This lesson begins with students viewing a Colbert Report program about his Super PAC. Then students read and discuss a profile of Colbert's political satire. A second reading examines some of the responses to it, positive and negative, and encourages students to discuss their own views. Readings include embedded links to Colbert's Super PAC ads. A homework assignment asks students to read Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal," view additional clips of Stephen Colbert's program, and then compare and contrast these forms of satire.

Students use art and poetry to explore and understand major characteristics of the Romantic period.

This set of lessons extends over several days. Students work with a partner to read and annotate G.K. Chesterton's "The Fallacy of Success." Students take notes which summarize each section of the text. Students write an objective summary of the text, identifying two claims and determining how those claims are developed in the text.

For too many Americans, the history class in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (remember the teacher’s plaintive question, “anyone, anyone?”) is all too familiar. Our approach is meant to challenge this false and familiar image of history: understanding and reconstructing the past requires ways of thinking, reading, and questioning much more engaging and challenging than mere memorization.
Teaching in a way that differs from your own schooling experience is not necessarily easy to imagine, let alone execute. Especially given the many pressures and demands on teachers today. This part of the Historical Thinking Matters website is devoted to providing instructional resources for teacher educators who want to challenge these iconic pictures of history instruction and start preparing their students to teach for historical thinking.

The standard citation style guide book for the fields of business, education, health science, public service, and social science is the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th edition, 2010. The American Psychological Association (APA) publishes the manual. We commonly refer to it as "the APA Manual".

The business, education, health science, public service, and social science departments at IRSC recommend APA format for papers written in these fields.

Two types of citations are included in most research papers: citations within the text of the document and a list of reference citations at the end of the paper.

In-Text Citations:

The APA Manual uses the author-date citation system for in-text citations.

Reference Citations:

The sources you use in your work are included as a separate list at the end of the paper. The APA Manual suggests using the title, References, for the list.

In this short unit, students will spend three lessons exploring the importance of themes and main ideas in fiction and informational texts.  Now would be a good time to have them take an assessment of their reading and writing skills. They'll explore theme through O. Henry's classic short story  "The Gift of the Magi" and consider how this piece compares to the main idea in the article "The Proven Power of Giving, Not Getting."

In this set of lessons which extend over several days, students read excerpts from "The Death of Benny Paret" by Norman Mailer and "The Fight" by William Hazlitt. Students annotate the text, specifically looking for metaphor and simile, tone, and syntax. Working with a partner, students write three paragraphs, analyzing metaphor or simile, tone, and syntax in "The Death of Benny Paret." Working independently, students write one paragraph, choosing to analyze metaphor or simile, tone, or syntax in "The Fight."

People often say that mankind should learn from history. Charles Dickens, whose books are considered classics, set his novel A Tale of Two Cities in the past. He wanted his readers to learn from the bloody French Revolution and from the widespread brutality in London. Both cities (Paris and London) offer the reader a glimpse into dark and dangerous times. As students read about Dickens's Victorian setting and learn his view of the French Revolution, they will think about what makes a just world. Students will have a chance to think about their own experiences, and, using techniques they have learned from Charles Dickens, they will do some writing that sends a message about your own world.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

To complete the unit accomplishments, students will:

Read the Charles Dickens novel A Tale of Two Cities.
Read several short pieces, including a biography of Dickens and excerpts from other literature, to help them understand Dickens’s world and the world of the novel.
Explore new vocabulary to build their ability to write and speak using academic language.
Practice close reading and participate in several role plays and dramatic readings to help them experience the dramatic writing style of Charles Dickens.
Write a vignette and a short narrative piece, and practice using descriptive detail and precise language.
Write a reflection about the meaning of Dickens’s novel.

GUIDING QUESTIONS

These questions are a guide to stimulate thinking, discussion, and writing on the themes and ideas in the unit. For complete and thoughtful answers and for meaningful discussions, students must use evidence based on careful reading of the texts.

How does good storytelling affect the reader, and how can a good story promote change in the world?
What was the Victorian view of gender roles?
How can power be abused?
What is loyalty ? What are the limits of loyalty?

The laws that govern and the social norms that regulate society are not always fair, legal, moral, or ethical. What is a person to do about all this injustice? What are the hazards of righting injustices or changing social norms? And what are the dangers of doing nothing?

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Students read and annotate Antigone, “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” and Pygmalion.
Students write a literary analysis showing the effect of social class or the law on a character’s life.

GUIDING QUESTIONS

These questions are a guide to stimulate thinking, discussion, and writing on the themes and ideas in the unit. For complete and thoughtful answers and for meaningful discussions, students must use evidence based on careful reading of the texts.

How do social class and legal institutions shape literary characters’ lives (and presumably our lives)?
How does social class affect a person in dealing with the law (protect a person, hurt a person)?
How is social class determined in America and in other places in the world?

BENCHMARK ASSESSMENT: Cold Read

During this unit, on a day of your choosing, we recommend you administer a Cold Read to assess students’ reading comprehension. For this assessment, students read a text they have never seen before and then respond to multiple-choice and constructed-response questions. The assessment is not included in this course materials.

Unit Overview:  The Writers on Writing Unit engages students in reading, analyzing, and creating literacy narratives, or stories about learning to read and write. The unit begins by asking students to view and read literacy narratives, and to analyze author’s literacy narratives through annotation, discussion, and writing a formal analysis essay. As students go through the narratives, they are asked to analyze author technique and purpose, paying close attention to style, syntax, and organization in preparation for writing their own authentic literacy narratives and ultimately creating digital storytelling projects about those narratives. By the end of this unit, students will have composed analysis writing, creative nonfiction, and multimedia stories. They will have had the ability to select certain reading assignments, to work in groups and with partners to brainstorm, edit, and revise, and they will have had guided writing lessons on composing strong sentences.  Days 3 to 5 Overview:   These plans are for Days 3 to 5 of the Writers on Writing Unit. On day 3, students listen to podcasts about different perspectives on struggling to read. They then complete a pre-assessment, reading and analyzing a literacy narrative with guided style analysis notes. Students will then review the pre-assessment activity in preparation for reading their own selections of professional literacy narratives on day 2. The lesson will culminate with students writing an analysis of a professional literacy narrative. Image source: "Idea" from Pxhere.com

This resource is designed to walk students through the process of completing a research project in any field of study. It covers the earliest stages of brainstorming and discussing, continues through researching and compiling sources; writing, documenting, revising, and polishing a paper; and finally presenting the research topic to a wider audience in a professional manner. The focus is on MLA format, though the course could be modified for other formats.

The first unit is an introduction to the project. It asks students to draw on knowledge of issues affecting their own community and world to help generate discussion that could eventually lead to a research topic.

A free mini-book to prepare students for the SAT exam with lessons and questions in math, reading, and writing.

This unit explores multiple themes in both the play The Crucible and real historical contexts in order to deepen our understanding of human nature while sharpening our literary analysis skills. As students read, heavy emphasis is placed on using textual evidence to support character and theme analysis. Students will also work on strengthening research skills. The summative assessment involves analyzing how a common theme can be seen during both the play and the McCarthy trials based on analysis of a variety of sources.

Who decides who among us is civilized? What rules should govern immigration into the United States? Whom should we let in? Keep out? What should we do about political refugees or children without papers? What if they would be a drain on our economy?

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Students read William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest and write a short argument about who in the play is truly civilized.
Students participate in a mock trial in which they argue for or against granting asylum to a teenage refugee, and then they write arguments in favor of granting asylum to one refugee and against granting it to another.
Students read an Independent Reading text and write an informational essay about a global issue and how that relates to their book.

GUIDING QUESTIONS

These questions are a guide to stimulate thinking, discussion, and writing on the themes and ideas in the unit. For complete and thoughtful answers and for meaningful discussions, students must use evidence based on careful reading of the texts.

What role do national identity, custom, religion, and other locally held beliefs play in a world increasingly characterized by globalization?
How does Shakespeare’s view of human rights compare with that in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
Who is civilized? Who decides what civilization is or how it’s defined?
How do we behave toward and acknowledge those whose culture is different from our own?

The 11th grade learning experience consists of 7 mostly month-long units aligned to the Common Core State Standards, with available course material for teachers and students easily accessible online. Over the course of the year there is a steady progression in text complexity levels, sophistication of writing tasks, speaking and listening activities, and increased opportunities for independent and collaborative work. Rubrics and student models accompany many writing assignments.Throughout the 11th grade year, in addition to the Common Read texts that the whole class reads together, students each select an Independent Reading book and engage with peers in group Book Talks. Students move from learning the class rituals and routines and genre features of argument writing in Unit 11.1 to learning about narrative and informational genres in Unit 11.2: The American Short Story. Teacher resources provide additional materials to support each unit.

What does it take to be successful in the workplace? This unit provides students with the opportunity to examine this question, evaluate what others say and form their own voice, and finally to express and share what they find. The materials are for the instructor and provide options to adapt to specfic students. learning needs,  and time frame.

Migration normally happens out of necessity: work, natural resources, or safety for one’s life. The desire to migrate may be a solution for many but there are barriers that can prohibit the need for safety and prosperity. A large number of students’ families are renting or experiencing homelessness in many parts of the United States. They are entering secondary education ready to get jobs to help their families to gain or just maintain a stable home. Students are also preparing for their small individual migrations from their current schooling location and/or homes to a place of post-secondary education or occupation.

In this 5-day unit, students will explore the topic of cheating. Cheating seems to be ever-present in today’s society. Whether we are talking about athletes being busted for using steroids or students “sharing” answers and plagiarizing on final exams, one thing is clear—there’s a whole lot of cheating going on. In this unit, students will take a look at some contemporary instances of cheating and argue whether under certain situations cheating is not only excusable, but also justifiable.

In this short unit, students will spend three lessons exploring some of Abraham Lincoln's speeches. Students will explore Lincoln's themes and consider how they address the issues of his time, and they'll analyze the literary and rhetorical devices he used to express his ideas.