Students will learn the potential costs and benefits of social media, digital consumption, and our relationship with technology as a society in the three-week lesson. This inquiry based unit of study will answer the following questions:

Essential Question: How can we use science fiction’s ability to predict the future to help humanity?

Supportive Questions 1: What predictions of future development has science fiction accurately made in the past? This can include technology, privacy, medicine, social justice, political, environmental, education, and economic.

Supportive Question 2: What predictions for future development in contemporary science fiction are positive for the future of humanity? What factors need to begin in your lifetime to make these predictions reality?

Supportive Question 3: What predictions for future development in contemporary science fiction are negative for the future of humanity? What factors need to begin in your lifetime to stop these negative outcomes?

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) was a Baptist minister and a leader of the African American Civil Rights Movement. This article shares key details about Dr. King's life and accomplishments, including his belief in equality and non-violence.

As you read, take notes on the problems that African Americans faced during the 1950s and 60s, and the strategies that Dr. King used to create social change.

This lesson is the fifth in a series of six in which students engage in a close read aloud of The Invisible Boy. In Session 5, students use a Language Dive to see the cause of and change in Brian's feelings. Additionally, students use Justin's kindness toward Brian as an introduction to compassion, a habit of character.

This lesson is the final one in which students engage in a close read-aloud of The Invisible Boy. Students learn that Brian is happier at school because of the new friendship he has built with Justin. This final session allows students to practice recognizing significant events that cause a response in the main character.

This lesson is the first in a series of six in which students engage in a close read-aloud of The Invisible Boy. This book provides another example of school to help students define and clarify the purpose of school. In this book, students learn that school helps us to appreciate other people's abilities and underscores the importance of treating others kindly. Additionally, students track the main character's change of emotions to better understand the impact of their words and actions on their classmates.

This lesson is the second in a series of six in which students engage in a close read-aloud of The Invisible Boy. In Session 2, students focus their attention on a smaller chunk of the text that dives deeper into understanding the main character, Brian, and an example of something that makes him feel invisible.

This lesson is the third in a series of six in which students engage in a close read-aloud of The Invisible Boy. In Session 3, students begin talking about and tracking Brian's feelings on an anchor chart.

This lesson is the fourth in a series of six in which students engage in a close read-aloud of The Invisible Boy. In Session 4, students explore the connection between being "invisible," Brian's feelings, and the drawings of Brian throughout the book. Additionally, students use Justin's appreciation for Brian's drawing abilities as an introduction to the habit of character respect in the closing of the Close Read Aloud

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Edward Wilmot Blyden (3 August 1832 – 7 February 1912) was a Liberian educator, author, diplomat, and politician who worked mostly in Liberia. He also spent five years teaching in Sierra Leone, and his writings had an impact in both countries.Blyden was born on 3 August 1832 in St Thomas, Danish West Indies (now known as the United States Virgin Islands) to Free Black parents from the Igbo tribe of modern-day Nigeria.Blyden edited the Liberia Herald from 1855 to 1856 and penned the editorial "A Voice From Bleeding Africa."He also spent time in other British colonies in West Africa, most notably Nigeria and Sierra Leone, where he wrote for both colonies' early newspapers.Additionally, he worked as an editor at The Negro and The African World. He maintained contacts with the American Colonization Society and contributed articles to their journals, African Depository and Colonial Journal.Blyden served as Liberia's ambassador to the United Kingdom and France as a diplomat. Blyden was named Liberia's Secretary of State as a young man (1862–64). He then served as Minister of the Interior from 1880 until 1882. Blyden is often considered the "founder of Pan-Africanism" as a writer. His magnum opus, Christianity, Islam, and the Negro Race (1887), argued that Islam was a more unifying and meaningful religion for Africans than Christianity.

In this science-based unit, students explore the world of energy. In the first half of the unit students learn what energy is, the different ways that energy is transferred from place to place, and the ways energy can be converted from one type to another. In the second half of the unit students explore the pros and cons of different types of renewable and nonrenewable energy. After learning about the different types of energy, students will grapple with what the world’s energy future will look like if more renewable solutions aren’t found, particularly in their communities. Through a combination of reading and research, it is our hope that students begin to build a deeper understanding of energy and its influence on our lives.

This unit builds on to the informational reading skills and strategies developed in previous units. At this point in the year we assume that students are able to actively read and annotate informational texts in order to build understanding of a topic. Therefore, the focus of this unit is on refining students’ ability to use different strategies to comprehend denser scientific texts. In particular, students will continue working on determining the main idea, summarizing key details, explaining cause and effect, using text features to improve understanding, and explaining how an author uses text features to elaborate on key concepts and ideas.

In this unit students explore immigration by reading a series of narrative nonfiction and fiction texts that highlight the experiences of early and recent immigrants. In the first part of the unit students are pushed to notice and think about the different reasons people choose to leave their homes and settle in a new community or country. Students will then be pushed to think about the different memories, cultural traits, goods, ideas, languages, and skills that individuals and families bring with them when they move to a new place and how these characteristics enrich the community. While students are exposed to a wide variety of immigrant experiences over the course of the unit, not every experience or feeling about immigration is captured in this unit. Because many of our students are first- or second-generation immigrants, it is crucial to be sensitive to and respect the varying experiences and feelings of our students and families. It is our hope that this unit, in connection with others, will help students build sensitivity and empathy for varying cultures and experiences within the United States.

In the essay "Mother Tongue," Amy Tan explains that she "began to write stories using all the Englishes I grew up with." How these "different Englishes" or even a language other than English contribute to identity is a crucial issue for adolescents.

In this lesson, students explore this issue by brainstorming the different languages they use in speaking and writing, and when and where these languages are appropriate. They write in their journals about a time when someone made an assumption about them based on their use of language, and share their writing with the class. Students then read and discuss Amy Tan's essay "Mother Tongue." Finally, they write a literacy narrative describing two different languages they use and when and where they use these languages.

In this unit, students study the rovers Spirit and Opportunity and their remarkable missions to Mars. Through a combination of reading, analyzing images and photographs, and participating in engineering and design labs, students will begin to understand the complexity, preparation, and diligence involved in space missions. Students will grapple with why the engineering and design process, particularly continually planning, trying, and evaluating, is a crucial part of a successful mission. This unit also allows students to make connections between content learned in math and content learned in previous science units, solidifying the importance and value of STEM. It is our hope that this unit inspires students to explore engineering and STEM not only in space but in the world around them.

In this unit, students build their skills in consuming scientific and technical texts. Students will practice explaining the connection between two or more scientific ideas or concepts in a text. Additionally, students will be challenged to draw on and integrate information from two or more texts in order to describe a scientific idea, concept, or process in depth. This unit also continues the study of point of view and analyzing how the point of view influences what and how information is presented to a reader. The Mighty Mars Rover is written to captivate and engage a reader, while the NASA press releases are written to inform the public of the progress and findings of the Mars rover missions. Students will be challenged to compare and contrast the point of view of each text and the strategies each author uses based on the point of view and desired audience. Since this is the culminating unit of the course, all other informational standards will be spiraled throughout the unit.

In 2016, Oxford Dictionaries chose "post-truth" as the word of the year. As literacy has shifted from published hardcopy to an online landscape, it is more important than ever to engage and empower students in navigating the complicated battleground of fake news versus responsible, fact-based news. In this multi-day lesson, students will 1) examine terms associated with “fake news” and evaluate sources for their reliability and authenticity, and 2) develop a set of norms for responsible use of online news sources that spans academic and personal interaction with media.

In this unit students study the Civil Rights Movement through the eyes of the youth and children who experienced the struggles, hardships, victories, defeats, and possibilities firsthand. Students will be challenged to analyze the key characteristics shared by children who participated in the Civil Rights Movement, particularly their courage, commitment, bravery, and unending commitment to fighting for the cause. Over the course of the unit students will realize that through community organizing and a strong desire for justice, regular people, especially youth, were able to come together to use a variety of nonviolent tactics to fight for change, even when faced with resistance, oppression, and violence on a daily basis. The stories and experiences in the unit will highlight that the Civil Rights Movement was driven by the heroism of regular people and that anyone can participate in the fight against injustice. It is our hope that this unit, in conjunction with other units from the sequence, will empower students to notice and challenge the injustices, relying on their knowledge of history and the lessons they’ve learned from those who have fought before them.

In this unit students refine their skills as critical consumers of texts by analyzing the point of view from which a text is written and noticing how the point of view influences what and how information is presented to a reader. Students will read multiple accounts of the same topic or event and be challenged to notice the similarities and differences in the points of view they represent and how the author uses evidence and reasons to support a particular point of view. Photographs are an important part of the texts in the unit. Students will be pushed to analyze photographs as a source of information to support an author’s point. Students will also continue to practice determining one or more main ideas of a text and explaining how they are supported by key details, summarizing a text, and explaining the relationship between one or more events or individuals in a historical text. Over the course of the unit students will also be required to access information from multiple sources in order to integrate information and draw conclusions about an event or topic.

Students read literary and informational texts about knowledge and intelligence to understand what happens when humans try to manipulate the minds of others and how our understanding of intelligence has evolved over time. Students express their understanding of these ideas by exploring how authors draw on traditional stories and develop characters and themes to teach us about ourselves and others.

An online, video-based methods course focusing on best practices for foreign language instruction at the high-school and college levels. It features 12 interactive media-rich modules taught by different professors from the University of Texas at Austin. Modules include Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing, Vocabulary, Grammar, Pragmatics, Culture, The Language Learner, Technology, Classroom Management, and Assessment.

Français interactif is a unique, award-winning 1st-year French curriculum used by learners all over the world. Students explore French language and culture by following the lives of real students who have participated in the UT Summer Program in Lyon, France. The online curriculum includes over 320 videos, vocabulary and phonetics audio, online grammar reference with self-correcting exercises and audio dialogues, verb conjugation and practice tools, internet activities, and a textbook of classroom exercises. Franais interactif was awarded the 2009 CALICO Esperanto Access to Language Education Award and the National Endowment for the Humanities EDSITEment Best of Humanities on the Web award (2005)

This unit asks students to consider the permissible restrictions schools can place on students’ freedom of speech, as they learn about the (fictional, but realistic) case of Davis v. Ann Arbor School Board. Students will either conduct a mock negotiation in which they will try to resolve a First Amendment-related conflict between a student and his public high school, or a mock argument in which they will argue for one side in front of a panel of student judges.

This Unit contains 9 lessons:
Lesson 1: Are schools permitted to limit students’ First Amendment freedom of speech?
Lesson 2: Under what circumstances may a school punish student speech?
Lesson 3: How does the law apply to our case?
Lesson 4: What are the key elements of negotiation?
Lesson 5: How can parties use negotiation to achieve the best solution?
Lesson 6: Is negotiation an effective tool in the legal process?
Lesson 7: What is a mock argument?
Lesson 8: How do I prepare for a mock argument?
Lesson 9: How do attorneys conduct oral arguments to advocate for their clients?