Implementing Standards
This unit is grounded primarily in the “Reading: Literature” and “Writing” strands of the 11th - 12th grade Common Core State Standards. When students read these poems they will be actively working under Reading standards 11-12.4 and 11-12.5 as they read the poems closely, looking for how words and phrases create meaning and how that connects to the author’s political situation and point of view. Their essays address 11-12.1, 11-12.2, and 11-12.3 when the writing grapples with key ideas and pulls textual evidence and reasoning to support their claims. Naturally the essays cross over to the Writing standards in the same areas, Writing 11-12.1 and 11-12.2 dealing with the written communication of the knowledge students gained in studying the poems. Including the process of writing in class time stresses the Writing standards 11-12.4, 5, and 6. Although the writing of good poetry is not explicitly mentioned in the standards, the production and circulation of the students’ own political poetry falls well under Writing 11-12.4, in letter, if not in spirit. Lastly, the students’ journal writing covers Writing 11-12.10 as they write routinely in manifold ways throughout the unit.
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