and a reflection to convey the personal impact felt by their chosen text. Students record their preface, text, and reflection independently, and then use an audio recording application program to produce a product that will be featured at a listening station as part of the audio museum and can be widely shared to uplift the voices of American Indian boarding schools.

In Unit 2, students selected and began conducting research about their focus figures: other important individuals in space science whose contributions have gone unrecognized. In Unit 3, they continue this research and prepare to write argument essays. First, they revisit the Painted Essay® to develop a deeper understanding of argument essay structure. As in previous modules, students deconstruct a model argument essay (about Dorothy Vaughan) and then complete a collaborative essay (about Mary Jackson or Katherine Johnson) that addresses a similar prompt. In each lesson, students examine aspects of the argument essay model and practice using it in their own writing. Using textual evidence about their focus figure (W.6.9), students generate sound argument essays (W.6.1, W.6.10) to answer the prompt: Why are my focus figure’s accomplishments remarkable?

After writing their independent essays for the mid-unit assessment, students move toward the culmination of the module: the development of a class picture book that highlights the key achievements of students’ chosen focus figures. In triads with their “crewmates,” students use narrative nonfiction writing techniques to produce three pages about their focus figures, complete with creative illustrations. Students then develop and deliver presentations, which serve as Part 1 of the End of Unit 3 Assessment. Students present their claims about why their focus figure’s accomplishments are remarkable, demonstrating appropriate presentation skills (SL.6.4) and a command of formal language (SL.6.6) and using their picture book illustrations as visual support (SL.6.5). As students listen to one another’s presentations, they practice delineating the arguments put forth by their classmates (SL.6.3). Part 2 of the assessment centers around a culminating discussion, during which students summarize and reflect upon key learning across the module (SL.6.1).

In Module 4, students learn about remarkable accomplishments in space science, paying special attention to accomplishments and people that may have been overlooked until recently. After reading supplemental texts to learn about key events and well-known figures of the Space Race, students begin their anchor text, Hidden Figures (Young Readers’ Edition) by Margot Lee Shetterly. This tells the story of the “West Computers,” the first black women hired by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA, later NASA), which had previously enforced discriminatory hiring policies. The work of these tremendously talented mathematicians, like Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, and Katherine Johnson, led to major advances in space science and helped land human beings on the moon. Major tasks in the module provide opportunities for students to uncover and uplift the stories of these and other hidden figures who have typically not been centered in popular accounts of space science.

Across the eight lessons of Unit 1, students read engaging informational texts about important events in the Space Race of the mid-twentieth century, leading up to the Apollo 11 moon landing. In the first half of Unit 1, much of the work around these texts is related to point of view (e.g., John F. Kennedy’s point of view toward space travel). In the mid-unit assessment, students apply this work to a new text, analyzing the author’s point of view toward the Apollo 11 astronauts and mission and toward the future of humans in space. The informational texts of the second half of Unit 2 add deeper complexity to students’ understanding of the Space Race. Students read arguments that challenge the United States’ decision to invest in space exploration, especially when civil rights abuses were taking place at home. In preparation for the end of unit assessment, which features similar tasks, students practice tracing the arguments posed in these texts, identifying the authors’ main claims and identifying the evidence and reasoning that the authors use to support their claims. This unit helps students build critical context needed to frame and understand the content and focus of Units 2 and 3.

In Unit 2, when students begin reading Hidden Figures, they quickly discover that popular accounts of the Space Race have generally overlooked the contributions of the West Computers. In the first half of Unit 2, students analyze the way that Shetterly introduces and illustrates Dorothy, Mary, and Katherine in the text. Students also practice identifying claims about the West Computers that can be supported using evidence from the text. Students apply this learning and complete similar tasks during the mid-unit assessment. In the second half of Unit 2, and on the end of unit assessment, students read supplemental texts about the West Computers and compare and contrast the authors’ presentations of events with Shetterly’s presentation of the same events in Hidden Figures.

In Unit 3, students revisit the Painted Essay® structure to analyze a model argument essay that addresses the prompt: What makes Dorothy Vaughan’s accomplishments remarkable? Using a similar prompt about Mary Jackson or Katherine Johnson, students write collaborative argument essays that prepare them to produce independent arguments later in the unit. Informed by research conducted across Units 2 and 3, students’ independent essays present arguments about the remarkable accomplishments of their focus figure: a major contributor to space science, outside of the anchor text, whose important work is also comparatively unknown. The performance task of Module 4 invites students to create illustrated pages for a narrative nonfiction picture book about the accomplishments of focus figures. These picture books provide engaging visual support to students’ presentations of their focus figure arguments during the end of unit assessment. During this assessment, students also delineate the arguments of their classmates and reflect on their learning across the module as a whole.

All written work should be assessed using a rubric. Using a set of criteria linked to standards not only allows for uniform evaluation, but helps students understand what is important about an assignment and encourages them to reflect on their work.

RAFT is a writing strategy that helps students understand their role as a writer, the audience they will address, the varied formats for writing, and the topic they'll be writing about. By using this strategy, teachers encourage students to write creatively, to consider a topic from a different perspective, and to gain practice writing for different audiences. Students learn to respond to a writing prompt that requires them to think about various perspectives (Santa & Havens, 1995):

Writing enables students to process, organize, formulate, and extend their thinking about what they have been learning. In addition, teachers can also assign writing to help students evaluate what they know and understand about a topic. These writing-to-learn strategies help foster students' abilities to make predictions, build connections, raise questions, discover new ideas, and promote higher-level thinking.

Learn how to conduct effective peer and teacher writing conferences to improve student writing.

Learn how to model a range of prewriting techniques and introduce several mnemonics to help students organize their writing.

This BBC Skillswise introduction to editing and proofreading shows how to check spelling and grammar at different stages of writing. Includes nine downloadable practice sheets for different stages and types of writing. [1:04]

This site is a review of one of Phyllis Naylor's more well known books, "Shiloh."

A detailed account of how to improve one's writing through the process of the peer review. Includes basic information and content-specific additions, such as peer review guidelines, questions, and online resources.

A detailed source for professional editing and proofreading strategies. Links on the right offer several pages of text for both editing and proofreading, including guidelines and samples for each.

Students explore the topic of "coming of age" through the story of an African-American boy growing up during the civil rights era, and his family's strong bond in the face of tragedy.

What does the editing process consist of for your students? Use this informative site to learn more about editing.

This video lesson discusses reviewing a composition to ensure that it meets the assignment. [9:00]