SKU:
Middle Ages/Byzantine Empire & Poetry
$10.00
$10.00
per item
This entire unit provides students the opportunity to truly experience the time period through first-person accounts and constant connection-making to modern day culture. In order to begin this unit, we decided to start by introducing Hemingway’s poetry, as many of the moods and tones are comparable to the emotion during this time period. Additionally, students, especially adolescents, tend to relate to much of Hemingway's poetry as it relates to times of hardship, personal confusion, and overcoming obstacles. Tone and mood are generally the most difficult literary concepts for students to grasp. This unit proves to be appropriate to continue returning to these literary elements, as human emotion is such a central part of the Middle Ages. In order to keep students engaged and connected throughout the entire unit, we created a song journal activity. This song journal allowed students to take any modern day song or poem and relate it to the time period discussed. Students were expected to annotate the poem, provide historical reasoning, and specify the tone and mood. This provided students a memory strategy as well, which assisted them on their assessment, as well as for overall retention. The final assessment includes Regents questions, a writing task, and a personal poem related to information obtained throughout the unit.
The Standards assessed include:
Assessed Standards in English Language Arts:
Reading: Literature
Craft and Structure:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.4
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; 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).
Writing
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.3
Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.3.B
Use narrative techniques, such as dialogue, pacing, description, reflection, and multiple plot lines, to develop experiences, events, and/or characters.
Assessed Standards in Social Studies:
Reading Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies:
Key Ideas and Details:
1. Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, attending to such features as the date and origin of the information.
2. Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of how key events or ideas develop over the course of the text.
3. Analyze in detail a series of events described in a text; determine whether earlier events caused later ones or simply preceded them.
Craft and Structure:
4. Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including vocabulary describing political, social, or economic aspects of history/social studies.
Writing Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies:
Write arguments focused on discipline-specific content.
a. Introduce precise claim(s), distinguish the claim(s) from alternate or opposing claims, and create an organization that establishes clear relationships between the claims(s), counterclaims, reasons, and evidence.
b. Develop claim(s) and counterclaims fairly, supplying data and evidence for each while pointing out the strengths and limitations of both claim(s) and counterclaims in a discipline-appropriate form, and in a manner that anticipates the audience’s knowledge level and concerns.
c. Use words, phrases, and clauses to link the major sections of the text, create cohesion, and clarify relationships between claim(s) and reasons, between reasons and evidence, and between claim(s) and counterclaims.
d. Establish and maintain a formal style and objective tone while attending to the norms and conventions of the discipline in which the work is written.
e. Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from or supports the argument presented.
The Standards assessed include:
Assessed Standards in English Language Arts:
Reading: Literature
Craft and Structure:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.4
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; 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).
Writing
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.3
Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.3.B
Use narrative techniques, such as dialogue, pacing, description, reflection, and multiple plot lines, to develop experiences, events, and/or characters.
Assessed Standards in Social Studies:
Reading Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies:
Key Ideas and Details:
1. Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, attending to such features as the date and origin of the information.
2. Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of how key events or ideas develop over the course of the text.
3. Analyze in detail a series of events described in a text; determine whether earlier events caused later ones or simply preceded them.
Craft and Structure:
4. Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including vocabulary describing political, social, or economic aspects of history/social studies.
Writing Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies:
Write arguments focused on discipline-specific content.
a. Introduce precise claim(s), distinguish the claim(s) from alternate or opposing claims, and create an organization that establishes clear relationships between the claims(s), counterclaims, reasons, and evidence.
b. Develop claim(s) and counterclaims fairly, supplying data and evidence for each while pointing out the strengths and limitations of both claim(s) and counterclaims in a discipline-appropriate form, and in a manner that anticipates the audience’s knowledge level and concerns.
c. Use words, phrases, and clauses to link the major sections of the text, create cohesion, and clarify relationships between claim(s) and reasons, between reasons and evidence, and between claim(s) and counterclaims.
d. Establish and maintain a formal style and objective tone while attending to the norms and conventions of the discipline in which the work is written.
e. Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from or supports the argument presented.