Unit Archive

Students explore the values, daily routines, structures, and rituals of ancient Egypt and compare them to those of society today while exploring the evidence an author uses to support points in a text.

Students read informational texts about the seven continents and what makes each of them unique while working to understand text features and develop skills in writing about informational texts.

Students learn about the concepts of fairness and justice and people who worked to overcome injustice while developing informational reading strategies for reading narrative nonfiction texts.

In this unit, students compare and contrast events and characters in multiple versions of The Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood.

Students explore the characteristics of a mystery, and how an author uses those characteristics to develop the plot, while reading about the American pastime of baseball in the text The Fenway Foul-Up.

In this unit, students explore ancient Greece, learning and exploring the different characteristics of ancient Greece and its values.

Students study two important body systems, the digestive and urinary systems, through a variety of informational texts and hands-on projects.

Students read, discuss, and write about spider—or Anansi—folktales from West Africa, which have been used for generations to teach lessons about human nature and the consequences of good and bad behavior. 

In this unit, students explore the concepts of honesty, forgiveness, and friendship by reading Freckle Juice and Keena Ford and the Second-Grade Mix-Up.

Students learn about insects and their impact on the natural world by asking and answering questions about informational texts in order to become inquisitive, active readers.

Students explore the meaning of true friendship by reading E.B. White's classic novel Charlotte's Web, examining its themes, setting, character and language, and learning to develop empathy for others.

Students explore how two humorous works of Roald Dahl contain deeper messages about courage, friendship and stepping in to save others. 

Students learn about the relationship between force and motion and the meaning of gravity, friction, magnetism, potential and kinetic energy while participating in teacher-created labs and activities.

Students explore the world of poetry by reading, discussing and writing about a selection of carefully chosen poems, realizing that poetry can inspire, motivate, and help them see things in a new way.

Students read, discuss, and analyze a collection of Roman myths as they learn about the values and beliefs of the ancient Roman Empire and consider the role that myths, gods, and storytelling held.

Students explore the rise and fall of the ancient Roman Empire and Roman civilization, its various leaders, routines, and rituals, while practicing multiple informational reading strategies.

Students build a deeper appreciation and respect for world religions in the aim of better understanding the differences and similarities among the religions and cultures of their classmates.

Students explore the rise and fall of the ancient Roman Empire and Roman civilization, its various leaders, routines, and rituals, while practicing multiple informational reading strategies.

Students examine the ideas and values behind the American Revolution and what drove the colonists to seek independence through nonfiction texts, including Liberty! How the Revolutionary War Began.

Students read, discuss and write about the novel Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key, focusing on how the author develops characters and relationships, and giving them a glimpse into the life of a child with ADHD.

Students learn about the Great Depression through the eyes of a ten-year-old African-American boy, analyzing themes of compassion, maturity, and the idea of home, through the novel Bud Not Buddy.

Students explore how energy is transferred and how it can be converted into different forms, and learn about renewable and nonrenewable energy while looking towards the world’s energy future.

Students explore the structure of the American government, the three branches of government, the history of women's suffrage, and read biographies about famous Americans who fought for change.

In this final 5th grade unit, students read about the nuances of good versus evil and how unconditional love can overpower darkness in A Wrinkle in Time, the first science fiction novel in our curriculum.

While learning about the California migrant farm workers' fight for justice led by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, students learn to make connections and think about cause and effect.

Reading the novel One Crazy Summer, set in 1968 Oakland, CA at the height of the Black Panther movement, students explore the meaning of community, identity, and what it means to be part of a revolution.

Students explore the attributes necessary for survival and the importance of physical and mental strength by reading excerpts from Julie of the Wolves, Endangered, Hatchet, and a variety of poems.

Students are exposed to poetry as an art form full of aesthetic qualities, rhythmic elements and poignant themes, and consider how the genre differs from prose in structure, form, purpose, and language.

Students explore the topic of "coming of age" through the memoir of Jazz Jennings, a transgender teen whose story has led to significant social change and the growing acceptance of transgender youth.

In The Lightning Thief and D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths, students analyze the purpose of mythology in ancient Greece and explore the theme of hubris. This unit launches the year-long discussion on heroism.

Students read Esmeralda Santiago's memoir about her childhood in Puerto Rico and her subsequent move to New York, exploring themes of cultural identity, social mobility and the American Dream.

Through an analysis of figurative language, imagery and historical context, students will explore questions of race, immigration, poverty and self-realization in a plethora of American poetry.

Through a series of short stories and articles on the experiences of Muslims, the Scots-Irish, Central Americans and more, students examine the obstacles immigrants face in adjusting to a new culture.

Students read Arthur Miller's classic play Death of a Salesman, which offers a scathing critique of the American Dream and of the competitive, materialistic American culture of the 1940s.

Students grapple with themes of race, culture and class in the immigrant experience. Through deep analysis of texts, seventh graders explore a variety of perspectives as they wrestle with the authenticity of the American Dream.

Students explore the diversity of the American experience through a variety of voices, texts, and genres.

Students explore the contributions and experiences of LGBTQ+ Americans in the past and present.

Students explore human nature through the story of a young white girl facing the harsh realities of racial injustice in the Jim Crow south.

Students explore human nature through the stories of teenagers challenging the status quo and making real change in the world.

Students grapple with the prejudice and flaws in the American justice system by reading the play Twelve Angry Men, and analyze how objective facts can be colored by personal attitudes and experiences.

Students read August Wilson's play Fences, in which Troy Maxson paves the way for his children to have opportunities under conditions he was never free to experience as an African American migrant from the South.

Students continue to examine the Great Migration, the massive relocation that cause more than six million African-Americans to move out of the South between 1915 and 1970, in The Warmth of Other Suns.

Students explore human nature through the memoir of Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor who vividly describes the horrors he experienced.

Students read and discuss William Golding's classic novel Lord of the Flies along with several non-fiction articles and poems, debating the question of the fundamental goodness/evil of human beings.

Students read three masterful works of fiction by Sherman Alexie, Karen Russell and Alice Walker, and practice skills, habits, and routines that will be used regularly in the high school classroom.

Students explore thematic topics, symbols and motifs in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, and discuss the impact of racial stereotypes on the identity development of young black women and men.

Students hone their literary analysis and writing skills as they read Shakespeare's iconic Romeo and Juliet in the original Early Modern English.

Students examine what it means to come of age and be disenfranchised as a female undocumented immigrant in a community plagued by machismo culture.

Students explore the factors, people, things, and characteristics that make people more or less visible in the eyes of others through their reading of short stories, poems, essays, and letters.

Reading the novel The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, students trace the themes of fear, innocence and corruption as they follow the narrator through a pivotal three days in his unraveling teenage life.

Students explore the individual’s responsibility to society and the ways in which all humans are interconnected through excerpts from several texts, letters, poems, short stories and articles. 

Students examine the thematic idea of home, the intricate relationship between personal responsibility and public responsibility, and the significance of telling historically untold stories. 

Students read Macbeth, analyzing and discussing universal themes of power, greed, and morality, while tackling Shakespearian language.

In Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, which explores the consequences of the McCarthyism scare of the 1950s, students explore the central topics of history, community, herd mentality and truth.

Students read multiple genres of fiction, including the absurdist The Metamorphosis and the ancient Greek tragedy Oedipus the King, with the aim of exploring the question: "What does it mean to be human?"

Christina Garcia's novel Dreaming in Cuban will offer students a vivid picture of distant and present-day Cuba, as they contemplate how our past, good or bad, makes us into who we are today.

Students read the renowned novel The Scarlet Letter, exploring and analyzing the themes of sin, compassion, and hypocrisy as they played out in seventeenth-century Puritan New England.

In reading Tennessee Williams' "memory play" The Glass Menagerie, students examine thematic topics such as individual freedom, obligation, reality and escape.

Students read Chinua Achebe's widely acclaimed Things Fall Apart as they examine themes of identity, culture, and colonialism, analyzing the author's careful choice of words and symbolism.

Students study the institutional processes and popular beliefs surrounding mental health in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, as they discuss and debate the themes of power, order, and authority.

Students discover the novel Waiting, examining such topics as the Cultural Revolution and Confucian values as well as tensions between old and new, rural and urban, and communism and capitalism.

Students dive into the novel A Doll's House, exploring this social critique of middle-class Victorian society including issues of gender roles, freedom, and appearance versus reality. Students also investigate the genre of dramatic realism.

Students analyze and interpret speeches, honing their rhetorical analysis skills and deepening their understanding of how authors use particular strategies to effectively communicate their ideas to a given audience.

Students investigate the complex, nonlinear style of The God of Small Things and its themes of history, colonialism and love, focusing on the novel's literary devices, plot structure, and language.

Students trace an unnamed African American narrator's "Hero's Journey" from innocence to self-discovery in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, examining the novel's harsh critique of American society.