Jennifer+Layne

Jennifer Layne’s Unit Plan: __The Giver

__ **__ The Giver __**** Unit: The Novel, its challenges, and defense ** ** Historical background on the challenging of __The Giver__ ** The most common argument against __The Giver__ is that it is a book that supports suicide and euthanasia because people within the community are euthanised in order to maintain the perfect society. Those who are not perfect according to the standards set by the community are “released” or euthanised. There are even parents who believe that their own child’s suicide occurred due to the impact that this novel had on the child. They believe that there are children who do not understand the fact that this novel is fiction and they begin to idealize the Utopian society enough to disconnect from reality. These critics sometimes blame suicide that they claim was caused by a disconnect from reality as a direct result of the child reading __The Giver__. For more information on why __The Giver__ is a challenged and sometimes banned book, please see the following links.

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There are many supporters of the use of __The Giver__ within classrooms as well as numerous supporters of the novel itself. These supporters bring about the point that often times critics of this novel have not read the novel. They also regularly mention that the accusations of __The Giver__ being a novel that supports suicide and euthanasia is an obvious clue to the fact that these critics have not read the novel. According to supporters of __The Giver__, Lowry actually shows the horror and the negative affects that suicide and euthanasia have on humanity. She shows throughout the novel that suicide and euthanasia always yield devastating results. For more information in support of the use of __The Giver__ as an adolescent read, please see the following links.
 * Persuasive defense of __The Giver__ **

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There are several differing views with regard to whether or not students should be allowed to read what they choose. Opinions also vary when it comes to what should be allowed to be taught in schools. For further information on the right to read, please refer to the following website for information that defends the right of students to read what they choose.
 * The right to read **

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**__ The Giver __**** Unit Overview **

** Grade Level: ** 7th Grade English Language Arts This unit has been designed for 7th grade English Language Arts students in a rural community outside of Kalamazoo. The middle school has approximately 240 students in grades 6th-8th and the percent of students receiving aid in the form of free or reduced lunch is just over 45%. Many of these students come from challenging, very low income home situations, and many of them have never even had the opportunity to travel outside of Kalamazoo. __ The Giver __ gives these students a chance to see a “perfect” society which I saw as an escape for some of them. Students here become quickly engaged by this book and at first some of them idealize Jonas’ world and the small amount of control the people living in his society have. They like this because everyone in the society has what they need and they have no pain; or so it seems in the beginning. Other students see this controlled world as somewhere they would not want to be because they like to challenge authority and test limits. However, both groups of students share an interest in __The Giver__. Within this five day unit plan, I draw from Michigan’s 8th grade reading and writing standards for ELA. I focus on comprehension, making connections, and improving writing skills by incorporating theme, symbolism, vocabulary, and sentence structure into my lessons. Technology in this unit plan will be in the form of an online blog that students make weekly posts on. They are assigned to select one of the journal questions from Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday and post their answer on the class blog by Thursday night at 9pm every week.

**__ The Giver __**** Unit Layout: Daily Objectives and Standards **

** Objective - ** Students will be introduced to the novel, __The Giver__. They will use word recognition skills to help determine the meaning of words used in the novel throughout chapters one and two.
 * __ Day 1: __**

· ** W.HW.07.01 – ** (Journal) Students will write neat and legible compositions · ** R.WS.07.02 – ** Students will use structural syntactic and semantic analysis to recognize unfamiliar words in context including idioms, analogies, metaphors, similes, knowledge of roots and affixes, major word chunks/rhymes, and syllabication · ** R.WS.07.05 – ** Students will acquire and apply strategies to identify unknown words and construct meaning · ** R.NT.07.03 – ** Students will analyze the role of antagonists, protagonists, internal and external conflicts, and abstract themes
 * Standards: **

** Objective – ** Students will compare their lives to the life of Jonas, the protagonist in __The Giver__. They will also describe the community by creating a haiku poem and an illustration to go along with the poem.
 * __ Day 2: __**

· ** W.HW.07.01 – ** (Journal) Students will write neat and legible compositions · ** R.MT.07.01 – ** Students will self-monitor comprehension when reading or listening to text by automatically applying and discussing the strategies used by mature readers to increase comprehension including predicting, constructing mental images, visually representing ideas in text, questioning, rereading or listening again if uncertain about meaning, inferring, summarizing, and engaging in interpretive discussions · ** W.GN.07.01 – ** Students will write a cohesive narrative piece such as a memoir, drama, legend, mystery, poetry, or myth that includes appropriate conventions to the genre employing literary and plot devices (e.g. internal and/or external conflicts, antagonist/protagonists, personifications)
 * Standards: **

** Objective – ** Students will locate given words from their worksheets within the novel. They will then look these words up in dictionaries and identify the definition of each word that best describes the way it is used in the novel. They will be practicing using reference books.
 * __ Day 3: __**

** Standards: ** · ** W.HW.07.01 – ** (Journal) Students will write neat and legible compositions · ** R.WS.07.01 – ** Students will explain and use word structure, sentence structure, and predication to aid in decoding and understanding the meaning of words encountered in context

** Objective – ** Students will analyze the age ceremonies from the novel and formulate an argument based on their findings.
 * __ Day 4: __**

** Standards: ** · ** W.HW.07.01 – ** (Journal) Students will write neat and legible compositions · ** R.NT.07.01 – ** Students will identify how the tensions among characters, communities, themes, and issues are related to their own experiences in classic, multicultural, and contemporary literature recognized for culture and literacy merit · ** R.CM.07.01 – ** Students will connect personal knowledge, experiences, and understanding of the world to themes and perspectives in text through oral and written responses

** Objective – ** Students will demonstrate their comprehension of character traits and character roles in the novel by creating a descriptive acrostics poster.
 * __ Day 5: __**

** Standards: ** · ** W.HW.07.01 – ** (Journal) Students will write neat and legible compositions · ** R.CM.07.01 – ** Students will connect personal knowledge, experiences, and understanding of the world to themes and perspectives in text through oral and written responses · ** R.CM.07.02 – ** Students will retell through concise summarization grade-level narrative and informational text

Unit Assessment Plan

Daily Journal Questions - Initiating Activities



Day One Lesson and Materials:
 * __LESSON PLANS__**

Day Two Lesson and Materials:

Day Three Lesson and Materials:

Day Four Lesson and Materials:

Day Five Lesson and Materials:

Unit Plan Epilogue/Afterward: