Digital Unit Plan Template

Unit Title: Themes are Central to the Text

Name: Jessica Wilson

Content Area: English Language Arts

Grade Level: 11-12

CA Content Standard(s)/Common Core Standard(s):

Reading Standard
11-12.2 Determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how
they interact and build on one another to produce a complex account; provide an objective summary of the text.
Writing Standard
11-12.1 Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient
evidence.
b. Develop claim(s) and counterclaims fairly and thoroughly, supplying the most relevant evidence for each while pointing out the
strengths and limitations of both in a manner that anticipates the audiences knowledge level, concerns, values, and possible
biases.

Big Ideas:

1. Be able to analyze themes and central ideas in a text.

2. Be able to closely read a text and evaluate how the context is important.
3. Analyze how various themes develop over the course of a text and impact the text as a whole.
4. Take the information learned from the texts themes and defend how those ideas are present during the time period and today.

Unit Goals and Objectives:

1. Students will be able to locate and identify two or more themes or central ideas in any given text, specifically The Great Gatsby.
2. Students will be able to analyze the themes they have identified and successfully communicate the impact these themes have in
the text and how they contribute to layers of meaning.
3. Students will be able to argue with clear examples how the themes impacted the time the text was written, as well as how these
ideas still are present today.

Unit Summary:

This Unit explores what theme is in literature. It delves into how theme works, it's significance to the overall text, and how themes relate
not only to literature, but to the world today. The Unit will incorporate a lecture on theme, accompanied with guided notes, a review game
of jeopardy, a quiz on the lecture, a webercise where students will safely use the internet and their minds to uncover what theme is and
how it works, a quick write comparing and contrasting themes that students located in The Great Gatsby, a group project storyboard that
students will create and present to the class, and a graphic organizer that will help students in the final paper, where students will use
writing to discuss what they've learned about theme in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Assessment Plan:
Entry-Level:
Students take an online survey describing
how much they already know about theme.

Formative:
Strategies Used:
Quiz on the lecture. Students study the
guided notes beforehand.
Questions to check for understanding
Concept map
games

Summative:
Make sure students understand the big ideas
through summary assessments.
Strategies Used:
A Storyboard Presentation.
A Paper on the Great Gatsby where the
students find theme, use textual evidence,
and defend their claims with critical
analysis.

Lesson 1 Teacher Lecture and Guided Notes

Student Learning
Objective:
Students will be able to
analyze themes
identified in class
discussion and
successfully
communicate the
impact these themes
have in the text and
how they contribute to
layers of meaning.

Acceptable Evidence:

Students pair up and

use storyboards to
illustrate important
themes/concepts from
The Great Gatsby and
use textual passages to
support these themes
and explain their
significance.

Instructional
Strategies:
Communication
Collection
Collaboration
Presentation
Organization
Interaction

Lesson Activities:
Have students do an entry level assessment (Online Survey)
where the teacher can see what level of knowledge students
have about themes and can see from the results how much
time to spend on the lecture portion.
Teacher lecture on what theme is, why it is important, and
how to analyze themes.
Students follow along with guided notes and answer
questions. We go over questions during the lecture. Correct
and completed notes will be worth points.

Each class period we will discuss the assigned reading and go

over important issues in the book, including themes and
concepts.
There will be a quiz after the lecture is completed to make
sure students studied their notes and understood the
information.
After each class discussion is over, students will work on
storyboards with a partner and incorporate themes weve
discussed in class, as well as concepts they find on their own,
as long as they can back them up with textual evidence.
By the end of the lesson, three pairs (6 students) will join
together and create one large storyboard that they will present
to the class in a presentation. The format in which they
present their storyboard can be technological, like a comic
strip, or a physical presentation, like a poster board.
They will use the communication tool, wallwisher, to reflect
on the presentations their classmates gave.

Lesson 2 Webercise
Student Learning
Objective:
Students will be able to

Acceptable Evidence:

The students will be

Instructional
Strategies:
Communication
Collection

Lesson Activities:
Take what they have learned from the lecture and assigned
readings and complete the Webercise on their own.

locate, identify, and

thoroughly explain, on
their own, two or more
themes or central ideas
in any given text,
specifically The Great
Gatsby.

able to locate and

identify themes and
ideas in The Great
Gatsby with textual
evidence in the form of
quotations.

Collaboration
Presentation
Organization
Interaction

Acceptable Evidence:

Instructional
Strategies:
Communication
Collection
Collaboration
Presentation
Organization
Interaction

After completing the Webercise at home, in the following

class, students will split into groups based on the chapter
students chose for the Webercise and discuss their results.
Then, each student will do a quick write, where they will
compare and contrast what they and those in their group
found.

Lesson 3
Student Learning
Objective:
Students will be able to
argue with clear
examples how the
themes worked in the
novel, as well as how
they impact the world
today.

Unit Resources:

Locate themes on their

own, analyze what
passages from the text
support the themes,
explain how they
support them, and then
present it clearly in
written form.

Lesson Activities:
To prepare for the paper, students will each make a graphic
organizer, which helps them use what they have learned to
create a cluster map. This cluster map asks them to plan out
what will basically become their paper in a visual way.
The Great Gatsby Paper, where the students demonstrate their
knowledge of how to find themes in a text and support their
themes with textual evidence and analytical explanation.
They will also include in the paper how the themes they
located impact todays society.

Primary Resources:
The Great Gatsby book
Online Version of The Great Gatsby https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/f/fitzgerald/f_scott/gatsby/chapter7.html
Activities:
Entry-level Survey https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/5TQ7GDG
Helpful in completing required activities:
Wallwisher (padlet) http://padlet.com/wall/var3ry8ul9n1
StoryBoardThat http://www.storyboardthat.com/?utm_expid=58652488-7.178199R2Seue5F7W89UKvQ.0
Popplet http://www.popplet.com/
More information:
What are storyboards for?
https://www.facinghistory.org/for-educators/educator-resources/teaching-strategies/storyboard-teaching-strategy
https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/analyze-text-with-storyboards#video-sidebar_tab_video-notes-tab
Why are we even learning about theme? http://thinkingwriter.com/?p=36
I want to know more about theme
http://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-theme-and-vs-topic/

Useful Websites:

http://www.isbe.net/common_core/pdf/ela-teach-strat-read-text-6-12.pdf

https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/analyze-text-with-storyboards#video-sidebar_tab_video-notes-tab
http://www.cascience.org/csta/pdf/conferencehandouts/YellenbergHandout.pdf
http://www.bucks.edu/media/bcccmedialibrary/tutoring/documents/writing/Identifying%20themes.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4qME64SkxM
http://www.slideshare.net/mdix25/theme-in-literature?related=2
http://literarydevices.net/theme/
http://www.inforefuge.com/demise-of-american-dream-the-great-gatsby
http://www.storyboardthat.com/teacher-guide/the-great-gatsby-by-f-scott-fitzgerald
http://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-great-gatsby/quotes