Mark A. Richardson ELAN 7408 9th Grade Conceptual Unit Main Text: Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli Unit focus: Finding theme and connecting with texts. Table of Contents: Rationale……………………………………………………………………………………………page 2 Goals and Rubrics……………………………………………………………………………….page 9 Daily Plans (Beginning with Introductory Activity)………………………………..page 15Rationale The 9th grade is an important time of transition for students academically, as well as personally. One of the primary responsibilities of the 9th grade curriculum is to introduce incoming students to certain skills that they will need in order to achieve optimal success in their high school careers. Building upon concepts learned in students’ previous grade levels, the 9th grade curriculum serves to facilitate an effective transition into high school academics, preparing students for subsequent coursework and giving them the skills needed to obtain success beyond a diploma. One of the primary objectives for the English Language Arts curriculum in the 9th grade is introduce students to more critical ways of reading texts. Building upon comprehension skills learned in previous grades, the 9th grade curriculum asks that students begin to read more comprehensively, utilizing methods of analysis that will help them to find meaning in texts beyond basic levels of understanding. These reading methods will not only prepare students for the types of coursework that they will be asked to complete in subsequent grade levels, but will also provide students with valuable critical thinking skills to be used later in life. For this unit, students will read the novel Stargirl, by Jerry Spinelli. Stargirl is a novel about a young girl who has been home-schooled her entire life and is suddenly thrust into the world of the public high school. Though sheltered from certain social practices, Stargirl (not her given name) is very outgoing and caring, sometimes to a social fault. She pays attention to the people in hercommunity, anonymously sends gifts to those in need, celebrates the accomplishments of those around her, and generally acts in a manner which we all might encourage, but might sparingly live. Stargirl enters her local high school as an oddity, generally ignored at first, but observed by her peers nonetheless for her social quirks. Through several key events, including a romance with a more typical high school boy, Stargirl goes from social oddity, to celebrated eccentric, to pariah. And when she eventually tries to tone down her personality in order to fit in with the rest of the students in her high school, she finds the boundaries of high school society hard to break in to. After several attempts to find her niche, Stargirl leaves the high school behind, and over time achieves legendary status for her odd, but endearing behavior. Thematically, Stargirl deals with several topics: identity formation, conformity vs. individualism, peer pressure, and social stratification are just a few. During this unit I do not ask that students take a given position on any of these topics, nor do I hope to gain their endorsement of any perspective dealing with these topics. What I do ask them to do is to simply observe these topics in everyday life and report their findings. Students will be asked to identify issues raised in the text, such as those listed above, extract those issues from the text, and relate them to real world observations. This practice relates most to 9th grade Georgia Performance Standards ELA9RL3 and ELA9RL2, which state respectively, “The student deepens understanding of literary works by relating them to contemporary context or historical background,” and “The student identifies, analyzes, and applies knowledge of theme in literary works from various genres and provides evidence from the works to support understanding.”Overall, what I hope the students will gain from this unit, regarding reading, is an understanding of how to read a text and contextualize its content in a broader framework, including in the context of what they observe in their own lives. This practice will be useful for students going forward in high school, where they will be asked in subsequent classes to analyze texts using many different contexts, including historical, social, literary period, etc…. It will also allow students to develop a practice that can be useful when considering difficult issues, as they can use their critical thinking skills to evaluate a text and how it relates to their everyday lives. I have chosen Stargirl as the central text because it is a novel which deals with complicated issues, but is relatively easy to read and comprehend. This novel is a relatively new text and is usually categorized as “young adult;” however it has been praised critically [citation needed] and is among those young adult novels which bear a certain sophistication uncommon to its genre. I think that using a novel with these types of contradictions, being advanced while maintaining simplicity, is ideal for a 9th grade curriculum, which, as I have stated above, seeks to facilitate a smooth transition from middle school to high school academics. Though it deals with its topics seriously, the tone of Stargirl is light and its content is tame. I, therefore, do not foresee any problems with the text itself; however, if a rational and explainable problem does arise, I will be open to alternative recommendations. Because the text is a novel and therefore of significant length, however, understand that circumstances must be pressing since I will still have to account for the rest of the class.Another reason I have chosen Stargirl as the central text is that I believe the relevance of its content to many students lives will make the process of contextualizing its themes more manageable. Stargirl is set in a contemporary high school and deals with issues that are pertinent to most modern high school students’ lives. The social world of a high school may seem trivial to many, but I believe being able to critically observe social constructs and tendencies at a young age will help prepare students for how to deal with social situations later in life. Also, transitions to more advanced types of reading can be difficult, and therefore I think it is beneficial to