Challenging Authority: The Giver

Students explore the topic of coming of age through the story of one boy's life in a dystopian future, and his growing understanding that the world around him is not what it appears to be.

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ELA

Unit 2

6th Grade

Unit Summary


Please Note: In March 2026, this unit and its lesson plans received a round of enhancements. This unit is now 32 instructional days (previously 33 days). The overall content, sequencing, and writing projects of the unit have been adjusted significantly. Teachers should pay close attention as they intellectually prepare to account for the updates.

In this unit, students read Lois Lowry's Newbery Medal–winning novel The Giver. This novel, which has quickly become part of the essential canon of young adult fiction, is set in a highly controlled, seemingly perfect, futuristic world. The community has been stripped of colors, love, pain, and conflict by converting to the notion of "Sameness," a philosophy that eliminates any variability in the world. The novel explores twelve-year-old Jonas's experience with memories of the past—a time much like the reader's present day—in which people still had the freedom to make decisions for themselves. Jonas struggles to cope with all his new overwhelming emotions and must decide whether individual freedoms are worth experiencing pain and suffering.

In addition to being a cornerstone of the genre of dystopian young adult fiction, The Giver is a powerful coming-of-age story. In spite of the unfamiliar setting, students can strongly relate to twelve-year-old Jonas's developing understanding of the world around him. Over the course of the text, Jonas progressively loses his innocence, coming to realize that ignorance is not, in fact, bliss. This text provides ample opportunity for students to grapple with the Essential Question of the 6th-grade curriculum: How does the coming-of-age experience shape who we become? Daily written responses help build writing fluency and reinforce the role of writing as a tool for comprehension. 

After finishing The Giver, students have the opportunity to write an extended ending that addresses one of the novel's unanswered questions. This allows them to think creatively about the story while maintaining Lowry's original tone and style. To build on the novel's central themes, students also have the opportunity to explore a nonfiction text on dystopian fiction and a series of articles about the modern debate around book banning. These readings provide a model for argumentative writing and invite students to consider who gets to decide what we read and why. At the end of the unit, students synthesize what they have learned to write an argumentative essay in which they take a position on the question: Do book bans help or harm young people? In this culminating task, they not only make an evidence-based argument but also emulate the style and structure of the argumentative writing they studied in their readings.

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Texts and Materials


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Core Texts

  • Book: The Giver by Lois Lowry (Clarion Books)   —  760L

Supporting Texts

Assessment


The following assessments accompany Unit 2. For more guidance, see the Summative Assessments and Assessments Accommodations & Modifications Teacher Tools.

Warm Read Assessment

The Warm Read Assessment measures students' ability to apply the core reading standards and their knowledge from the unit to comprehend new, topically or thematically aligned texts. It includes both multiple choice and short written response questions and should serve as the primary assessment for the unit.

Vocabulary Assessment

The Vocabulary Assessment measures students' acquisition of text-based vocabulary words from the unit.

Fluency Assessment

The Fluency Assessment measures students' oral reading fluency with a passage drawn from one of the unit's core texts. See the Assessing Reading Fluency Teacher Tool for more guidance.

Unit Prep


Intellectual Prep

Unit Launch

Before you teach this unit, unpack the texts, themes, and core standards through our guided intellectual preparation process. Each Unit Launch includes a series of short videos, targeted readings, and opportunities for action planning to ensure you're prepared to support every student.

Essential Questions

  • What is a utopia? What is a dystopia?
  • Is it worth sacrificing knowledge and wisdom for a life of peace, contentment, and ease?
  • Should people be protected from making poor choices?

Enduring Understandings

  • Knowledge of the past is essential for fully understanding the present moment and pushes us to think about what it means to be human.
  • Authors of dystopian fiction encourage readers to think critically about the world around them. Dystopian fiction serves as a warning about what is happening and what could potentially happen.
  • People have differing ideas about whether people should have full autonomy to make choices about their lives.

Vocabulary

Text-based

anguishapprehensiveassuagecensorshipchastiseconfidedissentdystopiaexcruciatingimploreinadequatemystifiedobsoleteopponentoptimisticsensationtransgressionutopiavividyearn

Literary Terms

anecdotecentral ideacitationclimaxcrediblefalling actioninferenceinternal conflictjuxtapositionparaphrasequotationresolutionsettingstatisticstructuretensionthematic topicthemetone

Writing Terms

argumentcontextconclusionleadresolved endingsequencetransitional languageunresolved ending

Root/Affix

-topiadys-u/ou-

To see all the vocabulary for Unit 2, view our 6th Grade Vocabulary Glossary.

Content Knowledge and Connections

Notes to the Teacher

  • Students should regularly return to the definitions of utopia/dystopia that they learned in the first lesson of this unit, particularly as different aspects of Jonas's community become evident. 
  • Teachers may wish to show the movie version of this text at the end of the unit and have students reflect on similarities and differences between the text and film. Ensure that school and/or district policies are followed prior to playing the film for students. 
  • There are mild references to sexuality, physical punishment, war, and infanticide in The Giver. Guidance on how to intellectually prepare for lessons that include these topics is included under the Notes to the Teacher sections within designated lessons. Be mindful of students' experiences when planning. Lessons including this level of support include: 
    • Lesson 4: reference to puberty and sexuality in the form of "stirrings" 
    • Lesson 5: mention of physical/corporal punishment
    • Lesson 10: mention of war, death, and animal abuse
    • Lesson 12: reference to euthanasia and infanticide in the form of "release"

Lesson Map


Projects


These projects are optional and serve as a great way to enrich students' experience and deepen their content knowledge in this unit. If teachers have flex days in their schedules, we strongly recommend any of the below options.

Common Core Standards


Core Standards

RI.6.5
RI.6.8
RL.6.3
RL.6.5
W.6.1
W.6.1.a
W.6.1.b
W.6.1.c
W.6.1.d
W.6.1.e
W.6.2
W.6.3
W.6.3.a
W.6.3.b
W.6.3.c
W.6.3.d
W.6.3.e
W.6.5
W.6.8
W.6.9
L.6.1
L.6.1.a
L.6.1.b
L.6.1.c
L.6.1.d
L.6.3
L.6.3.b
L.6.4
L.6.4.a
L.6.4.c
L.6.4.d
L.6.6
SL.6.1
SL.6.1.a
SL.6.1.c
SL.6.4

Supporting Standards

RI.6.1
RI.6.2
RI.6.3
RI.6.4
RI.6.6
RI.6.7
RI.6.10
RL.6.1
RL.6.2
RL.6.4
RL.6.6
RL.6.10
W.6.2.a
W.6.2.b
W.6.4
W.6.6
W.6.7
W.6.9.a
W.6.9.b
W.6.10
L.6.1.e
L.6.2
L.6.2.a
L.6.2.b
L.6.3.a
L.6.4.b
L.6.5
L.6.5.c
SL.6.1.b
SL.6.2
SL.6.3
SL.6.6
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