Unit on Darkness Ms. Rodgers What overarching understandings

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Unit on DarknessMs. Rodgers
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• What overarching understandings
• are desired?
• Elements of Darkness Personal Universal
• Nature of Humans good or evil
  both

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• What will students understand
• as a result of this unit?
• Students will develop an understanding
  of the concepts explaining the evil nature of
  humanity in Lord of the Flies, Heart of Darkness,
  and selected poetry.
• Students will demonstrate an opinion on
  the nature of human beings

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• What are the overarching
• essential questions?
• What is the origin of evil, or darkness, in
  Lord of the Flies and Heart of Darkness, and
  selected poetry?
• Is the nature of humans innately evil?
• What are your personal connections to darkness?

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What essential and unit questions focus this
unit? What are the explanations for the evil
nature of humanity John Calvins theory of
original sin, Naturalism, Freuds theory of the
id, and Jungs theory of personal and universal
shadows. What evidence contrasts the theories
of the evil nature of humans? What traits
dominate the characters in Lord of the Flies and
Heart of Darkness?
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• What are the historical contexts of Lord of the
  Flies and Heart of Darkness World War II and
  colonialism in Africa?
• What role does ambiguity play in the
  understanding of darkness?
• What biblical allusions underscore the theme of
  evil?
• What stylistic techniques does the author use to
  highlight the theme of human flaws?

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• Performance Tasks and Projects
• Paper on Style of Lord of the Flies Students
  analyze stylistic devices of Lord of the Flies
  and Heart of Darkness point of view, dramatic
  situation, tone, structure, imagery, metaphorical
  language, symbolism, juxtaposition and other
  syntactical devices and theme
• Power Point Presentations in groups on Original
  Sin, Naturalism, Freud, and Archetypes.

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• Personal Essays. Choose a subject that connects
  to a simulated college essay.
• Descriptive essays. Looking at descriptive
  passages of Golding, write your own descriptive
  essay
• Literary Analysis on Lord of the Flies. Select a
  topic from the list of essential questions and
  write a paper analyzing the topics.
• Projects on Heart of Darkness. Select a project
  that shows the literary elements in HOD in a
  play, video, scripts, or power point.

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• Analytical Papers on Poetry Analyze point of
  view, dramatic situation, tone, structure,
  imagery, metaphorical language, symbolism,
  syntactical devices and themes
• Poem. Write your own poem on the theme of
  darkness.

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• Informal Observation/discussions
• Socratic discussions on books
• Group Work

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• Student Self-Assessment and
• Peer Assessment
• Reflection on what you have learned in this
  unit
• Group Work

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• Given the targeted understandings, other unit
  goals, and the assessment evidence identified,
  what knowledge and skills are needed?

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• Students will need to know
• Key concepts on darkness Original sin,
  Naturalism, Freud and JungEvidence that
  contrasts original sinTraits of characters
• Historical contexts of play
• Ambiguity
• Biblical allusions
• Stylistic technique

• Students will need to be able to
• Read and analyze concepts
• Write analysis of literary elements in prose and
  poetry
• Write imaginative and expressive pieces relating
  to darkness
• Write a poem
• Write reflective essays
• Support their views of the nature of humans
• Discuss key concepts
• Revise work

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What teaching and learning experiences will
equip students to demonstrate the targeted
understandings?
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1. Ask students to read Lord of the Flies, Heart
of Darkness, and selected poetry.2. Ask students
to read handouts on nature of evil.3. Have
students discuss key concepts, using method of
citing textual references to key ideas.4. Have
students do PowerPoint presentations in groups on
major concepts.5. Work with groups to provide
feedback and support for analysis.6. Evaluate
group projects.
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7. Have students write and revise analytical
papers on style in pairs.8. Evaluate work.9.
Have students individually or in pairs, write and
revise literary analysis papers.10. Evaluate
work.11. Have students individually write and
revise personal essays with college entrance in
mind.12. Evaluate work.13. Have students write
and revise descriptive essays, modeling Goldings
style.
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• 14. Evaluate work.15. Have students collaborate
  on projects, demonstrating the concepts in Heart
  of Darkness.16. Evaluate work.17. Have students
  analyze poems and write and revise papers.18.
  Have students write and revise poems of their own
  darkness.19. Evaluate work.20. Have students
  write a self-evaluation of their learning as a
  letter in a portfolio on darkness.21. Evaluate
  work.

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Extraordinary Work So Far
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• Discussion Concepts-Clay Koweek, Coral Spitler,
  and Sabrina Benedict
• Style Papers- Nikki Sink and Will Phipps, Emily
  Cooper and Rachel Hutchins, and Ari Berk and
  Amanda Beebe
• Personal Essays- Emilia Eldridge, Sabrina
  Benedict, Mariana Vazquez, Clay Koweek
• Descriptive Essay-Coral Spitler and Will Phipps
• PowerPoint I- Group that worked on Freud Literary
  Analysis on Lord of the Flies- Emilia Eldridge
  and Rachel Hutchins

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• Project on Heart of Darkness- Nigel, Will,
  Amanda, Emilia and Jackie
• PowerPoint on Darkness- Not Completed!!Reflection
  - Not Completed
• Thanks to all of you for the hard work!!!

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• AIMS Standards
• Middle School (Grades 6-8)
• Reading Strand 1 Reading Process
• Concept 6 Employ Strategies to comprehend text
• Reading Strand 2 Comprehending Literary Text
• Concept 1 Identify, analyze, and apply
  knowledge of the structure and elements of
  literature.
• Reading Strand 3 Comprehending Informational
  Text
• Concept 1 Expository Text
• High School (Grades 9-12)
• Reading Strand 1 Reading Process
• Concept 6 Employ Strategies to comprehend text
• Reading Strand 2 Comprehending Literary Text
• Concept 1 Identify, analyze, and apply
  knowledge of the structure and elements of
  literature.
• Reading Strand 3 Comprehending Informational
  Text
• Concept 1 Expository Text
• Writing W-P1. Use transitional devices varied
  sentence structures the active voice parallel
  structures supporting details, phrases and
  clauses and correct spelling, punctuation,
  capitalization, grammar and usage to sharpen the
  focus and clarify the meaning of their writings.