Gr. 9 Unit: Author's Craft: Characters, Diction, and Structure

In this unit, designed around standards RL.9-10.3, RL.9-10.4, and RL.9-10.5, students encounter a range of sufficiently complex short stories that challenge them to apply sophisticated analysis through writing skills. The unit begins with an examination of excerpts from two authors who describe their approach to craft.

Students conduct close analytic readings of short fiction comparing and synthesizing ideas across texts. Students gather evidence about style, structure, tone, theme, and other elements specific to each work.

Students also analyze how complex characters (e.g. those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme. Students will determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text including figurative and connotative meaning; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone (e.g. how the language evokes a sense of time and place; how it sets a formal or informal tone). Students will then analyze how an author's choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g. pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as mystery, tension, and surprise. Through narrative, argument, and explanatory essays, students will demonstrate synthesis and evaluation skills.

The culminating activity requires students to select a setting, conflict, rising action, falling action, resolution, main characters, and theme. They will then write a narrative using dialogue and multiple plot lines to develop characters and events that culminate in a central theme. Students must use a variety of techniques, to illustrate what is experienced, observed, or resolved, and sequence the events to create a coherent whole that culminates in a reflection of what is experience, observed, or resolved over the course of the narrative.