Learning Objectives
This unit is designed for my 9th grade English language arts class for English learners and will address the requirements of my district’s 9th grade ELA curriculum that state students will read and analyze Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. In addition to meeting language proficiency and curricular objectives, this unit aims to challenge students in making conclusions about the causes and consequences of the Civil War through an inquiry-based analysis of a broad range of primary and secondary documents. Students will learn about primary sources, how they compare to secondary sources, and apply a protocol for investigating sources, including their authors and origins. Students will also learn how to determine the author's purpose across a variety of text types, using textual evidence to support their conclusions. Additionally, students will analyze rhetoric and how authors select, organize, and employ word choice to convey a central message. Students will then draw comparisons between speeches by Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass to determine the similarities and differences in rhetoric and author’s purpose. In this comparison, students will also reflect on how these two authors and their backgrounds influence the ways in which they draw meaning from the fight at Gettysburg and the overall sacrifices of the Civil War.
To achieve these learning objectives, the unit will progress in three main sections. Within each section, students will participate in activities intended to strengthen their academic and social English language proficiency in the domains of reading, writing, listening and speaking. The complexity of activities that students engage in will increase as the unit progresses. Each activity is intended to scaffold the language, skills, and knowledge students will need to complete successive tasks. Moreover, the unit will gradually move from broader perspectives to individual accounts of the Civil War. Throughout the unit, students will continually grapple with the question-- what were people fighting for? As students seek to answer this question, it is my hope that they note both the overall motivations of the Northern and Southern societies, as well as the divergent perspectives of groups and individuals within those societies.
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