Between the World and Me
Unit Summary and Rationale: As part of a connection to self and others series incorporating non-fiction, informational text and poetry, this unit supports the concept of the dangers of discrimination and the power of teaching others. This unit combines current events and embraces informational text as a opportunity to exploring journaling, written expression, poetry, thematic concepts and literary devices with an anchor text of Between the World and Me by Coates and the launching poem by the same name by Wright. .
Unit Connection College and Career Ready Descriptions: relevant to the college and career ready student.
Unit Standards: Teachers should list the standards to be addressed within the unit.
Reading
Literature _x ;11-12RL
Key Ideas and Details
1. Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.
4. Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including words with multiple meanings or language that is particularly fresh, engaging, or beautiful.
9. Demonstrate knowledge of eighteenth-, nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century foundational works of literature, including how two or more texts from the same period treat similar themes or topics.
Informational Text_;11-12 RI
Key Ideas and Details
1. Analyze a complex set of ideas or sequence of events and explain how specific individuals, ideas, or events interact and develop over the course of the text.
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
7. Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words in order to address a question or solve a problem.
Writing;11-12W
Text Types and Purposes
1. Write arguments to support
claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
a. Establish and maintain a formal style and objective tone while attending to the norms and conventions of the discipline in which they are writing.
2. Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.
Production and Distribution of Writing
5. Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience.
9. Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
a. Apply grades 11–12 Reading
standards to literature (e.g., “Demonstrate knowledge of eighteenth-, nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century foundational
Speaking and Listening;11-12SL
Comprehension and Collaboration
1. Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 11–12 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
3. Evaluate a speaker’s point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric, assessing the stance, premises, links among ideas, word choice, points of emphasis, and tone used.
Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas
4. Present information, findings, and
supporting evidence, conveying a clear and distinct perspective, such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning, alternative or opposing perspectives are addressed, and the organization, development, substance, and style are appropriate to purpose, audience, and a range of formal and informal tasks.
Language;11-12 L
Conventions of Standard English
4. Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grades 11–12 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.
5. Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.
Technology
HS.TT.1.3 Use appropriate technology tools to design products and information with others.
Big Ideas: These are what students will discover as a result of instruction and learning activities. They are the main ideas of the learning, the conclusions, or the generalizations. Big Ideas should be open-ended and apply to more than one area of study.
Essential Questions: Essential questions center on major issues, problems, concerns, interests, or themes relevant to the classroom. Essential questions should lead students to discover the big ideas. They need to go beyond who, what and where. They need to lead to the how and why.
Learners will understand and recognize theme as enduring and universal as a broad message conveyed through a literary work. Universal ideas include human nature or society, as well.
Learners will develop an understanding of rich vocabulary through an examination of contextual meaning and a revised definition. They will also apply knowledge of literary devices and narrative techniques to enhance appreciation of poetry and non-fiction.
Learners will synthesize information from current events, characterization, theme, events and details to draw conclusions and infer meaning.
Knowledge: What should students know by the end of the lesson?
Students will be able to:
Learning Targets:
Essential Questions and Quick-Writes (must be supported by references to the text, and other texts:
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates Test
1. Between the World and Me is a series of letters a father writes to his teenage son. What event acts as the catalyst or motivation for the first letter?
2. Coates then shares some experiences from his childhood such as the first time he had a gun pulled on him and civil rights assemblies in school. What organization did Coates’s father once belong to and which civil rights leader did Coates like?
3. When Coates uses the term Mecca, what is he referring to –what is his Mecca?
4. Does Coates graduate from college – if so, with what degree, if not, why not?
5. In Chapter II of Between the World and Me, Coates retells the story of Prince Jones who was shot by an off duty police officer. What was the physical make up of the suspect the officer said he was pursuing and how did this contrast with Prince Jones’ appearance?
6. What’s another interesting or peculiar detail about the Prince Jones case and the officer involved?
7. Where did Coates live when his son was a young boy?
8. Coates next shares an anecdote about a time when he took his then four-year-old son to the movies. A white woman thought the boy was moving too slowly and pushed him aside. What happened next?
9. The boy’s mother takes a trip on which she takes lots of pictures of doors (symbolism much?), which opens Coates’s mind to travel. Where did she go (and later the whole family?
10. In the final essay of Between the World and Me Coates visits Prince Jones’s mother. What was Prince Jones’s financial situation like growing up?
Reading Tasks:
Writing Tasks:
Discussion Tasks:
Language/Vocabulary Tasks:
Supporting Documents
between_the_world_and_me_-_ta-nehisi_coates__6_.pdf
Download File
poem_between_the_world_and_me__2_.docx
Download File
letter_from_birmingham_jail__2_.docx
Download File
the_dream_writing_prompt.docx
Download File
The Atlantic,Coates:
Not Trying to get Into Heaven
The Atlantic:
Letter to My Son
richard_wright_the_rise_and_fall_of_jim_crow_._jim_crow_stories_._people__2_.pdf
Download File
rac-reads-between-the-world-and-me-guide-jan-2016_reading_guide__2_.pdf
Download File
Unit Summary and Rationale: As part of a connection to self and others series incorporating non-fiction, informational text and poetry, this unit supports the concept of the dangers of discrimination and the power of teaching others. This unit combines current events and embraces informational text as a opportunity to exploring journaling, written expression, poetry, thematic concepts and literary devices with an anchor text of Between the World and Me by Coates and the launching poem by the same name by Wright. .
Unit Connection College and Career Ready Descriptions: relevant to the college and career ready student.
- Students will demonstrate independence.
- Students will value evidence.
- Students will build strong content knowledge.
- Students will respond to the varying demands of audience, task, and discipline.
- Students will critique as well as comprehend.
- Students will use technology and digital media strategically and capably.
- Students will develop an understanding of other perspectives and cultures.
Unit Standards: Teachers should list the standards to be addressed within the unit.
Reading
Literature _x ;11-12RL
Key Ideas and Details
1. Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.
4. Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including words with multiple meanings or language that is particularly fresh, engaging, or beautiful.
9. Demonstrate knowledge of eighteenth-, nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century foundational works of literature, including how two or more texts from the same period treat similar themes or topics.
Informational Text_;11-12 RI
Key Ideas and Details
1. Analyze a complex set of ideas or sequence of events and explain how specific individuals, ideas, or events interact and develop over the course of the text.
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
7. Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words in order to address a question or solve a problem.
Writing;11-12W
Text Types and Purposes
1. Write arguments to support
claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
a. Establish and maintain a formal style and objective tone while attending to the norms and conventions of the discipline in which they are writing.
2. Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.
Production and Distribution of Writing
5. Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience.
9. Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
a. Apply grades 11–12 Reading
standards to literature (e.g., “Demonstrate knowledge of eighteenth-, nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century foundational
Speaking and Listening;11-12SL
Comprehension and Collaboration
1. Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 11–12 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
3. Evaluate a speaker’s point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric, assessing the stance, premises, links among ideas, word choice, points of emphasis, and tone used.
Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas
4. Present information, findings, and
supporting evidence, conveying a clear and distinct perspective, such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning, alternative or opposing perspectives are addressed, and the organization, development, substance, and style are appropriate to purpose, audience, and a range of formal and informal tasks.
Language;11-12 L
Conventions of Standard English
4. Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grades 11–12 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.
5. Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.
Technology
HS.TT.1.3 Use appropriate technology tools to design products and information with others.
Big Ideas: These are what students will discover as a result of instruction and learning activities. They are the main ideas of the learning, the conclusions, or the generalizations. Big Ideas should be open-ended and apply to more than one area of study.
Essential Questions: Essential questions center on major issues, problems, concerns, interests, or themes relevant to the classroom. Essential questions should lead students to discover the big ideas. They need to go beyond who, what and where. They need to lead to the how and why.
Learners will understand and recognize theme as enduring and universal as a broad message conveyed through a literary work. Universal ideas include human nature or society, as well.
- How do tone and point of view contribute to the overall meaning?
Learners will develop an understanding of rich vocabulary through an examination of contextual meaning and a revised definition. They will also apply knowledge of literary devices and narrative techniques to enhance appreciation of poetry and non-fiction.
- Does the reader experience change through the perception of the the narrator?
Learners will synthesize information from current events, characterization, theme, events and details to draw conclusions and infer meaning.
- How does the understanding of historical context impact cultural nuances in theme?
Knowledge: What should students know by the end of the lesson?
Students will be able to:
- explain the use of metaphor in setting, tone and mood
- analyze the use of irony in creating tone and mood
- analyze the function of the flashback structure
- race the development of the dynamic structure
- analyze the significance of the history and politics within the context of the characters and self trace the development of complex and intertwining themes including:
- discrimination fosters hatred
- the past cannot be buried
- hate is a powerful enemy
- analyze the use of the first person narrator
Learning Targets:
- annotating historical information and synthesizing the information to draw meaning to literary text understanding the nuances in differences in regional cultural
- applying the historical and cultural information to infer discreet meaning to characterization in literary text synthesizing theme across multiple literary works and evaluating how that theme enhances the work as a whole adapting understanding to the framework of the storyteller in response to the first-person narrator
- analyzing the use of medias res through flashback and how it develops the story in contrast to a chronological approach apply literary devices and thematic concepts to mixed genres to enhance understanding and appreciation
Essential Questions and Quick-Writes (must be supported by references to the text, and other texts:
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates Test
1. Between the World and Me is a series of letters a father writes to his teenage son. What event acts as the catalyst or motivation for the first letter?
2. Coates then shares some experiences from his childhood such as the first time he had a gun pulled on him and civil rights assemblies in school. What organization did Coates’s father once belong to and which civil rights leader did Coates like?
3. When Coates uses the term Mecca, what is he referring to –what is his Mecca?
4. Does Coates graduate from college – if so, with what degree, if not, why not?
5. In Chapter II of Between the World and Me, Coates retells the story of Prince Jones who was shot by an off duty police officer. What was the physical make up of the suspect the officer said he was pursuing and how did this contrast with Prince Jones’ appearance?
6. What’s another interesting or peculiar detail about the Prince Jones case and the officer involved?
7. Where did Coates live when his son was a young boy?
8. Coates next shares an anecdote about a time when he took his then four-year-old son to the movies. A white woman thought the boy was moving too slowly and pushed him aside. What happened next?
9. The boy’s mother takes a trip on which she takes lots of pictures of doors (symbolism much?), which opens Coates’s mind to travel. Where did she go (and later the whole family?
10. In the final essay of Between the World and Me Coates visits Prince Jones’s mother. What was Prince Jones’s financial situation like growing up?
Reading Tasks:
- Annotating Informational Texts
- Activating Prior Knowledge
- Letter from Birmingham Jail.docx
- Author Guides
- Richard Wright The Rise and Fall of Jim …
- Current Events Articles both Local and National
- Richard Wright's Poem "Between the World and Me"
- Atlantic Book Club
- Document One Document Two
Writing Tasks:
- Between the World and Me active daily response journals
- Between the World and Me - Ta-Nehisi C… Details
- The Dream Writing Prompt.docx
- Essay Choices: From response essays
- Students synthesize current events in own lives with Coates' son in a written response
Discussion Tasks:
- Current Events
- National Current Events
- Author History/Personal History
- Small Group and Seminar
- RAC-Reads-Between-the-World-and-Me-…
- Narrative Techniques and Devices
- Literary Allusions,
- First Person, Character, Narrator,
- Flashback,
- Symbolism
- Chart/Venn Diagram:
- Students locate a historical events from author and self and compare through interactive diagram
Language/Vocabulary Tasks:
- Between the World and Me
- Articles on Events,
- Characters, and Details.
- Vocabulary Chart
- Defining Words through context Benevolent vs. Malevolent
- Ongoing, student monitored:
- Chapter/Word
- Contextual Definition Revised Definition
Supporting Documents
between_the_world_and_me_-_ta-nehisi_coates__6_.pdf
Download File
poem_between_the_world_and_me__2_.docx
Download File
letter_from_birmingham_jail__2_.docx
Download File
the_dream_writing_prompt.docx
Download File
The Atlantic,Coates:
Not Trying to get Into Heaven
The Atlantic:
Letter to My Son
richard_wright_the_rise_and_fall_of_jim_crow_._jim_crow_stories_._people__2_.pdf
Download File
rac-reads-between-the-world-and-me-guide-jan-2016_reading_guide__2_.pdf
Download File