Course and Grade: Sophomore English, 10th
Generalization: Risk-taking (facing challenges) is often a rite of passage into a new level of maturity. This lesson is important since students have, and continue to, take risks for various reasons: to impress others, or to prove something to themselves. It’s important for them to become reflective about their risk-taking: which risks are worth taking, and what are good or bad reasons for taking certain risks?
Learning Targets:
Facts: Jerry is the eleven-year-old protagonist and has only one parent: a widowed mother. He trains to swim through a tunnel underwater after witnessing a group of older boys all do this. He does not tell his mother about his plans to do this. His motivation for trying to do this changes to trying to do it for himself.
Concepts: maturity, risk-taking as rite of passage (facing challenges), also idea of person versus self (or person versus Nature).
Skills: reading for comprehension, analyzing facts to create informed opinions. Connect their judgments and evaluations about the story/characters to their own lives, rites of passage they’ve experienced, challenges they faced, risks they’ve taken or plan to take
EL’s: Reading
1.4c analyze literary elements (plot, characters, setting, theme, point of view, conflict, resolution)
2.3e apply information gained from reading to give a response or express an insight.
2.1c use prior knowledge of issues, characters, events, and information to examine texts and extend understanding
2.1d synthesize ideas from selections to make predictions and inferences about various texts
2.2a critically compare, contrast, and connect ideas within and among a broad range of texts
2.2b use logical sequence to accurately retell stories; order and/or sequence parts of text
2.3f analyze, interpret, and evaluate ideas and concepts within, among, and beyond multiple texts.
Materials: