Title of Unit: Understanding Shakespeare's Julius Caesar

Duration: March 28- May 21

(Monday and Thursday,

total of 16 lessons)

1. Objective(s) of the unit:

     Students will thoroughly and carefully read the play, coming to a good understanding of the themes, as well as the literary techniques used by Shakespeare. 

2. How the students’ work in the unit will be assessed:

             a. At the end of each day's lesson, students will be given a brief quiz which will assess their level of understanding of the specific objective for that lesson

             b. Essays will be assigned on a regular basis, requiring the students to discuss various themes and literary techniques found in the play.

3. Daily lesson objectives and activities:

         Lesson 1 objective: students will learn about Shakespeare's times, and about how plays were written and performed

         Lessons 2 through 24 objectives: in each lesson, students will closely examine selected passages in a single scene, and will come to an understanding of the themes and literary techniques demonstrated in each of the passages. 

4.  Homework assignments: memorization

        Every Monday and Wednesday night, students will be required to memorize 4-6 lines from the play, and a quiz will be given the next day.

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Title of Unit: Using sentence openers, inversions, branching sentences, 
and parallelism to lengthen and enhance sentences.

Duration: March 28 – May 21 (Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 16 lessons)

1. Objective(s) of the unit:         

         Students will understand and employ the above writing tools.

2. How the students’ work will be assessed:

         On Tuesday, one or more of the above terms will be explained and practiced, and the following day the students will demonstrate the ability to use the tool in an essay. 

3. Daily lesson objectives and activities: See #2, above.

          

READING ALOUD WITH FLUENCY

READING UNIT

Title of Unit: Reading a Classic Novel Aloud with Fluency

Duration: Jan. 3 – Feb. 4 (5 weeks, 8 lessons)

1. Objective(s) of the unit:
   Students will read passages from A Tale of Two Cities with reasonable expression and at an appropriate speed.

2. How the students’ work will be assessed:
   In each day’s lesson, each student will be asked to demonstrate an understanding of the objective of that lesson.

3. Daily objectives:

         Lesson 1: While reading aloud, students will “make music” by emphasizing groups of words.

         Lesson 2: While reading aloud, students will emphasize the two or three most important words in the passage.

         Lesson 3: While reading aloud, students will pay special attention to transition words (after, instead, suddenly) and comparatives and superlatives (darker, faster, saddest, fullest).

         Lesson 4: While reading aloud, students will apply an expression the teacher identified and recommended. (“Stryver is upset. Can you read the sentence in a way that shows that?”)

         Lesson 5: While reading aloud, students will use dialog tags to help them read with expression. (“The sentence reads ‘Carton replied sadly’. Try reading it that way.”

         Lesson 6: While reading aloud, teacher will ask several students to give a different expression to the same passage.

         Lesson 7: While reading aloud, students will use inflection to demonstrate their understanding of the punctuation and syntax.

         Lesson 8: While reading aloud, students will be asked to reread passages using different expressions.