The Giver/The Hunger Games unit: "What is my role in society?"

I am a recent graduate of a teaching program and am currently ironing out some ideas and more for some lesson and unit plans for when I become a teacher. I have several prepared already, but am currently working on an ~8-week unit for 6th-9th grade English/Language Arts classes covering the YA novels "The Giver" and "The Hunger Games".

The focus of the unit is the "essential question" (a concept introduced to me during my teacher assisting), "What is my role in society?".

I have organized the unit into several "subunits" (for example, a subunit on "The Giver" that focuses on answering questions like "What is society?", "What is a community?", and "Can a person's role be different within a community and society?", whereas "The Hunger Games" subunit focuses more upon conflict and character traits) with relevant focus questions and topics, but am looking for some more material to work with; it would be an awfully-bland unit if it only featured two novels.

For example, I have also chosen to feature the short story by Samuel Clemens, "Cannibalism in the Cars" to fit in between the two novels and bridge with focus lessons on groups and cooperation (as well as a little bit about character traits); this, I feel, fits pretty well between the two books since it concerns how people work together, as well as on their own, to make decisions for their own survival - a very prominent theme in "The Hunger Games" (it's also blatant satire, and pretty humorous, if somewhat dark).

I feel like I have the "bones" of the unit, and most of the "meat", but nothing too substantial.
When I did a unit about "What is worth standing up for?" with the book, "Maniac Magee", I included films about civil rights, articles, interviews, and more (even a children's book!) to tie the theme in to more than simply the main body of work I had chosen.
I'm looking for similar things to include in this unit. Nothing that should "stand alone" (like "Cannibalism in the Cars" does), but instead pieces (ie, articles) that can be used alongside at least the two main parts of the unit ("The Giver" and "The Hunger Games"). For example, articles about rivalry and how it can be good or bad, or a film (short film? that'd be awesome) that illustrates how important it is to be able to be independent. Things like that, that can be used to focus on one or two things rather than the broad range of themes introduced in the books.

Any suggestions at all would help! If you'd like to talk to me, I am often on AIM (jpvanwagner) and GChat ([email protected]) and can be more specific about some of my focus questions and the like, and we can even brainstorm together if you would like.

Keep in mind, this is 6th-9th grade, so it should all be accessible and appropriate for these age groups!

After reading this, it sounds like you really have most of this unit well planned. What kept coming to mind was interdisciplinary. Can this unit be connected to Social Studies? I think, if you were able to link it to another subject and collaborate, the unit may feel more solid. Another idea may be to bring in painting or photographs to highlight concepts you are trying to illustrate. I think the visual arts can be very engaging for specific students, even more so, for the ones that do not like to read and write. You have them reading already quite a bit, what about a movie? The big winner is always a field trip either to a museum or to a play. We have Smart Boards in my school. The internet is a wealth of information just as far as short clips off youtube.

Another point to keep in mind is that you don't know the students yet. Teachers can dream up the most fabulous lessons, but until you are standing in front of your class, you're not going to be able to gauge many factors such as ability and behavior concerns.

Good luck to you.

I absolutely agree about "knowing the students", which is why I'm trying to keep some of the material "open" for now. I'd love to make use of the smartboard I've made with a game or presentation, or to show a movie, but what are some ideas?

I also agree about making it interdisciplinary, though this is difficult to pre-plan and depends largely upon the social studies curriculum and the particular district/school/teacher's lesson/unit plans. Thus, I have to really focus upon making it "as standalone as possible" for pre-planning and for use in a portfolio.

I love the Smartboard. You can use the to board to pre-teach character introduction or vocabulary. I would also want to scaffold of the final writing project (portfolio), which you are using to assess them. I would be very explicit as you teach them to structure of an essay. I have taught very bright high school students who do not even know how to write an essay.

This is for my *own* teaching portfolio, as a unit to teach; not for them to create one.

I do, however, have a very explicitly-designed subunit on essay-writing, already.

Well, that was not clear now!

The final project would probably be an essay, I imagine (haven't gotten that far, yet); ideally, I'd offer options as to what the essay would be about, or even have options as to non-essay projects to use. However, in order to know what the final assessment(s) would/could/should be, I need to actually solidify more of the unit.

Basically, I'm looking for media - short films or movies (preferably short films), poems (ones that can be performed), play excerpts or short performances, and other media/activity ideas - to fill in the rest of the unit and to better illustrate the key concepts I talked about in my original post.

Currently, I'm working on formatting a mini-packet for "Cannibalism in the Cars" by Mark Twain that can cover some of these key concepts, but it's not very good for building a substantial part of the unit around. In other words, I still need more to work with.

I am not very knowledgeable about young adult fiction/poetry, so I am not really able to make many suggestions. To be honest, you may have luck looking in anthologies of short stories for young adults. Just browsing in the library or even going to Barnes and Noble may help you find new material. I also wouldn't be surprised if you could locate a book that list curriculum resources/ film.

Sounds like a really great unit. I bet you can't wait to teach it. Do you have a job yet?

If you scroll down to the bottom of this page you will see a list of 50 movies for young adults. There may be one that fits with your criteria:

//scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/ALAN/spring94/Teasley.html

Even though the link does not work, you can cut and paste it. I just tried it and it works.